Working under the official title of “motor equipment operator,” grounds personnel carry out a mission to perform routine maintenance activities on the 126-acre Hudson Valley Community College campus. These activities include planting and caring for trees and shrubs, mowing grass, raking leaves and plant debris, keeping grounds, parking lots and roads free of litter, transporting trash and recyclables to the collection areas, as well as removing snow and ice from roads, parking lots, walks, pathways and steps.
Did you know that the ground’s crew also maintains and repairs more than 60 college-owned vehicles including trucks, lawn mowers and heavy equipment?
Grounds personnel are typically the first employees to arrive each morning. The first task is the daily drive and walk through campus to pick up litter and trash that has been dumped in parking lots, on side walks or in grassy areas. The crew’s day starts even earlier — well before daylight and sometimes in the middle of the night — during snow storms in order to clear parking lots and sidewalks before school starts. Last year, about 125,000 pounds of ice melt was used across campus to combat the ice and snow!
Workers very often are called upon to assist a staff member or student, who has dropped keys or a cell phone into a storm drain. On one occasion, the call for help involved several ducklings who had fallen into a drain. The crew was able to rescue the babies and happily reunite them with their mother.
Pictured left to right: Joe Krug, Kyle Spiak, Jay Bonesteel and Josh Palmer
Not pictured: Jim Carras, Marty Sloan and Ray Latham
Published: Wed, 01 May 2019 12:00:20 +0000 by k.teal