Lane County honors green team and maintenance crews for sustainability work and emergency responses

The Lane County Board of Commissioners on Oct. 28 recognized two county groups for workplace sustainability and critical facilities work. Commissioners and staff presented the Public Service Building Green Team with a Rethink Innovator award and later acknowledged maintenance and landscape technicians for emergency repairs and day-to-day operations across county facilities.

The Public Service Building Green Team received the Rethink Innovator Award from Rethink Business (presented by Sonia Carlson, identified in the meeting as executive director of Bridal). Carlson said the Innovator tier requires answering 80 measures affirmatively, compared with 20 for the ambassador tier, and praised the county for programs that include commingled recycling, electronics and battery collection, environmentally preferred purchasing, repair-before-replace practices and LED lighting upgrades. "These actions demonstrate leadership, commitment, and innovation," Carlson said.

County staff described the green team as a cross-departmental group that worked with Rethink to improve operations at the Public Service Building and courthouse. The team documented energy and utilities data, implemented preferred purchasing standards (for example, recycled-content paper and low-VOC paints), conducted an energy audit, and upgraded building lighting to LED technology.

In a separate recognition the board named members of the maintenance and landscape crews and described recent emergency responses that staff said averted larger service disruptions. Capital planning and facilities manager David Ward and other speakers detailed three examples from the past several months: a chiller failure in the building's data center during a heat wave that supports county and partner agency systems including emergency dispatch; failed air-handling equipment at the Charlton Public Health Building that required compressor and coil repairs; and a collapsed stormwater line on Seventh Avenue that required urgent repair. Ward said the crews "show up, they engage, they bring a positive attitude" and coordinate with contractors to keep services running.

Chair and commissioners praised the crews' service and highlighted the scale of their responsibility: staff said maintenance and landscape teams manage 38 county facilities totaling about 1,300,000 square feet. Commissioners emphasized the crews' role in maintaining safe, functional public buildings and noted the hazardous materials and human crises they occasionally encounter while working in public spaces.

County staff and commissioners named individual employees acknowledged during the meeting, including maintenance specialists Fred Harp, Renee Hernandez, Alfredo Morales, Aliro Ramirez Diaz, Jake Roberts, Fred Rosenberg, Daryl Turner, Gil Tortorici, Josh Westfall and Jim Wright; landscape technicians David, Josie and Chris Mausch; and capital planning and facilities staff such as David Ward and Desiree Holst. The board gave the teams a round of applause and certificates of recognition.

The recognitions were presented during the morning session; the board recessed until an afternoon public hearing scheduled for 1:30 p.m.