What is the Physical Plant? What does the Physical Plant do? When asked these questions, UMHB students seem unsure.
“I don’t know,” Haven Seannagel, freshman social work major said. “Is that electricity or something? Do they control the electricity on campus? I’ve definitely heard of them.”
Another female student, Ava Perlinger, tries to think of what they could be.
“It sounds like some type of organization,” said Perlinger, a freshman graphic design major. “The name reminds me of green energy, wind turbines and solar panels.”
“I think it supplies the university with stuff,” said Bess Miranda, sophomore art education major. “supplying for events, stores and different things the university might need.”
While the Physical Plant is most commonly known for maintenance, it helps around campus in different ways. The Physical Plant mostly operates on work orders, and is made up of multiple departments. These are the Event Services Department, the Landscape Department, the Maintenance Department, the Construction Department, and the Mechanical, Engineering, and Plumbing Department.
The work orders tend to vary. It can be as big as somebody requesting an event, needing trash cans and a couple of tables set out, or as small as fixing a leaky sink in an apartment. All together, there are about 2,000 work orders per month. This equates to at least 64 work orders per day. Usually, about 25 of the physical plant workers respond to these.
Sometimes, the work orders received can be bizarre.
“A couple of Saturdays ago, a student woke up with a snake in his apartment,” Dave Marek, assistant director of the Physical Plant, said. “We got there quickly. Once the snake was disposed of, we went around and sealed all the locations where it could be possibly getting in.”
The Physical Plant not only takes care of students’ needs, but also helps everyone around campus. They take care of many things, like professor’s offices and classroom buildings, striping the rec field and the soccer field for games, going in sewers to retrieve fallen items like keys and phones, taking care of all the vehicles that are owned by UMHB, and setting up the bleachers for Easter pageant as well as the set.
The Physical Plant does much more than many people realize. Much of its work is behind the scenes, but the work has a significant impact on campus. Without the Physical Plant, many things wouldn’t be able to run as smoothly. To find out more of what the Physical Plant does, visit its Instagram at www.instagram.com/umhbphysicalplant/.