Sharing Knowledge and Place ?EUR??,,????'??+ Profile: John Gonzalez, Director of Grounds, Whittier College, Calif.

By Leslie McGuire, managing editor

The campus has many different varieties of palms ?EUR??,,????'??? Canary Island date palms, queen palms, California and Mexican fan palms. Gonzalez is a certified pest control applicator as well as a licensed pest control advisor who can write recommendations for pest application. In addition, he?EUR??,,????'???s a certified arborist by the ISA. ?EUR??,,????'??+ Inset: John Gonzalez attended Cal Poly, Pomona and got his degree in ornamental horticulture with and emphasis on landscape contracting. He also has certification in landscape irrigation design from the Landscape Engineering Department at Cal Poly. Photos courtesy of Whittier College

John Gonzalez is the Director of Grounds overseeing Whittier College, a small liberal arts college in Whittier, Calif. He and his staff take care of the 70 plus acre campus, with four sports fields, residential housing and administration buildings, parking lots, landscaped areas as well as the naturalized areas. They operate on a shoestring budget and all their equipment is over ten years old, but they still manage to keep the grounds looking wonderful.

Gonzalez had worked for the college for five years, and when the grounds management got outsourced to a facilities management company he went to work for that company, Sodexho USA. His knowledge and expertise has brought him through all the transitions, so he?EUR??,,????'???s been taking care of the grounds for a total of 15 years.

They try to practice Integrated Pest Management as much as they can, however because it?EUR??,,????'???s a school, they are limited. Mostly, they use Round-up which is a glyphosate. Gonzalez prefers to do that work early in the morning when people aren?EUR??,,????'???t up.

Not only does he manage the entire 70 acres, but the four athletic fields which provide play for baseball, football, a football stadium that doubles as a lacrosse field, a soccer field and a recent addition of a softball field. The campus, surrounded by hills, also has several acres of naturalized areas. In addition to the 12 acres of turf including the sports fields, there are 100 planting beds, three rose gardens with over 200 roses, and close to 500 trees which need tender loving care.

This premier site could be a museum piece and arboretum. The trees vary from native oaks to jacarandas eucalyptus, flowering pears, sycamores, pine trees, many different varieties of palms ?EUR??,,????'??? Canary Island date palms, queen palms, California and Mexican fan palms?EUR??,,????'??+liquid ambers, ash trees, carrotwood trees, bald cypress, elms, ash and a few olive trees.

Their smaller tools consist of three Echo weed eaters or string trimmers, two Truecut edgers, two Echo chainsaws, seven Echo backpack blowers as well as the usual collection of hand tools.

The Toro 46-inch riding rotary mower is for use in the smaller areas. Mowing is done weekly except the sports fields which are mowed twice a week. They have two Honda walk behind 21-inch mowers as well.

Although the staff maintains the trees up to about 25 to 30 feet, the larger trees are maintained by outside contractors on a bid basis. They handle everything they can reach with a pole trimmer and do skirting of the lower branches so vehicles can go under. But no heavy trimming.

Gonzalez and his crew have to repair the damage done by the construction, as well as the new landscaping needs involved with plantings to be installed, and the repairs that need to be made when outside installers make mistakes.

The college lends their facility to a couple of the local high schools, so the fields have to be prepared for about 13 games total?EUR??,,????'??+with the high schools accounting for about five with eight games for the college. Lining the field takes two days. Their machines include three riding mowers, a Ford CM 274 rotary riding mower with a collection system that handles all the open large turf areas. They have a Toro Reelmaster for use on the sports fields, which are a hybrid Bermuda mix and are mowed to a lower height than the rest of the turf.

Gonzalez attended Cal Poly, Pomona and got his degree in ornamental horticulture with and emphasis on landscape contracting. He also has certification in landscape irrigation design from the Landscape Engineering Department at Cal Poly. He?EUR??,,????'???s a certified pest control applicator as well as a licensed pest control advisor who can write recommendations for pest application. In addition, he?EUR??,,????'???s a certified arborist for the ISA and a certified water auditor through the Irrigation Association. Gonzalez has been in the in landscape business for 20 years. Prior to this, he worked in environmental care as an irrigation technician, then went on to work as a landscape maintenance supervisor in Monrovia, Calif.

With a crew of eight, everybody multitasks, himself included. Of those eight, one is an irrigation technician who doubles as his mechanic. His sports field technician handles all the fields, and one crew member handles sanitation and doubles as a grounds keeper. They handle all the mowing done, plus maintaining a synthetic all weather track made out a rubber composite, which is excellent for running. Their summer work schedule is 6 AM to 2:30 PM, and their winter schedule is 7 AM to 3:30 PM.

Weekly tailgate meetings that last 10 to 15 minutes are held to see if the staff needs anything such as goggles or safety gloves. Gonzalez delivers 15 training sessions on safety topics per year. They include back, eye and ear protection, chemical training, plus lock out and tag out for electrical safety.

The maintenance equipment is maintained by the crew. Some machines are sent out to maintenance shops when necessary.

The major challenge for Gonzalez, personally, has been the issues raised in the transition to being outsourced. That is a whole different way of operating and a whole different philosophy. The challenges on a work level include having to be flexible with student and events on campus, having to re-schedule work around construction, plus the fact that the school is in a residential neighborhood. Even more challenging is his limited budget and resources. His staff was taken down from 14 to 8 crew members which creates many problems.

The newer areas on campus have a Marathon fescue and in the others, they use a park blend, a mix of grasses as opposed to a monoculture like Bermuda, which is more wear tolerant Some areas use a dwarf fescue, perennial rye and Bermuda mix.

Since the landscaping and grounds are the first impression people get. That?EUR??,,????'???s the impression they?EUR??,,????'???re going to take with them. When they look at the level of maintenance and the people who are taking care of it, they realize that not only do they care about the environment they also will take care of the students and faculty. This is critical to enrollment and endowment.

The biggest push is on the sports fields?EUR??,,????'??+lining the football field and dragging the baseball field. The infield brick dust has to be turned over and fluffed, leveled, watered so it?EUR??,,????'???s not too compacted. The lining or striping the football field, however, is the big thing.

Not only is the care of the environment impressive, it indicates the level of care for the students and faculty. This is critical to enrollment and endowment.

The newer areas on campus have a Marathon fescue and in the others, they use a park blend, a mix of grasses as opposed to a monoculture like Bermuda, which is more wear tolerant Some areas use a dwarf fescue, perennial rye and Bermuda mix.

Gonzalez, of course, is required to do monthly staff safety training. He also has weekly tailgate meetings that last 10 to 15 minutes to see if the staff needs anything such as goggles or safety gloves. He delivers 15 training sessions on safety topics per year. That includes back, eye and ear protection, chemical training, plus lock out and tag out for electrical safety. If something is tagged it can?EUR??,,????'???t be used until the person who tagged it comes back and fixes it or says it?EUR??,,????'???s OK. In addition, they cover heat exhaustion training, annual fire safety training (so everyone knows how to operate fire extinguishers), PPE or personal protective equipment training, explaining what they need for each piece of equipment.

In addition to the 12 acres of turf including the sports fields, there are 100 planting beds, three rose gardens with over 200 roses, and close to 500 trees which need tender loving care.

John Gonzalez is not only very knowledgeable, but he is a good teacher. When a superintendent knows as much about his site as John knows about Whittier College, sharing that knowledge is not only a task that bears great rewards, but one that everyone around him can really appreciate?EUR??,,????'??+especially those lucky enough to work with him.