Infrastructure and Safety team,
As the new school year ramps up, I wanted to take this opportunity to look back at the 2016-17 fiscal year and thank you all for your dedication to making our campus a phenomenal place to work, live and study. What you do day in and day out is vital to student success and ensuring that everyone here can thrive in a positive environment.
Below are a few highlights that I wanted to mention:
- Facilities Management responded to 17,612 service-request work orders, keeping campus buildings and systems operating 365 days per year. Furthermore, the group achieved a 97 percent satisfaction rate based on customer survey responses.
- Our CU Police Department acted swiftly and with valor in protecting the campus during the Oct. 5 active-harmer situation at the Champions Center. That’s not to mention the planning and execution that went into helping the campus stage major events like the Dead and Company concerts, the Milo Yiannopoulos speech, graduation and sporting events, all of which pose their own unique challenges to preserving safety on campus.
- I frequently hear accolades from deans around campus about the support they receive from our planners as they work collaboratively to accommodate programmatic space needs. Our hiring of Kevin Griffin and the creation of our space management department has already augmented these efforts and will no doubt continue to pay dividends as we advance our strategic facilities visioning effort.
- On a tight timeline, Planning, Design and Construction spearheaded the completion of a $9 million clean room at the Astrophysical Research Laboratory where a spacecraft will be built for launch to Mars in 2020.
- The addition of Heidi Van Genderen as chief sustainability officer and the promotion of former police chief Melissa Zak into a new role as AVC of safety is helping to give our campus a holistic view of sustainability, safety and resiliency.
- Through rain, sun, sleet, snow, wind, ice and heavy use, our grounds team keeps our campus looking immaculate year-round, and continues to do so with sustainability in mind, as evidenced by the implementation of a new method of combating weeds with steam.
- Environmental Health and Safety landed a seed grant to establish an on-campus lab-safety training center.
- The real estate office, in conjunction with planning and strategic media relations, helped usher in land-use designation changes for CU Boulder South in the Boulder Valley Comprehensive Plan, providing a great opportunity for CU Boulder to partner with the community to address major concerns around flood mitigation.
- Multiple departments, including custodial, utilities and trades, garnered campus innovation awards through Senior Vice Chancellor Kelly Fox’s program and the CU System program, showcasing the ingenuity and entrepreneurial spirit with which our teams operate.
These are all accomplishments we can build upon. Looking forward, we’ll continue to focus on maximizing safety across campus, incorporating sustainability and resiliency into all of our operations, and promoting business excellence as we leverage technology and create new efficiencies in our operations. Thank you again for all you do. I am so proud to be a part of this great team. Go Buffs!
Sincerely,
David Kang, vice chancellor of infrastructure and safety
