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Donald Bottger, CLP, Engineering Supervisor, San Diego Convention Center,
CA
When they doubled the size of the San Diego Convention Center
last year, thank goodness they didn't double Don Bottger's responsibilities.
He already oversees 18 employees, including an 8-person grounds
staff. Bottger ran a family landscape company before joining the
convention center. The biggest challenge he faces is training,
particularly safety training. His crew cares for plants that may
be in planters 40 feet above the convention floor. Some of them
learn rope work from members of the San Diego Fire Department.
"Maintaining this site is very labor intensive," says Bottger.
"It's unique."
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Rob Carson, Grounds/General Maintenance Supervisor, Birmingham
Public Schools, MI
When Carson joined this school system in southeast Michigan 6
1/2 years ago, he cared for the athletic fields at two high schools
and two middle schools and supervised two full-time employees. Today
he oversees 11 employees and is responsible for 180 acres of turf
and sports within the district, in addition to maintenance at the
schools themselves. His biggest challenge is planning ahead so that
his crews are ready to go when windows of opportunity arise.
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Gus Guthrie, Manager, Farison Sports Turf, Louisville, KY
Gus Guthrie learned about turfgrass as a golf course superintendent.
Four years ago, Sam Farison, owner of Farison Lawn Care, asked Guthrie
to head up that company's new sports turf division. The biggest
beneficiaries have been the many local schools that Guthrie has
helped. There has been a dramatic improvement in the quality of
the grade school athletic fields in and around Louisville thanks
to Guthrie, the first grounds professional in the Commonwealth of
Kentucky to earn certification by the Sports Turf Managers of America.
He's doing his part to elevate the profession of grounds management.
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Joe Jackson, CGM, Assistant Director of Facilities Management,
Duke University, NC
"Our administration realizes the importance of having excellent
grounds because it's one of the many factors that helps us attract
the kind of students that we want," says Joe Jackson. In charge
of a unit that maintains 625 acres of turf (with many different
varieties on its transition zone/North Carolina campus), he also
oversees the collection and disposal of 10,000 tons of trash (1,200
tons of which is recycled) annually on the campus. He credits his
80-person staff for their dedication and service but admits that
keeping it "focused" is one of his bigger challenges, along with
implementing whatever cutting-edge technology he can to make the
staff more efficient and more responsive to the university's needs.
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Vicki Killian, CGM, Horticulturist, , The Patterson Club, Fairfield,
CT
At age 27 CGM Vicki Killian returned to school to study horticulture.
"I made the decision to go into this profession after I realized
what I didn't want to do," she says with a hearty laugh. This year
Killian starts her 14th year as horticulturist at The Patterson
Club, a very nice (but not swank) private 18-hole course in Fairfield,
CT. Even with flowers on almost every hole and 75 fussy hybrid tea
roses gracing the entrance to the pro shop, Vicki says the 60 deer
inhabiting the golf course and its surrounds remain her biggest
challenge. "They just devour everything," she says. Her solution:
beautify the course with plants like daturas and castor beans that
the deer won't eat.
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Michael Loftus, Director of Facilities, University of Delaware,
DE
The 40-person staff that Michael Loftus, CGM, directs includes
grounds and sports turf techs, excavators, arborists and crafts
people of several other related departments. They're responsible
for about 500 acres of property, most located on the main campus
in Newark. This Penn State grad, who returned to school for a business
degree, is responsible for a $1.5 million budget and, apart from
making every dollar count, his biggest challenge is developing written
standards for the many tasks performed by his crews. "We have to
have the input of our entire staff to make them realistic," he says.
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Raymond Mirizzi, Campus Environment Manager, Cincinnati State,
OH
Ray Mirizzi's entire 28-year professional career has been dedicated
to improving the environs at this growing community college located
just north of downtown Cincinnati. It's no wonder that the administration
considers him and his 4 full-time staff members some of college's
best "ambassadors." After all, as many as 15,000 people (including
8,000 full-time students) visit this 40-acre campus daily. "We're
often the first people that visitors and students see when they
arrive here," says Mirizzi. "Our work is the first thing that they
notice." Mirizzi says. Without the dedication of his crew members
— "every one of them is a team player" — and a good working
relationship with local private contractors, Mirizzi says he couldn't
give the school the service it deserves.
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Ellen Newell, Landscape Manager, Utah State University, UT
"We've had big, big budget cuts this year," says Ellen Newell,
a New Jersey native who headed to the Rockies to go to college.
Three years later she earned a bachelor's degree in Plant Sciences
at Utah State University and she decided to stay there. Ellen can
count on the help of a 14-member staff, having lost two full-time
positions to budget cuts this year. Even with a small cadre of student
help, the landscape and grounds crew at this beautiful campus of
20,000 students has its hands full maintaining 350 acres of turf
and grounds. "All departments were cut," says Ellen. "The state
didn't get the revenues it expected and a lot of positions have
been lost. We all have to adjust."
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Mike O'Grady, Director of Grounds Management, Illinois State University,
IL
Twenty-seven years ago Mike O'Grady took a job on the grounds
crew at Illinois State University. For the past three years he's
served this university of 20,000 students as its Director of Grounds
Management. He and the rest of his 19-person staff are involved
with almost every aspect of maintaining this 875-acre campus, which
six years ago was also officially designated as an arboretum. With
students' help, the grounds department tagged and catalogued all
6,000 trees there. The campus, under O'Grady's watch, has won just
about every prestigious professional grounds and sports turf award
there is.
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G.C. Trivett, Athletic Director, Granite Falls Middle School,
NC
Kids come first with G.C. Trivett. When this longtime athletic
director and coach at Granite Falls Middle School got tired of seeing
his young athletes play on a beat up bermudagrass field, he took
action. He joined both the PGMS and the STMA and rolled up his sleeves.
Not only does he serve as an administrator, teacher and coach at
his school — he's its hardest-working grounds pro. His kids
play on one of the best fields in the state, the site of regional
events now.
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