For the 2,600 students who attend the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, a beautiful, 94-acre campus is icing on their overall liberal arts education. Featuring ivy-covered walls on the older buildings, along with lush, green turf, the campus won a 2013 Green Star Award from the Professional Grounds Management Society (PGMS). The recognition is for excellence in ground maintenance at an urban university.
Award-winning campuses don’t appear overnight. It takes a few seasons and sometimes several years for new landscaping elements to mature and maintenance practices to begin to take hold. The wait and effort are worth it, according to Grounds Manager Joe Kovolyan, who noted that the look of the campus is one of the top 10 reasons why prospective students apply to the school. It also might well have contributed to his decision two years ago to move his family all the way across country. At the time, he was the Grounds Manager at Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire.
“When I was hired, the school’s administration charged me with improving the care and looks of the grounds,” said Kovolyan. “The university, which dates back to 1888, was already nestled in a beautiful urban setting, but among their concerns they wanted my department to improve the quality of cut, do a more efficient job of handling yard debris, and find ways to reduce noise.”
The PGMS award validates some of these recent improvements, but Kovolyan doesn’t take much credit for the recognition. Instead, he says it goes to his dedicated staff, an administration that values a beautiful campus, and a few new additions to the university’s grounds maintenance fleet.
First Things First
Kovolyan, who also heads up the school’s automotive, sports turf, tree care, and solid waste departments, worked with his 10-person grounds staff to come up with a plan. Part of it involved improving communications with individual academic departments so mowing and other maintenance practices didn’t interfere with class time.
“We mow and maintain the grounds around the academic buildings early in the morning before 9 a.m. and then move to the dorms,” Kovolyan explains. “Maintenance crews typically work together so they can get in and out of specific locations as quickly as possible. Students don’t want to hear mowers and leaf blowers operating all day long at all parts of the campus.” Universities don’t always run by the clock, either, so Kovolyan is in constant contact with instructors and other personnel who may be scheduling special events.
Snowless Near Seattle
Despite the fact that Tacoma and nearby Seattle get very little snow compared to New Hampshire’s White Mountains, maintaining the 54 acres of turf on the campus is still a full-time job for the grounds staff and its seasonal student interns.
“I was very happy to leave the New England winters,” adds Kovolyan with a smile. “But this part of the country has other challenges. Because of the mild winters, we mow all 12 months, albeit the frequency is reduced from weekly to every three weeks in the heart of winter.
“The entire core campus is also irrigated, so grass doesn’t slow down in the hot, dry summer months. The area’s infamous wet falls saturate the soil and fallen leaves, creating challenging mowing and debris-handling conditions.”
Shortly after arriving in spring 2011, Kovolyan made two equipment moves. He purchased new Stihl backpack blowers to help alleviate noise issues. Two new diesel-powered Walker Mowers also helped in that area. “The engines were much quieter than those on the zero-turn gas mowers they replaced,” Kovolyan notes.
But that wasn’t the main reason he chose a different brand of mower. “I used one (Walker) at the prep school and thought they would be ideal here. The GHS decks would do a great job picking up leaves and debris, even in wet conditions, and Walker Mowers are versatile. They can be equipped with a mulching deck for summer mowing, and a GHS deck for the rest of the year. We even purchased a couple of sidedischarge decks for wide-area summer mowing, and a broom to sweep away an occasional snow off sidewalks.”
The grounds department currently operates three Walker Mowers, all MDD models with 20.9-hp diesel engines. In addition to having different sizes and types of decks at their disposal, each mower is also equipped with a high-lift dump and a deck height adjustment kit. The high-lift dump takes the backache out of removing leaves and clippings (the school recycled 800 tons of green waste at a local compost facility last year). The deck adjustment was said to be especially convenient when crews went from mowing the grounds to trimming up sports fields that require a closer cut, and then returning again to mowing the grounds. A Toro “batwing” mower maintains the larger sports fields and recreational areas.
Crews allocate three and a half days to mow the entire campus, which leaves another day and a half to complete other maintenance chores, including installing three seasonal color changes a year; planting and pruning trees; and, yes, keeping the building ivy trimmed.
“We couldn’t do the job without the veteran staff here,” Kovolyan emphasizes. “A couple of employees have been with the school more than 20 years and several have 10 years under their belts. In addition, we employ 10 to 12 work study students during the summer and school year. They help us with special projects, including weeding and maintaining the color, and a few even get to operate the Walker Mowers.”
Down the Road
The grounds department expects to have another Walker Mower in the near future. “They may not be as fast as zeroturn mowers with belly-mounted decks, but what we lose in speed we gain in quality of cut,” Kovolyan points out. “The front-mounted decks also dramatically reduce trimming time.”
Among other moves, he looks to streamline the university’s vehicle fleet, one that includes 16 passenger vans, 12 pickups and more than 20 utility vehicles. In addition to mowers, the grounds department operates edgers, renovators, trash trucks, a few tractors and aerial lifts, nine John Deere Gators and other utility vehicles, and a couple of golf carts.
At the moment, a new addition on the student union will require more landscaping elements. In the meantime, keeping up with the University’s Master Plan to provide an appealing outdoor space will keep the staff busy, not to mention living up to its reputation as stewards of a beautiful and awardwinning campus.
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