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b'Marty here with Warehouse and Operations as a Career, I hope you\\u2019ve had a great & prosperous week so far. This week let\\u2019s look at the Building Maintenance side of warehousing, we\\u2019ve mentioned it a couple of times in previous episodes and it\\u2019s definitely a strong and stable department and an excellent career path. In our Production, Distribution and Fleet arenas it takes a strong maintenance department to keep things running, the machinery, warehouse equipment & tractors must stay up so the productivity can be maintained. I\\u2019ve been fortunate to know several people that moved from warehousing, many that started in general labor positions and worked themselves through the tasks to technicians, maintenance leads and Directors and above. Today we\\u2019ll hear from one such gentlemen that started out in the Military, passed through warehousing to the maintenance world & retired from a National Distribution Center as its Director of Building Maintenance and Fleet Services.
\\nBuilding Maintenance can cover many positions depending what industry your working in, today we\\u2019ll try and talk to several, probably across a few different industries, what you see at your facility may be different of course but the positions are interesting to discuss.
\\nWhen one hears Building Maintenance you may think of Janitorial, Plumbing, Electrical, Painting, Furniture, Carpets, Cubicles and such? And all that usually falls under them but several others as well like Security, all the warehouse equipment, HVAC Systems, Heat & Air as well as the warehouse racking, dock doors and any trailer locking devices etc\\u2026
\\nIn Episode 11 we talked with a gentleman that started with a distribution center as general labor and actually, after working his way through many different warehousing positions ended up in the maintenance dept, something he really enjoyed, and retired actually from!
\\nWhat I\\u2019ve seen, is those individuals that love working with their hands or really like mechanics type things that have been hired in warehousing and notice positions within maintenance that they think they\\u2019d like seem to make great technicians. Now of course, as we\\u2019ve learned from others is we\\u2019ll need to be doing a great job at our assigned task, not have any kind of attendance problems and be on our bosses radar as the person that communicates well & is looking for advancement so when we bring up our wishes we can be considered for the move! There are several entry level positions in the field such as Painting, working with Racking, a lot of utility type positions.
\\nThen there\\u2019s the bit more skilled positions, which may or may not require some type of training or certifications like working with the electrical warehouse equipment, pallet jacks, forklifts, conveyer machinery etc.. Probably starting off with changing load wheels & tires, maybe switches and working with the equipment batteries and such. I understand there are several articles, courses and even certifications available on line, many your company may be able to share with you and get you set on the path or curriculum you need.
\\nOne thing I learned many years ago was with working on the garage type doors on the docks, if dealing with those springs you\\u2019d better have a bit of training before touching them LOL, they can be very dangerous!
\\nOf course, you have the HVAC equipment, heating and air conditioning for the building, that\\u2019s a great industry to get into and of course comes with much training and regulatory concerns. I know one gentleman that did just that, he was a general utility man, doing everything from hanging doors, installing locks, touch up painting and such, enrolled in school, the place he was working actually paid part of his tuition & todays he is a certified HVAC Technician.
\\nOne of the best stories I\\u2019ve heard of was a gentleman from Bosnia, he started out in warehousing as a loader, he had an old beater car he had purchased to get back and forth...'