Columbus State Community College: Facilities Management Work Continues To Pay Off

Press release from Columbus State Community College:

January 3, 2022

Above, on the left, Mark Dudgeon, Facilities Management senior director, talks to
faculty and staff on a tour of the Columbus Campus in the spring of 2021.

As Columbus State headed into the pandemic in March 2020, departments across the College
scrambled to meet the needs of students in an uncertain time. No one could have foreseen
what everyone would face personally or professionally. Workers headed home, faculty
and administrators flipped in-person learning to an entirely virtual environment,
and Columbus State’s Facilities Management team faced hurdles preparing for an eventual
return to campus.

It has taken thousands of hours and many months for the 37-member Facilities Management
crew to make our campuses safer. And they had an unplanned head start of sorts.

In the fall of 2019, Mark Dudgeon, Facilities Management senior director, had ordered
additional hand sanitizer dispensers for public areas to complement those placed several
years ago during the H1N1 health scare. With support from the budget office, he also
ordered nearly 1,500 non-touch soap and towel dispensers for restrooms. “We were ramping
up for flu season,” says Dudgeon. “We wanted to be proactive, and that played in our
favor when the pandemic hit.”

Fast-forward to March 2020, when the campus, and the country, shut down for a couple
of weeks. Despite early supply chain disruptions, the Facilities Management staff
went to work constructing innovative personal protection equipment (PPE) stations,
sneeze guards, and vinal barriers for offices, study spaces, testing centers, and
more.

Unique QR codes are placed on each PPE station. That allows anyone to use their phone
to hover over the code, notifying Facilities Management that it needs to be serviced.

“We are in the customer service business,” said Rod Harris, Facilities Management
technician. “We have staff, faculty, and students. It’s all about customer service.
This reinforces my opinion that we have a lot of talented workers that have good ideas,
and we were all able to put this into practice.”

“I learned how much compassion the team has,” said Billie Williams, Facilities Operations
manager. “Compassion for the community, employees, faculty, and students.”

Delivering and installing equipment continued through 2021. For example, touch-free
faucets and towel dispensers are now in every bathroom on campuses. And to accommodate
social distancing, it took more than 2,000 hours of manual labor to reconfigure classrooms
by moving desks, tables, and other equipment. The ongoing work will continue for months
to come, requiring constant planning for a nimble Facilities Management team.

By the numbers (as of November 30)

Go to 2021 Archive
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This press release was produced by Columbus State Community College. The views expressed here are the author’s own.