In a disastrous dream schemed up by UW Emergency Management, a substation just west of campus has exploded. The power is out across most of north Seattle, including the University. Smoke clouds are billowing toward campus and generators will only last so long.
Emergency Management, Transportation Services, UW Surplus, Grounds Management and UW Recycling joined the celebration on Red Square this past Friday to help educate the community about their sustainable practices and programs for Earth Day.
In PACCAR Hall this past February, three digital boards were plastered above metal garbage, compost, and recycling bins. The displays scrolled through photos and animations of plastic water bottles, Cheerios containers, and compostable napkins to educate community members how to sort recyclables, compost and trash.
For the past few months, UW Recycling has been using their new application, Streams, to better connect their administrative office to crews in the field. Through smart phones and tablets, Streams enables employees across campus to access their collection routes online, and log changes that occur throughout their day.
The IMA’s racquetball and squash courts have 204 mercury-vapor light fixtures using 250 watts each, requiring heavy and unsustainable ballasts, warm-up and cool-down times of 5-10 minutes, and plenty of maintenance calls to maintenance electricians to replace burned-out bulbs.
But now those headaches are gone, replaced with the ease and energy savings provided by LED upgrades.
On March 29, 2016 at its annual awards ceremony, the U-District Partnership recognized UW Facilities Services with its Keep the U-District Beautiful award.
This past weekend outside of Suzzallo and Allen Libraries, Grounds Management began taping off an American elm tree that could pose a risk to campus safety.
“You know, I really don’t think I’m the person to talk to about this,” said Facilities Maintenance & Construction Director Damon Fetters. “This is all the work of employees coming together to make safety a part of the culture and a part of the work that they do.”
Facilities Services set a record safety incident rate of 7.9 for 2015, well under the target of 9. Facilities Maintenance & Construction and Campus Engineering & Operations helped lead the way by coming in significantly below target, and Facilities Employee Services and Emergency Management met their 0-incident targets.
They say the best way to learn a foreign language is immersion—spending time in the place and within the culture where that language is spoken daily, and where its citizens conduct their lives using it. This concept of immersion is the mindset of the Vice Chancellor of Administration at University of California-Riverside, Ron Coley. Coley researched Lean and Balanced Scorecard in higher education, learned about UW Facilities Services, and reached out to Charles Kennedy to learn more.
There’s no doubt that the University has plenty of rivalries. With Washington State University only a few hours away, Huskies across campus are always looking for ways to conquer in competitions.
Stepping Stones is a training program offered by the FS Training Center, in conjunction with the sponsoring department, which gives frontline staff opportunities to learn leadership skills that are necessary for moving up to lead, supervisor and management positions.
In the colder months, it’s easy to take water for granted. Warm showers last a little bit longer. Hands linger under the sink, just long enough be rid of the numbness.
For emergency personnel, being prepared for the worst is a part of the job. So when an opportunity came up to use an empty residence hall for a unique training scenario, emergency planners and police lieutenants jumped at the chance.
