Facilities staff get new opportunities

Facilities Services has found a solution to a great problem. They now know what to do with promising employees who need more training to advance. Grand Valley worked with Grand Rapids Community College to develop an apprenticeship program that began in April.

Facilities Services consists of maintenance, grounds, mail and custodial employees. The idea is to take interested facilities staff through eight abbreviated trade courses to give them broad knowledge in many areas and prepare them for maintenance positions.

Tim Thimmesch, director of Facilities Services, presented the idea to the AFSCME union last fall. The union and Facilities collaborated with the community college to develop the apprenticeship program.

'Facilities staff have an opportunity to receive the training and skills for advancement to a better paying position,' explained Thimmesch. 'From my end, we invest in staff that are already at the institution and are familiar with our environment, faculty and staff.'

The university is paying for employees to attend the courses, but they do so on their own time. The classes meet once per week and the entire program will take about a year and a half to complete. The areas of study are electrical, plumbing, heating, ventilation and air conditioning, construction, masonry, sheet metal, painting and flooring.

Dave Feenstra, assistant maintenance supervisor and project manager, said the Grand Valley staff helped create the curriculum. 'Who better to create the curriculum than the staff itself? They get to be hands on in a truly win-win situation,' said Feenstra. 'We get the benefit of improved skills and employees get the benefit of improving their own futures and career paths.'

Mike Spofford, who is chief steward of AFSCME Local No. 2074, echoes the win-win sentiment and said developing current employees for promotion and developing an objective review of candidates have been a goal of the union. 'I believe we are headed in the right direction,' Spofford said. 'Both the university's and the union's goals are to have a trained, qualified pool of internal candidates that will fill their needs in the future.'

This is a trial program. Eight people are taking the community college courses right now. When they are finished, participants and Facilities Services staff will evaluate the program to determine how successful it has been and how many people have benefited.