Shop 53 Night Owls

Shop 53 is Facilities Maintenance & Constructions night construction team, working from 2:30 p.m. to 1 a.m. Mondays through Thursdays. The team consists of 11 tradespeople, including carpenters, masons, painters, maintenance mechanics, electricians and sheet metal workers. Their work consists of small construction or alterations projects across campus.

“We’re pretty self-sufficient,” said Pat Rawlins, Shop 53’s supervisor. “Even though we’re smaller than the day shops [54 and 55], we can do nearly everything they can do, but after business hours.”

For some customers, that can make a world of difference.

Shop 53 replaced hand-dryers with new ones in Dempsey Hall, which entails installation, drywall, stonework and painting.

“Shop 53 has done a lot of alterations for me, including offices, labs and classroom spaces,” said Building Coordinator Tracey Erbeck, of the Paul G. Allen Center for Computer Science & Engineering. “Night shift does a great job, and it’s nice to have loud, dusty or disruptive work take place at night when the building is least occupied. Plus, they can get in here and get their work done without us bothering them!”

“We really love the building coordinators we regularly work with,” said Theo Schmitz, one of Shop 53’s two leads. “Being on night shift means we don’t get in anyone’s way we aren’t disrupting business, class or research, and I think customers really like that about us.”

“Our night team, they just want to finish the job. They enjoy going out to a job and working on it start-to-finish without interruptions. They’re passionate about the work they do.”

Pat Rawlins

Currently most of the construction workload goes to the day shifts, unless night shift is specifically requested by the customer.

“Sometimes we have to go out and drum up our own work,” said Rawlins. “Most of the work is filtered through to our night shift from the day shifts. We’re trying to improve that process so that customers know about us and request us right off the bat if they already know that our day shift might conflict with their business needs.”

In a recent project, Rawlins showed off the shop’s work on theater-style seating their carpenters, sheet metal worker and mason installed in the soccer team rooms in Hec-Edmundson Pavilion.

“Intercollegiate Athletics asked us to replicate their women’s soccer team room for the men’s team,” said Rawlins. “We were able to complete this project in just a three-night span.”

Unfortunately, not everyone knows about night shift and the services it can provide.

“I just want folks to know that we exist! We’re here to help our customers across the University get projects done without interrupting business,” said Rawlins, “We provide the same quality FMC work that our daytime counterparts provide, and we have the craft pool to do most projects from start to finish in just a night or two.”

For those regular customers of Shop 53, they’ve worked hard to build relationships with their customers and get more projects.

“Theo Schmitz in particular, but really the whole team, they communicate really well with me,” said Erbeck. “We feed off each other; they understand my business needs, and I understand how they work.”