Landscapers beautify campus throughout the year.
Bob Abbott works at the University of Kansas all year, but he’s not a professor, administrator or any other member of the faculty. Abbott is a maintenance service supervisor, which means he works on landscaping our beloved campus.
Abbott leads a seven-person crew—one of four on campus. Abbott’s crew focuses mainly on trees, but recently took care of pulling the dead tops off of all the irises decorating the Hill. It’s one of several jobs that the 33 full-time and eight temporary staff members are responsible for handling. According to Mike Lang, director of Facilities Operations, crews are responsible for planting the 14,000 tulips used each year (along with a variety of other plants and flowers), providing upkeep for all of the plants and, most importantly, picking up trash. Lang says most crew members will spend some part of every shift on garbage duty.
While gathering trash is a year-round project, a lot of jobs the maintenance crew is responsible for vary depending on the season and can be especially intense during bad weather. Lang credits his staff’s quick response for the campus’s usually swift rebound after a storm and says that, during the microburst in spring 2006, his crew was there, ready to work, without him having to call and ask them to come in. It’s this dedication that makes KU one of the most beautiful campuses in the Midwest.
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