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Building Operator Certification
(BOC) Program Testimonial
BOC Testimonial:
Steve Wolfe, Director of Maintenance,
Georgetown Exempted Village Schools
The Georgetown Exempted Village School District in
Georgetown, Ohio completed an OSFC construction project in August 2006. This
project remodeled and added rooms to our existing Junior / Senior High
School Building and constructed a new Elementary Building that is about
twice the size of the previous one.
At the completion of the construction project, there was much excitement
about our new facilities. There was also a certain amount of nervousness
concerning the utility cost of operating the new buildings. The remodeled
J/S High building added new classrooms creating additional floor space. The
previous J/S High facility had very limited air conditioning; however,
during remodeling, air conditioning was expanded to the entire facility. The
new Elementary building was over twice the size of the previous one. Both
buildings had huge upgrades in the electrical service and technology
systems. All these improvements were projected to more than double the
previous utility costs. Additionally, the new modern buildings would require
a lot more technical expertise to maintain all of the systems that operate
the facilities. For this reason, I made the decision to enroll in the
Building Operator’s Certification course offered through the Ohio Public
Facilities Maintenance Association.
The BOC course was appealing to me because it covered such a wide array of
topics useful to maintenance personnel. Everything from electrical
troubleshooting and controls optimization to Indoor Air Quality and
environmental safety were covered within the course as well as many other
items. The information was so practical and made such an immediate impact on
my maintenance department that I immediately signed up for the Level II
course after my completion of Level I.
By applying the lessons learned in my BOC courses, our school district has
benefited immensely. It was through the BOC coursework that I learned to
track our district utility spending through the Energystar® program.
The EnergyStar® program is a joint venture of the United States Department
of Energy and the United States Environmental Protection Agency that
promotes energy efficiency in buildings across the nation.
Recently, both our elementary and junior/senior high facilities became only
the 4th and 5th school buildings in Ohio to be EnergyStar® rated.
We also became the ONLY school district in the state of Ohio to receive the
EnergyStar® LEADERS Top Performer Award by managing our facilities with
superb energy efficiency.
Our utility bills did NOT double as had been previously forecasted prior to
our building project. Instead we have become one of the top energy
performing schools in the nation and saved over $100,000 dollars over our
projected utility spending.
This was accomplished in large part by using the knowledge gained through
the BOC classes in operating and maintaining our mechanical, electrical and
control systems that operate our facilities.
I would recommend the BOC course to any facility management or maintenance
personnel looking to improve their skills and to make a positive impact on
the facilities in which they work.
Steve Wolfe
BOC
Testimonial: Nicholas B. Getzinger, Building Superintendent
Toledo Correctional Institute
My name is Nicholas Getzinger
and I am currently the Building Maintenance Superintendent for the
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation & Corrections at Toledo
Correctional. Prior to my job as a superintendent for Toledo
Correctional, I worked for 21+ years in the HVAC, R & P mechanical
fields where I have obtained multiple licenses in the building
trades.
I was hired at Toledo Correctional for my experience in the trades
and my understanding of building operations and environmental
control. Once I was hired I found myself presented with an
enormous number of tasks and opportunities to bring our facility
up to compliance with operational mandates. I initially began to
assess my options, my staff and my resources to begin laying out a
plan on how we were going to accomplish all these tasks.
In a conversation with my supervisor and one of my staff, I was
informed about the BOC certification program and the required
mandates for each facility. I was advised on how the program
covered facility energy performance, maintenance, tracking and all
the other various aspects of building maintenance.
At first, I felt that the course would be redundant for me with my
current background, but I looked into it anyway. I soon saw some
immediate advantages to attending the course because of my current
situation at Toledo Correctional and an upcoming ACA audit. I had
an immediate need to put new plans into action and have them
operational before my pending audit.
I began to see great advantages to the program and how it seemed
to fit perfectly into place at a time when I needed as much
resource as possible. I had also learned that one of my staff Mike
Carter, had recently completed the BOC course Level 1 & Level 2
which inspired him with a number of ideas on what he thought
should be improved and what needed to be addressed immediately. It
didn’t take long after discussing these issues with Mike to
determine he was full of excitement and eager to address these
issues. I discovered that his excitement was inspired from the
information he had gained in both of the BOC courses.
With my new tasks at hand, along with my new ongoing refresher
training from the BOC and Mike’s relentless ambition. I was now
able to utilize these tools provided to me to realign my staff,
implement training programs, new PM procedures, establish energy
use assessments and determine the priorities of the facility
maintenance program. I was on my way to successfully passing my
impending State Audit.
I found the information from some of the classes extremely useful
to the point that it to had inspired me to do more than the usual
to make our facility more conservation friendly. Mike and I had
begun to influence additional staff into doing more and
recognizing their own potential and improving their own areas and
reducing energy consumption.
Before long, my staff began rolling in with ideas sparked with
ambition and the motivation to make things happen.
Mr. Carter and I decided that we needed to find a way to cost
effectively reduce the facility’s water consumption and the
enormous heating bill for hot water. We researched a number of
companies and ideas that were inspired by the BOC training and
fueled by the ambition to make drastic improvements in our energy
use reduction.
Eventually, we came up with an idea that would completely change
how we would control water and it would not only affect our
maintenance operation, but it would make a major dent in our
facility maintenance budget and cost of operation per fixture.
After many bench trails and fabrication of our own controls, we
were able to come up with our own in house water timer control
system which would reduce the use of water consumption by limiting
the amount of time a unit could run and setting a time limit on
when the unit would reset to run again. We were able to reduce
what seemed to be limitless hot showers into pre-programmed time
limits which would not reset immediately. We had recruited our
electrician and our plumber to install the units for a test run,
we soon found another major advantage. The new controls that were
costing us no more than $150.00 for 4 to 6 showers were not only
cost effective but extremely dependable too! It wouldn’t take a
rocket scientist to figure out that the lower maintenance cost of
the timer fixtures, the efficient operation of the heating plant
and the reduction of water usage is in fact a great success story.
Once we successfully initiated the water use reduction plan, I
began working on a facility wide energy use reduction plan as well
as a full blown preventative maintenance program for each skilled
trade area in our maintenance department. It took several weeks to
plan and implement but we managed to pull it off without any
remarkable problems or complaints.
Our work production is up over 300%, our overtime emergencies have
virtually been eliminated and we now provide over 95% of our own
in house service. We now have a more organized and efficient
system and an extremely positive and cooperative staff that is
very proud of their accomplishments.
Also we have made great strides lately in making major
improvements to our electrical and lighting systems and have
integrated ideas inspired directly from the BOC lighting course.
We have integrated a number of ideas on lighting upgrades,
replacements and energy use timing. Our outstanding results have
gained the attention of our state counterparts and our pioneering
spirit have inspired them. We are now in the midst of planning a
complete lighting upgrade based on our previous ideas inspired
from our past BOC training and our own implementations. I hope to
send more of my staff through the BOC course to keep them up to
date and inspired as we are.
All our efforts and determination to put at work all our knowledge
resulted in completing our State audit and more than that we’ve
passed with flying colors, in fact we were complemented
specifically on our implementation of energy use reductions in our
lighting, heating and domestic water, also our staffs’ high
motivation, cooperativeness, high professionalism and great
efficiency received recognition.
Subsequently, I was asked if I would supply a copy of our program
to be used as a model for other institutions to follow and be
measured by. I would like to thank the instructors as well as the
management from OPFMA for the great training and inspiration they
have provided. As you can see, a well implemented plan can and
will affect others in a positive way.
Nicholas B. Getzinger
BOC
Testimonial: Eric Meredith, Director of Business Affairs,
Adams County/Ohio Valley School District
As director of Business Affairs at Adams
County, Eric is responsible for, among other things, overseeing the
operations and continuous improvement of the maintenance staff. Moving from
a role of educator and principal to a role that involves the management of
the facility maintenance staff, he looked for coursework to help further his
understanding of the complex mechanical and electrical systems that operate
in school buildings. The BOC course also gave him much needed information on
topics such as Indoor Air Quality, Environmental Health and Safety
Regulations and Energy Conservation techniques. Seeing the value of this
coursework, Eric has sent his entire maintenance staff through the BOC
program.
Eric credits the BOC program as one of the reasons the Adams County/Ohio
Valley School district has seen a recent decline in electrical and propane
use. The district is also able to handle a large bulk of preventive
maintenance and repairs with “in-house” staff by using lessons learned
through the BOC program.
Recently, the United States Green Building Council selected the Adams
County/Ohio Valley School District as the only Ohio school district to
receive the “LEED EB Pilot Program” grant. As a recipient of this grant, one
of the existing buildings in the district will receive assistance from the
USGBC to become a LEED rated facility. The lessons learned in the BOC
program has helped the school meet many of the prerequisites required to
receive this grant and will play a huge part in making the existing
buildings reach LEED status.
“The BOC program has proved to be a valuable source of education in helping
the maintenance staff at AC/OVSD continually improve the maintenance and
operation of our facilities. I would highly recommend it to any district
looking to improve in their facility management
effort”.
Eric Meredith
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