UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — A campus as large as University Park is bound to have a few occasional glitches. However, the University has a system in place to deal with any and all problems that may arise on campus. At Penn State, that unit is called the Work Reception Center (WRC), which is part of the Work Control Division. Both operate out of the Office of Physical Plant (OPP).
The WRC is a 24/7, 365-day-a-year operation. According to Jason Wolfgang, supervisor of the WRC, it is the “911 Center” of maintenance needs. Often, the center must work together with OPP’s Buildings and Grounds division, planners and estimators, and many others to get things fixed on campus.
Customers reach out to the WRC in a variety of ways. They can either place a call directly to the WRC, or a facilities coordinator can put in a request electronically. From there, center workers can pull the request up and process it. If it is an emergent need, the request is sent straight to a technician. Less emergent needs, on the other hand, may be sent to a Trades supervisor who then assigns a technician to the job. If the request deals with routine maintenance, the job goes to the planning and scheduling group.
Since Penn State is such a large university, taking care of the needs of everyone can be a tall order. The WRC handles requests from every building on campus, as well as buildings in downtown State College and in the surrounding areas that are owned by the University. In addition, the WRC tends to areas farther away from campus, such as Shaver’s Creek.
Ian Salada, director of the WCC, said, “OPP employees and customers alike rely on the WRC to be able to handle any question asked of them, and to know how to get problems addressed. OPP is a big organization, and we have a lot of customers; it’s often difficult for anyone to know who to contact for information or help. The WRC solves this, and connects people with the right resources to the people who need them. Without the WRC, everyone would spent a lot more time just tracking down the right contact, instead of working on solving problems.”
The WRC also deals with the challenge of helping on game day at Beaver Stadium. Whenever something breaks at a concession stand or a plumbing or electrical issue occurs, the WRC is there to take the call. Sometimes the center even takes the occasional request from Twitter, which is also monitored in case issues arise.
According to OPP’s Assistant Vice President Steve Maruszewski, the WRC’s job is absolutely essential to maintaining a flourishing campus: “As the key entry point for most of our customers, the Work Reception Center is critically important to OPP’s overall success. Our WRC staff provide exceptional customer service and effectively triage and dispatch the work, all of which positively contributes to our overall customer satisfaction.”
So what does all that mean? It means the WRC often takes in huge amounts of calls and electronic requests. “Over the past seven days we have received 1,612 requests for some sort of maintenance activity at the peak point of the week,” Wolfgang said. “It also tends to get busier any time it’s exceptionally hot or cold outside. When the students came back from winter break we received 200 requests, then it was 400 requests, then 700, and then it cumulatively peaked around 1,100.”
In order to deal with the sometimes massive number of requests, the WRC is constantly occupied. Since it’s a 24/7 operation, the center overlaps employees. Every day, the outgoing overnight employees brief the incoming day shift employees about emergencies. After 3:30 p.m., the WRC cuts back to a skeleton crew of two facilities specialists at the WRC and between two to 10 core trade employees. When the team is reduced to a skeleton crew, they still have the ability to use on-call technicians and call-in trades workers needed to address emergency issues. By the morning, it is typical to see 20 to 40 work requests that have piled up overnight. The stream of requests generally does not stop throughout the day, and often the phone calls range from simple requests for information to much bigger tasks.
“We’ve had all sorts of crazy requests,” Wolfgang said. “We’ve had a piano thrown down an elevator shaft, lobsters in a toilet, and peacocks making their way through campus last summer. The cows at the dairy farms will sometimes get out. No matter what the request is, we take all kinds of calls and deal with all kinds of craziness.”
A job as big as maintaining Penn State’s campus comes with its ups and downs. According to Wolfgang, the most challenging part of their job is making sure that everyone’s needs are met in a timely fashion: “We don’t only serve OPP; we also serve faculty, staff and students. It’s a hard balance to make sure everyone’s needs are met. Sometimes it’s difficult to strike a balance between meeting the expectations of every single customer while also determining what’s appropriate to do now and what needs to wait.” The WRC has to prioritize.
However, working diligently for the University can also be rewarding. “Being able to make sure that the facilities are top-notch for all the students is the best part of the job," said Wolfgang. "Watching students excel is very rewarding and wonderful to see.”
Have an issue on campus? If it’s an emergency, call the Work Reception Center directly at 814-865-4731. For all other issues, contact your Facilities Coordinator. You can find your Facilities Coordinator by searching OPP’s Facilities Coordinator list.