December, 2008

I attended the Green Industry and Equipment Expo last week in Louisville, and as I do with all trade shows, I came away with interesting observations. The show featured outdoor power equipment, lawn and garden products, and light construction and landscape...

The dire condition of facilities in the District of Columbia (D.C.) Public School District is no secret. The district’s reliance on deferred maintenance and its lack of facilities planning has resulted in crumbling schools and plenty of negative...

Each month in Maintenance Solutions magazine, I profile an organization that has completed extensive building renovations or system retrofits, largely to improve energy efficiency and promote environmental responsibility. During interviews for these articles...

Risk comes with the territory for professionals managing high-profile buildings. But that doesn’t mean maintenance and engineering managers still don’t get butterflies before undertaking huge renovation projects or mechanical-system retrofits...

For many people, hearing the phrase “social networking” conjures up images of high school and college students glued in front of their computer screens updating Facebook pages at all hours of the day. Those images are accurate in some cases...

Public school facilities across the country received a much-needed boost last week when the House passed the 21st Century Green High-Performing Public School Facilities Act . But the bill – H.R. 3021 – is awaiting Senate approval, and the...

Anyone who turned on the news or accessed the Internet after the Virginia Tech shootings on April 16, 2007, will never forget the images that flashed across television and computer screens. But imagine how first responders and others involved with campus...

Three yards and a cloud of … crumb rubber? Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it? But instead of a cloud of dust hovering over football fields on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, athletes are getting a face full of rubber pellets...

When the I-35W bridge collapsed in Minneapolis last August, I tried to make a series of cell-phone calls to my friends residing in the Twin Cities. I spoke to one person right after I saw the news coverage on TV. After that, I was out of luck. Hours went...

The April cover article in Maintenance Solutions magazine helped me better understand a harsh reality for managers in commercial and institutional facilities. Despite their knowledge of facilities and an understanding of what it takes to make building...

The field was green, very green. But aside from the grass lying at the base of Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., fans attending the season opener between the Atlanta Braves and Washington Nationals likely were hard-pressed to point out the remaining...

Optimism and hope were nonexistent after a devastating tornado rolled through Greensburg, Kan., on May 4, 2007. The twister destroyed 95 percent of homes and businesses in the town of 1,500. According to an article in this month’s TIME magazine...

During an interview for a recent article in Maintenance Solutions magazine, Brad Dow, director of properties at Mohonk Mountain House, talked about various energy-saving initiatives implemented at his facility. One of those green efforts addressed lighting...

I’m almost three years removed from my educational experience at the University of Minnesota. But the first time I saw the Twin Cities campus is still fresh in my memory. I signed up for a campus tour in the dead of winter – my first mistake...

One thing I’ll always remember from high school fire drills is, “Whatever you do, don’t take the elevators.” Those coordinating the drills liked to utter that phrase over and over, so that explains my confusion when I read this...

Alleys can be a forgotten component in a big-city landscape. Aside from giving us a place to house our trash and park our cars, we don’t pay a whole lot of attention to the cavernous mini-roads. That’s not the case in Chicago, however. A recent...

During my first month with Maintenance Solutions magazine, the flourishing trend of “going green” was a popular topic of conversation. I wasn’t quite sure how significant the phrase was at the time, but that was before I traveled to...