Plenty of moving pieces to CSC's custodial staff

Because before classes begin or offices open, Chadron State College’s custodial staff has been hard at work. In fact, a custodian – CSC employs 30 full timers to clean and maintain 20 buildings – most likely emptied the trash and cleaned the restroom long before a normal work day even begins.

Chadron State custodians perform important tasks daily, Todd Baumann, maintenance supervisor, said. He added the custodial staff takes pride in their work and the department has helped the campus maintain a pleasing and clean appearance for more than 100 years.

Custodians begin their days early, reporting to campus in two morning shifts – 5 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 6 a.m. to 3 p.m. – depending on the building. Following the morning shifts, public buildings are then covered by custodians from 1 to 10 p.m. During the weekend, those same buildings are typically covered 6 a.m. to 3 p.m.

“A lot of time, custodians go unnoticed but they do a vital job of keeping the campus clean and maintaining our buildings,” Baumann said. “If we didn’t have clean bathrooms and stocked paper items, we wouldn’t be here. Custodians are a big piece of the puzzle and everything functions off that. A lot of people don’t realize before the doors are opened a lot takes place and is never seen”

Baumann said the first order of duties for custodians is to empty trashcans and clean restrooms. However, their jobs entail much more than cleaning toilets and taking out the trash.

During the summer months, custodians strip and wax floors, deep clean residence hall rooms, and shampoo carpets in every classroom. They don’t stop with cleaning, though. Custodians have a variety of responsibilities related to their scheduled buildings, including moving furniture in and out of the residence halls, shoveling snow to the point where the grounds crew can get to it, changing light bulbs and setting up rooms for meetings or events.

When CSC hosts athletic events, the custodians are on the front lines. During the busiest events – weekend games, CSC’s hoop shoot, and indoor track and field meets – several custodians will leave their own buildings to combine forces.

“Custodians do a lot of work when there are athletic events,” Baumann said. “Last year, the custodial staff invested 273 hours to support those events.”

Custodians also have to be prepared for the occasional emergency and to assist the public. Following a spring rainstorm, the basement in Crites Hall flooded and because of the speedy response from Baumann and his staff, damage was minimal.

“The job really is different in every building,” Baumann said. “The old thinking was that custodians were to be seen and not heard. We’re trying to get away from that now. In a way, our custodians are greeters. They direct the public to events or meetings and they also have a lot of interaction with the students.”

In fact, two places that are rarely seen by the CSC community are vital components to the custodial staff. They are Hildreth Hall and the maintenance shop in the basement of Andrews Hall. Both spaces are maintained by custodial leaders, Karma Schefcik and Robbie Diehl.

In Hildreth, Schefcik monitors the inventory for all paper products, cleaning supplies and interior light bulbs. Just keeping tabs on the paper products, which include toilet paper, hand towels and paper towels, would be enough to keep a person busy. Schefcik said when school is in session, she makes several weekly deliveries to the residence halls.

Schefcik also keeps track of incoming paper shipments made to Hildreth. She said there are six major deliveries to campus each year, typically comprising at least 100 cases each of toilet paper and hand towels.

“Last year, the campus spent close to $30,000, just on toilet paper,” Baumann said.

With all those cases of paper products and lights, recycling cardboard is a necessity, Baumann added. Keep Chadron Beautiful, a local volunteer organization dedicated to keeping the area clean, works closely with the custodial staff by picking up cardboard and paper to be recycled.

While Hildreth is the base of operations for paper products and other supplies, the basement of Andrews houses a small machine shop dedicated to preventative maintenance of the custodial staff’s equipment. Diehl keeps busy with small repairs, most commonly dealing with vacuums and carpet cleaners.

“I stay pretty busy because this equipment is used a lot, so it wears out fast,” he said.

The basement shop is filled with machine parts and tools. There’s also several pieces of older equipment Diehl can pillage for spare parts, battery charging stations for the residence hall’s standing vacuum and other storage for various residence hall property.

Baumann, Diehl and Schefcik all agree their jobs provide a valuable service to the campus. They also agree it’s a rewarding one.

“There’s a lot of moving pieces but we have a good crew,” Baumann said. “It’s always nice to hear you’re doing a really good job and it makes you enjoy all the hard work. It makes it feel like it’s worth it.”