HOSPITAL
DUKE
VOL. 8, NO. 8 JT'NE, 1961 l)v KllAM, X. ('.
Mr. Ken Howard, Duke rniversity’.s Plant and MaintcMiancc Knrin«‘r,
lias been liero at Duke for many years. A native Ncn-tli Carolinian, he is a
{'radnate of onr Seliool of P^n^ineeriiifj. Since that time, with the exception
of four years in the Navy dnrinfj the war, he has been heli)infj; maintain, re
pair and ex])and the I'niversity in f^eneral and the hospital in partieidar.
He retnrne(l to Dnke from the Navy in l!)4(i as Plant and Maintenane('
Engineer.
Duke photo by S|)arks
Call
Maintenance!
If you periodically bemoan the end
less task of maintaining your 1500
square foot home, consider what a
fantastic, job it is to maintain the
iledical Center’s grcuind.s and over
8,()()(),000 cubic feet of buildings! No
wonder the plirase “call mainte
nance” can be heard in every depart
ment of the hosjjital almost daily—
and often in the middle of the night,
too!
There is one director of mainte
nance for the entire Tniversity, Mr.
\V. E. Whitford, but tlie care of the
Medical ('enter is the particidar re-
syjonsibility of (Jhi(>f Engineer Ken
Howaril and his staff. The size of the
work force needed to keej) the hos
pital in good working order varies
according to the number of s]>ecial
projects (such as the current rewiring
of tlie Medical School building) being
undertaken. In general, however, a
crew of about men is recjuired.
“Maintenance” is scarcely a broad
enough term to cover tlie many facets
of this department’s duties. Theii'
resi)onsibilities include all electrical
facilities, carjientry, furniture re])air,
building repair, j)ainting, elevator
service, the teleplione switchboard
(Lee Murray is in charge of this small
city-sized switeliboard and its care),
all of the intercommunications sys
tems, heating, air conditioning, elec
tronics maintenance (including radio
and TV repair), plumbing, refrigera
tion, waste disposal (this includes run
ning the hospital incinerator, main
taining the crematory, removing the
mountains of garbage, and disposing
of radioactive waste at the new under
ground area recently built in the
Duke Forest), maintenance of vehicles
and warehouse facilities.
This department handles thousands
of jobs each year ranging from th(‘
re])air of a leaky faucet to the rewir
ing of a whole building. This rewiring
is now being done in the Medical
Sc'hool to meet tin* greatly increased
demand in the laboratories for u(‘w
e(|ui])m(‘ut that reciuires more powi'r
to 0))erate. Walls are being brokcMi
into to allow for the heavier wires,
enlarg(‘d transformers, and switch
facilities.
Kec])ing nj) with a growing Medical
Center is a big job and ]\lr. Howard
and liis staff do a sup(‘rb job that
often goc's comph'tely unnoticed and
unapi)reciated by most of us.