What, exactly, does the University of South Carolina’s facilities services department
manage?
To put it simply, a lot. Facilities Services handles landscaping, custodial, energy,
water, trash and recycling across 13 million square feet of educational and general
buildings on the Columbia campus. On average, the team responds to nearly 100 calls
per day. And the job is getting even bigger as the department strives to improve both
its environmental and fiscal stewardship of USC’s buildings and grounds.
We spoke with Jason Lambert, associate vice president of facilities services, to learn
more about what’s happening on campus and what we can expect to see in the future.
You started full time in July of 2022. What have you seen since you came on board?
We have an amazing campus and an amazing team. Many of our most important changes
and innovations were in process when I got here. This year, we have focused on getting
them to the finish line. Some of these efforts have been years in the making, and
it has truly taken the efforts of many individuals to pull of some of the transformations.
Supporting the mission of USC takes the talent, technical skills and hard work of
a large team. Most of what we do, if we do it right, means that no one knows we’ve
been there. One example is turning on your office or classroom lights. We assume that
it will always happen. What we don’t often think about is that the USC team manages
the electricity all the way from the power substation down to the light switch.
In essence, we run an entire city, complete with multiple utility generation stations
(steam and chilled water) as well as everything from fixing the roofs to mopping the
floors. With over 130 buildings on the Columbia campus, this is a huge undertaking.
However, the university Facilities Services team has really stepped up this year as
we work to modernize, streamline and optimize how we support the mission and our most
important customers — our students.
The greener landscaping is one change that has been made since your arrival. Another
has been LED conversion. Could you give us an update on buildings that have been converted
and what that means to our university?
I am extremely proud of the Facilities Services team for innovating in many of our
sectors of responsibility. One of the lowest-hanging fruits – yet both very impactful
projects – is our ongoing effort to upgrade to LED lighting both inside and outside
of buildings. Over the summer, we completed one of the largest LED upgrades ever on
our campus at Thomas Cooper Library.
The library had an antiquated T8 fluorescent lighting system that is now 100 percent
LED. We converted 10,500 bulbs into LED lights. The new lighting is not only more
aesthetically pleasing, but it also significantly reduced the maintenance burden,
as the LED lighting should last between three and four times longer than the standard
bulb. Moreover, the lighting is much more energy efficient, and we will save over
1.2 million kilowatt hours of power every year. Finally, I’m very pleased to say that
we did this all with zero waste sent to the landfill. Every component of the old lights
as well as the packaging for the new lights was fully recycled.
Over the fall break, we began converting the lighting in Correll Hall. We are utilizing
several amazing student interns from the College of Engineering to conduct field surveys
of other buildings to help us plan the next renewals.
What about some outdoor lighting projects Facilities Services has completed?
Our campus is pedestrian-centric and operates at all hours of the day, so creating
a safe, welcoming and well-lit campus at night is important. Over the last year, with
input from the campus community, we upgraded the LED lighting on the Horseshoe. We
have also added LED lighting around many of our parking garages, in the Colonial Life
Arena parking lots and near Bates House as well as conducted our annual campus night
inspections.
We are currently working to add LED lighting around McMaster, along Sumter Steet,
and are collaborating with Parking and Transportation Services to upgrade several
of the parking garages, with the first major upgrade to occur in the Bull Street Garage
over the Thanksgiving break. As with the indoor projects, this will be an ongoing
process.
What differences has our community seen this fall?
In addition to the many lighting changes, we have been working on several other efforts
across campus. For example, we are testing six solar charging stations. The three
standing stations have been installed on Davis Field, near Currell College and near
the Colloquium. Three more solar-powered charging stations have been installed at
Close-Hipp, the Nursing School and at Swearingen in October.
Our exterior building and structure cleaning program was very active all summer, and
we completed a tremendous amount of deep cleaning both inside and out. We’ve also
been installing bottle-filling water fountains in many buildings. One might also see
– but not hear – our new all-electric “green monster” mower and hand tools being used
on the Horseshoe and surrounding areas. This year is the first year of a phased roll
out of much quieter and environmentally-friendly groundskeeping equipment.
Finally, we have created a horticultural team dedicated to the creation and upkeep
of all of the special places on campus, from the rose garden to the annual color beds
at the main gateways to campus.
You’ve also piloted a program with the Arnold School of Public Health to reduce plastic
waste. How has that gone so far?
Every time we empty a trash can, we must change the liner. Well, what if we didn’t
have as many trash cans to empty? Working with the Arnold School of Public Health,
we identified that several of the college buildings have hundreds of individual trash
cans, translating into tens of thousands of liners being sent to the dump every year.
We are working with the college to eliminate deskside collection in favor of larger
regional collection points on each building floor. This also tends to influence the
amount of recycling, as we have recycling cans located next to every regional trash
can.
It’s a lot easier to do the right thing and recycle when it is made easy to do so.
We intend to continue to expand this effort on campus over the next few years.
Are there other future projects that you think our community should be aware of?
Facilities Services is actively engaged in a major initiative called Green and Garnet.
We have studied our largest and most energy-inefficient buildings as part of this
initiative, and over the next few years we will be working with our partner Siemens
to implement projects that will not only reduce our energy consumption but also work
to make the buildings much more comfortable for the occupants. The first phase of
the buildings includes Thomas Cooper Library, Close-Hipp, Swearingen, Jones Physical
Science Center and 1600 Hampton.
We also are working on a systematic replacement of the temporary tables and chairs
placed around campus during the COVID years with permanent and durable outdoor furniture.
That includes tables with solar-powered chargers as well as retrofitted solar-powered
umbrellas to go on existing tables, which provide a convenient way for our campus
community to charge their electronic devices while enjoying the beautiful outdoor
spaces.
