1998 Governor’s Group Productivity Award Presented to Facilities Management at Colorado State University

Facilities Management at Colorado State University recently was awarded the 1998 Governor’s Group Productivity Award for outstanding service and effort in the aftermath of the flood of July 1997. The award is part of the Governor’s Peak Performance awards presented each year in recognition of state employee achievements.

"This award goes to more than 350 employees in all sections of Facilities Management who worked above and beyond the call of duty to help the university recover from the flood," said Ron Baker, director of Facilities Management. "Employees crossed typical shop and zone boundaries to work together to meet the goal of starting school on time, and poured their hearts into cleanup and recovery efforts with many working seven-day weeks and 10-to-16 hour shifts."

At the height of flood recovery efforts, Bill Boss of Boss and Associates, a national disaster recovery team, said: "In my 20 years of dealing with similar situations, this university staff has proven to be one of the easiest to work with. Because of the cooperation of the staff here combined with qualified specialty contractors, things are moving along smoothly."

The mission of Facilities Management at Colorado State is to provide the physical environment that enables the university to achieve its objectives in instruction, research and public service. Duties of the staff include all issues related to campus facilities: planning, design, construction, real estate, custodial services, trash and recycling, grounds, utility services, transportation, trades maintenance and all departmental administrative functions. The services typically are delivered through a physical plant structure with individual trade shops, zones and work units completing assigned tasks.

"All of these crews spent a very intense four weeks to ensure that when more than 22,000 students returned to campus, the university was ready for them," Baker said. "In fact, many students were surprised that they had to ‘search’ for the destruction."

"Crisis situations are said to bring out the best in people, and that certainly has been true in this circumstance," said Colorado State President Albert Yates following the flood last year. "There has been a sense of selflessness and cooperation throughout our university community as we’ve dealt with this natural disaster."

The Governor’s Group Productivity Award had two winners this year, Facilities Management and the Reengineering Team with the Colorado Department of Transportation.

This year marks the third year in a row that Colorado State has taken home one of the top Governor’s Awards – Janet Vigil of Facilities Management won the Distinguished Manager award in 1996, and Shelly May of the Registrar’s Office won the Rudy Livingston Service Award last year.