Top Stories
Interested in advancing your career in Trades? Bring your lunch and learn about becoming an apprentice in the Steamfitter Shop
Please join a (bring your own) Lunch & Learn session on Wednesday, February 17th from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM or from 12:00 PM – 12:30 PM in CIRS Policy Lab A and B. The session will give you an opportunity to learn about the steamfitter trade, the qualifications you will need to apply and the process involved in selecting the next apprentices. Greig Samodien, along with Head Steamfitters Mike Carroll and Mike Kupfer will be available to answer any of your questions and provide preparation resources to you if you are interested in pursuing this career path.
We saved $459,983 in the 3rd quarter thanks to your bright ideas. We’re on track to our $1.3M goal for 2015/16
In the 3rd quarter we’ve continued to meet our savings targets as we enter the final stretch towards the end of the financial year. Our savings rate picked up last quarter as the deferred start of the renovations to USB and work sharing with other UBC departments pushed the totals.
The detailed breakdown is on the thermometer posted near the tool crib.
Thanks to everyone for their bright ideas, please keep them coming to brightideas.buildingops@ubc.ca.
Our New Pest Control Service Provider Brings Potential Savings in our annual costs
Custodial Services has selected Care Pest and Wild Life Control as our new pest control provider at the university. Care Pest has had over fifty years of experience in structural Integrated Pest Management (IPM) pest control, bird and wildlife field. They have a team of over 28 certified IPM technicians. The key to their operations is their sustainable, humane and proactive approach in dealing with issues specifically in sensitive and LEED certified buildings.
Some of the features that Care Pest brings to UBC are:
- Electronic reporting upon completion of the service request
- Longer service hours during the week and emergency call outs.
- Sustainable IPM approach for all buildings.
- Bar code trapping devices for tracking and reporting.
- 22% cost savings in the overall annual cost.
5 Douglas Firs behind West Mall Annex to be removed on February 15
To maintain a safe campus, 5 Douglas Firs located on the west side of West Mall Annex (north of the First Nations Longhouse) is scheduled for removal from February 15 – 18 to coincide with Reading Week. The trees died from a root fungus called Armillaria. Some of the surrounding Douglas First are also infected by the fungi and are not curable. They will also have to be removed over the next twenty year as they die and become a risk.
Campus and Community Planning are working with Faculty of Forestry, landscape architects, architects, developers, Building Operations and arborists to protect UBC’s urban forest. UBC encourages tree retention, or conservation through relocation on campus, whenever possible. To learn more about our campus’ trees, please visit planning.ubc.ca/trees.
If you have any questions about the removal of these trees, contact Gabrielle Armstrong, Senior Manager, Public Engagement with Campus and Community Planning at 604.822.9984.
Updated list of buildings served by the DES as of February 11 is now available
Check out the latest DES updates to know which buildings are running on the district energy hot water heating system and which buildings will be coming online soon. No further updates until March.
Congratulations, Bob Khella of Municipal Services, on receiving the 2015 Staff Excellence Awards for Teamwork
Bob Khella, Labourer, received the 2015 Staff Excellence Award for Teamwork. Everyone who worked with him agree, Bob has always been an exemplar team member; easy to work with, takes control of the helm and gets the job done. His commitment and dedication to his work is an inspiration to all.
Congratulations, Bob!
Communications Snapshot is coming to you over the next few weeks
Communications is a critical part of creating an effective team, sharing ideas for improvement and ensuring everyone is engaged and on the same page. It can be very hard to do well in an operational setting and that is why in September and October 2014, Karyn Magnusson and Chris Freek visited all 700 plus employees of Building Operations to communicate about how we communicate.
We wanted to know what was working and what wasn’t. What was important and what wasn’t. What you need and what you don’t. From that we built an improved system based on your ideas and comments— many of these items have been acted on:
- Making the digital signs in the shops work for you so you have the information you need to know to do your job.
- Creating a new Weekly e-Newsletter so you can get the details behind the headlines on the digital signs.
- Creating a staff tab on our website so we have a place to store and share information that’s for you, not our clients.
- Making email addresses possible for anyone who wants one so you can more easily be part of the conversation.
- Creating a regular crew talk schedule so you know where and when the shops are talking.
- Opening Bright Ideas so we can all work more efficiently by sharing our best ideas.
- Working with C+CP to share a weekly Road Closures map so we can all get around campus better.
- Starting the New Building Transition Team to get us to the table with Properties Trust and the Contractors to ensure we’re sharing our technical expertise.
In the next few weeks, the snapshot will return. This year’s snapshot will be hosted by your Superintendent and they’ll be asking you for your bright ideas about how to further improve communications—both the pieces we’ve already built together and the ideas that can make us even stronger. We accomplished a lot together last time, let’s see where we can go to next.
EAOS Update: Food, Nutrition & Health 100% Complete!
We’ve gathered the asset data for Food Nutrition Health Building and we’ve moved on to pilot building 2: IONA! When all the data has been collected from IONA, we will decide the next steps in moving forward gathering data for the whole campus. We will be able to answer; what resources will we need, how much time will it take, where do we put the data and where is Carter the Coyote hiding?
More data = better planning = smoother work = happy campus
The elevator crew was given a full set of elevator data sheets to validate and update the information, to be returned to the Asset Data Managers by February 16th so we can get an accurate package out for the service contract tender in March.
Ladner Clock Tower clock repairs successful
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day—but now the clock in the Ladner Clock Tower is right 24/7. Thanks to rigorous engineering and testing by Building Operations and our horologist contractor, the clock in the Ladner Tower is back in operation; chiming in the hour and helping to measure the pace of our growing university.
Special thanks go to the FLS crew, especially Justin Rhodes for coming in on weekends and over the holidays to work with our horology consultant Vahid Yazdanmehr from It’s About Time.
Work continues on the clock tower to ensure the award-winning lighting retrofit of 2011 is operating on all faces of the tower. Building Operations will continue to ensure this iconic part of UBC shines out and marks the important work of one of the world’s leading universities.
Developmental Disabilities Association thanks Building Ops for their work at the Berwick Child Development Centre
“The Star”, a publication by the Developmental Disabilities Association, acknowledged Building Ops trades in their 2015 Winter issue, particularly Hard Landscape, Carpentry Shop and Sheet Metal Workers, for their great work and dedication. Benefiting from over 40 years of partnership between the Berwick Child Development Centre and UBC, improvements made the yard more accessible for children of all abilities. And the recently installed balance beam helps the children improve their motor skills and coordination while having fun. Check out the 2015 Winter issue to read more about it.