UAA Facilities news on promotions and location updates

Facilities and Campus Services is pleased to update the campus community with important updates on personnel changes and a location update.

Kara Monroe - Grounds Supervisor After the retirement of Catherine Shenk earlier this summer, Kara stepped up as acting supervisor for the Grounds team. Kara was then selected as the permanent supervisor and began her duties on Aug. 19. She brings a wealth of experience to the position and has been with the team for over 5 years. This summer she also became a Certified Arborist!

Phil Bacher - Associated Director of Facilities Maintenance This position has been vacant for several years and with the recent retirement of Tom Sternberg, Director of Maintenance and Operations, this was an opportune time to bring the position back. After a national search, Phil Bacher was selected. Phil started his new role Sept. 2. He has served in several capacities at UAA in his over 20 years of service, most recently as the Building Maintenance Supervisor. Phil is most known for his humor at work and his expertise in door hardware, locks and door control. He will oversee the Building Maintenance, Electrical, Mechanical, Automations, and Preventative Maintenance shops for the Anchorage campus.

Ryan Buchholdt - Facilities Deputy Director/Chief of Staff Ryan has been with Facilities for over 6 years, and for the past couple years he has absorbed increasingly high-level duties as people retired. His position has evolved to include being the backup to the AVC for Facilities, coordinating with utilities and municipal entities, serving as the department's member on UAA's Incident Management Team, labor relations issues, and sustainability and energy leadership. Recently Ryan served as the interim Director of Environmental Health and Safety.

Additional news: The Facilities central office and Facilities Planning and Construction department have relocated from the University Lake Building to Gordon Hartlieb Hall, where the Facilities Maintenance and Operations has been located for many years. All Facilities departments are now located within GHH. This move facilitates operational efficiencies for our facilities team and it improves our space utilization. The affected units have compressed from an office suite larger than 4,100 sf to less than 3,000 sf. At UAA, we continue to compress our operations and consolidate our footprint, allowing for our very limited resources to be extended to other priorities including improved service to our students and our academic learning environments.

September Archive