I&S Employee Newsletter - March 2019

Dear Infrastructure and Sustainability team,

Our organization’s mission is to deliver and maintain safe, sustainable and resilient infrastructure that enhances the university’s operations and enables our campus community to meet its mission of education and research. While it might sometimes feel like our impact on education and research is indirect (albeit still vital), opportunities for direct collaboration with students and faculty often arise. I firmly believe that our collective experiences in the “real world” can provide invaluable insight, wisdom and learning for other staff, students and faculty. 

The student mentor program in our Planning, Design and Construction office provides invaluable real-world experiences for environmental design and engineering students. These students get the opportunity to observe design and construction activities throughout the lifecycle of building projects on our campus, enhancing the education they’re receiving in the classroom. They also have access to our department’s knowledge base when seeking advice on careers, experiences and their classroom design projects. 

Another example came last fall when representatives from several of our I&S departments collaborated with a professor of civil engineering to design a semester-long project in which students were charged with conducting resilience assessments on eight different campus buildings. By lending our expertise and providing a conduit for information on these buildings, we assisted these students in applying what they’re learning to a professional scenario they could encounter in their careers.

There are several other examples of collaboration where our I&S teams are going above and beyond their day-to-day duties to team with students, faculty, industry and our broader community. From the work we are doing around energy/resilience to working closely with our community around sustainability and the burgeoning opportunities around transportation, I encourage all of us to keep an eye out for similar opportunities to engage. Bring them up to your supervisors so we can discuss what kind of support we might be able to offer. The work that you do everyday to support the mission of I&S is critical to our success. Additionally, partnerships like the ones described above, can enrich the campus experience for all involved in immeasurable ways, and will contribute to building stronger bonds between faculty, staff and students.

Sincerely,
David Kang, vice chancellor for infrastructure and sustainability

A pair of new hires have come onboard recently in Vice Chancellor Kang’s office following Catherine Oja’s transfer to the Office of Integrity, Safety and Compliance. Planning, Design and Construction Capital Planning Strategist Ida Mae Isaac has been promoted to the role of special assistant to the VCIS and I&S strategist. She will continue her key roles in the Strategic Facilities Visioning initiative and CU Boulder South, as well as managing the broader VCIS organization’s portfolio of projects. Juanita Carstens, meanwhile, has been hired as the new VCIS administrative assistant, where she will support VC Kang and Chief Sustainability Officer Heidi VanGenderen, overseeing their calendars, travel and other administrative needs.

Facilities Management Outdoor Services has inked an exciting new partnership with local weather forecasting organization BoulderCAST. The deal equips Outdoor Services with access to direct, hyper-local forecast consulting from BoulderCAST, giving our team a new advantage in making weather-related decisions like how to best allocate resources such as snow plows and staffing during significant weather events. BoulderCAST in turn will be able to utilize a wealth of data from CU Boulder instrumentation like lightning detectors, soil moisture gauges and weather stations that should prove beneficial to their forecasting. 

Come to the sustainable transportation event of 2019! The expo will highlight emerging trends, current mobility options, products and research. Join hundreds of your fellow students, faculty, staff, and community members for vehicle demos, eBike test rides, presentations, exhibitors and more. Want to be involved? We are still accepting sponsors, exhibitors, presenters, and vehicle vendors. Visit the event website for information on how to get involved.

How long have you been working at CU?  
As of November 2018, I’ve worked at CU for 26 years. Before that, I was a student employee for a semester during college. My entire tenure has been within the Radiation Safety Office within the Department of Environmental Health and Safety, and this January I accepted an offer to become the Radiation Safety Officer for the Boulder and Colorado Springs campuses. Back in 1992, I was hired while working on my bachelor’s degree in EPO Biology and used the staff tuition waiver to finish up that degree as well as complete a master’s degree in Integrative Physiology. I am proud to count myself an alumna as well as an employee.

What is your favorite thing to do outside of work? 
Spend time with my family! My husband and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary last year by taking a cruise to Alaska – a bucket-list item. We have two daughters, one 17 years old and a junior in high school, the other 14 years old and in eighth grade. Both girls are active in community activities, academics and sports – so much of what my husband and I do after work is focused on supporting these activities. In addition, I keep bees in our backyard in Longmont, play oboe in a community band, play with our English Springer Spaniel and try to keep in touch with other hobbies such as photography and crafting so that I won’t be bored when the kids go off to college. 

Tell us something that might surprise us about you?  
I am a Colorado native, having grown up in La Junta – in the southeast corner of the state. I went to junior college in La Junta before transferring to CU Boulder, and during that time I volunteered as a firefighter and EMT. In the summers, I did living history re-enactment at Bent’s Old Fort National Historic Site – a reconstructed fur trading post along the Santa Fe Trail.

What do you love about CU Boulder?  
Besides Boulder being a beautiful place to work, what has kept me interested in working here all these years is the opportunity to be involved in cutting-edge research. There are so many fascinating experiments happening and being proposed every day here at CU, and I get to be an integral part of helping make that research happen. I love the science and the people involved with the research we support daily.

What are you currently reading? 
It’s difficult to squeeze in time for traditional book-reading these days, so I listen to audiobooks on my commute to and from Longmont every day. I just started a book called “Radium Girls” – about the women who used to paint radium watch dials. Every time they tipped their brushes on their tongue to sharpen them, they were ingesting a significant dose of radium and most ended up dying of bone cancer. This was before we understood the dangers of radioactivity and the importance of the radiation safety field.

Miss out on the powder days last weekend? Don’t fret. It’s March, which means plenty more snow -- and sweatshirt skiing -- are right around the corner. And CU employees’ access to Benefits Hub means you can score lift ticket discounts of 42 percent off at Copper Mountain, 35 percent off at Monarch Mountain and 27 percent off at Aspen Snowmass. Just log in to Benefits Hub, select Tickets from the left side menu, then Ski Tickets, and hit the slopes.

The Staff Career Development Program (SCDP) in the Department of Human Resources exists for all staff employed on the Boulder campus, and provides both individual advising and group career development on topics ranging from career exploration to job search strategies. Beginning this month and running through July, the SCDP is offering a variety of one-hour bi-monthly workshops, offered in two series. Visit the SCDP webpage for more information and to register for workshops.