Outdoor Services crews maintain the beautiful campus for students, faculty, and staff.
During this time of year with the changing colors of the leaves, Colorado State University’s campus shines. The fall foliage really shows our stunning campus at its finest.
I had the pleasure of talking with Rodney Gillespie, who manages Outdoor Services on campus. With his team, they work behind the scenes to oversee what happens on campus.
Outdoor Services currently has 35 State Classified (full–time) employees and nearly 50 student and non-student hourly employees. In the summer months, they have nearly 80 student and non-student hourly employees.
“I also really love working with, coaching and guiding our student employees, after all, they are the future,” said Gillespie, adding, “They all have incredible goals, vision and dreams, and I believe it is our responsibility to help them accomplish these in all we do.”
There are a lot of jobs to do on campus and a variety of things to maintain in order to keep our campus looking as remarkable as it does. Besides doing seasonal work and overall maintenance, they are also involved in helping with campus events such as Ram Welcome, homecoming, commencements, and assorted athletic events. Just this fall, they will have six home football games that involves much of the staff.
Besides the regular tasks, there are many odd and sometimes unwelcome jobs. They are involved in pick up and dead critter removal, wasp nest removal/mitigation, graffiti clean-up, transient camp clean-ups, and storm and flood clean-up, just to name a few.
It is a huge amount of work and with rarely a season that is not busy, but there are no complaints from Gillespie. Instead he insists on how much he enjoys the job and working with the people there.
“I love everything about the services we provide the campus,” he said. “I love working with other groups in Facilities Management and the campus community to provide an inviting and aesthetically pleasing environment for all who step foot on our beautiful campus.”
With such a large campus, there are many simple things people can do to help outdoor services. Among those are respecting our campus, throwing away trash in the bins, and being careful of the trees when hammocking and slacklining. Gillespie also asked that if there is a safety concern around campus, that you call Facilities Management at (970) 491-0077 so that they can handle it right away.
