Starting in the morning, doors are unlocked, air handlers and boilers are examined and work orders are checked in efforts to make Wartburg’s campus run smoothly.

Wartburg maintenance, comprised of eighteen workers including general and specialty maintenance, makes sure that the campus runs smoothly every day. General workers are assigned to specific buildings, often working with cleaning staff and security. Specialty maintenance focuses on building plumbing, heating and cooling, electrical, carpentry, groundskeeping and painting.

Rich Bunn is a general maintenance worker of Luther Hall, the chapel, the Fine Arts Center (FAC), the Classroom Technology Center (CTC) and Neumann Auditorium. Bunn was able to give some insight into his job and what it looks like on campus.

“When I come in the mornings, I usually just clock in. I’ll come down here and I’ll check on my computer,” Bunn says. “I’ll check my emails, I’ll check my work orders, and then in the mornings for about an hour I usually do my unlocks and I check my buildings.”

Bunn receives daily tasks through work orders submitted by faculty and students on the Wartburg website. These orders sometimes require different skill sets and, at times, he will be called to areas of campus beyond his assignments to lend an extra hand.

Bunn says he often gets one-on-one interactions with students and faculty, creating relationships where people feel comfortable coming directly to him with concerns.

“I love working with them. I mean, everybody’s so nice and kind,” Bunn says.

Some buildings require special attention or organization, such as event planning and coordination, involving employees from different areas of campus.

Hailee Bossard works in the Waverly-Wartburg Sports and Wellness Center (The W), completing tasks from general maintenance and organizing events that utilize both indoor and outdoor facilities.

For any event at the W, whether it’s athletics, campus or community, Bossard and her student staff determine when to set up, tear down and organize simultaneous events to ensure everything runs smoothly. Bossard says she is especially grateful to her student workers, who help when she’s unavailable around.

Bossard says the W is a unique place because of its community, student and faculty patrons.

“Because I know everybody’s one event, you know, that they have, is probably the biggest thing that they’re caring about or are caring for,” Bossard explains.

Like other parts of the campus, Bossard uses work orders to manage general tasks, such as burnt-out light bulbs or leaky faucets. However, with event scheduling requires extra coordination. Bossard often works with other staff and faculty such as Laura Davis, the maintenance office manager and the interim office and operations manager, Kayla Klunder, who is the office coordinator for athletics and Heather Zajicek, the associate director for facility and aquatics.

For student and faculty convenience, work orders are not issues through email. Instead, concerns can be issued through the work order system, accessible on My.Wartburg or via the Wartburg website. When placing a work order, users can select the building, the department which it goes to and the room number. When that is processed, a supervisor sends it to the right worker for the job.

To know more about Wartburg maintenance, contact Keith Strand at [email protected].   Maintenance offices are in the DiGiovanni Maintenance Building, located across the road from the Wartburg-Waverly Sports and Wellness Center.

If you are interested in working with maintenance on Wartburg, check out Handshake for job postings or contact Abbie Raum at [email protected].