Just wanted to send a note of appreciation for the exceptional work happening in Facility Services over the last few months.

The Grounds team plows parking lots and sidewalks while the Environmental Services staff clears snow from the building entrances, including steps and ramps. The snow has been relentless this year and the Grounds and Environmental Services staff have worked weekends, early mornings, late nights, sometimes both in the same day, and battled extremely cold temperatures to ensure snow is cleared and we can safely navigate sidewalks and parking lots.

The Heat Plant operations are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They work extremely hard every day of the year to ensure campus is properly heated and cooled. This year the Heat Plant staff have continued to provide heat to campus during our sub-zero weather. When required to change from natural gas to oil (and back again), several staff worked overtime to ensure the transition would go well and there would be no impacts to heating on campus.

Finally, there has been a great team effort to look for and quickly address any problems associated with frozen pipes that can occur with the extreme cold. This has included walk throughs of buildings (including weekends), early communication of any possible leaks, and rapid response to correct problems. An unnoticed leak can lead to very expensive repairs, so this team effort has resulted in catching problems early with lower cost solutions.

I am extremely grateful to be part of the FPM team with all of you!