How IUEC Elevator Constructors Keep Notre Dame University Moving Safely
“I would say they’re the best in the industry,” said Tony Polotto, Senior Director of Construction and Quality Assurance for the University of Notre Dame, speaking about the IUEC elevator constructors who install, maintain, repair, and inspect the university’s vertical transportation equipment. “The mechanics that we get – the technicians and the workmanship that we get from the organization – is top notch.”
Established in 1842, the University of Notre Dame is located in South Bend, Indiana. It has grown to encompass almost 200 buildings with 11,000,000 square feet under their collective roofs. Tony told us that on a typical day during the school year, there will be about 8,500 students and 5,800 employees somewhere on the university’s grounds. And while the football stadium holds 80,000 spectators, it’s not uncommon for 150,000 visitors to show up on game day to tailgate and enjoy the campus and the camaraderie with their friends and family.
“The University of Notre Dame historically has completed about $100 million in construction per year. I think by the last count we have over 254 elevators on campus that consistently need to operate. So the elevators are widely used – not just for passengers, but freight, and also day-to-day operations,” he said.
Between the campus, grounds, and football stadium, the elevators at the University of Notre Dame move hundreds of thousands of people every year. It’s critically important that Notre Dame’s vertical transportation equipment runs smoothly, reliably, and above all, safely. Ensuring consistent, reliable service for students, faculty, athletes, and staff through the historic buildings on campus is essential, so the university has made ongoing preventive elevator maintenance a priority.
“There are several buildings on campus that only have one elevator. If it goes down and we have a special needs person in that building, (there are) consequences to that. So the elevator program – to make sure that they’re in good functionality and there’s a good program for maintenance and a good program for renewal and replacement, is top priority for the university.”
Working with an IUEC-affiliated company, a reliable maintenance control program (MCP) was simple to set up and implement.
“We visit each elevator out here every month. Some of them we visit twice a month,” said Randy Soper, a service mechanic at Notre Dame University and member of IUEC Local 44, who services and maintains the elevators on campus. Randy has been working on the university’s elevators since 2019, so he understands how important it is to keep the conveyance equipment up and running for the students, faculty, athletes, staff, and visitors who rely on it every day.
“The sooner you can catch a problem before it becomes a problem where someone can be stuck, the better off it is,” he said.
Bethany Wilson, another IUEC service mechanic out of Local 44, has worked with Randy on the elevator systems at Notre Dame. She shares Randy’s commitment to making sure the people on campus can go about their day without worrying if they are going to be able to get to where they need to go.
“The riding public doesn’t have to worry about it. You can go up to an elevator, you can push a button, and it just works. The doors open, they close, and you feel safe riding it, and you are safe riding it – and that’s because the work is completed by union elevator constructors who are and do it safely,” she said.
Safety is always a top priority for IUEC apprentices and mechanics. From the beginning of their apprenticeship at the industry’s most rigorous and respected training institute – the National Elevator Industry Educational Program (NEIEP) – to the time they are mechanics enrolled in NEIEP’s wide selection of continuing education courses online or in-person, to the ongoing safety training companies affiliated with the IUEC provides, the focus is on doing their work efficiently and safely.
While visiting Notre Dame, we also had a chance to catch up with Randy Kinder, who attended Notre Dame in the 90s and was a running back for the legendary Fighting Irish before moving on to positions with the Philadelphia Eagles and the Green Bay Packers, where he was a member of the Packers’ NFC Championship team in 1997.
“I got here as a freshman in 1993. I played football here and ran track for a year. I left here after playing football for four years and went on and had a very short but exciting career in the NFL,” he told us.
After leaving the NFL, Randy went on to build a new career in the investment industry. He worked for more than 20 years for the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, and today works for Entrust Global. As an Executive Board Member of Holtz’s Heroes, a charitable organization founded by the University’s football alumni, he still visits the Notre Dame campus often. We spoke at length about his experience there as a student athlete, and about his reverence for his alma mater.
“I learned a lot here, and the things I learned at this university I’ve taken with me everywhere and they still hold true,” he said. “You’re expected to be excellent both on the field and off. It’s not about being perfect, but about continuing to seek perfection, continuing to seek excellence. That’s something I learned definitely here on the campus of Notre Dame.”
He continued, “There’s a level of excellence and expectation that is live on this campus, the work that the elevator constructors do, that all of the workers on this campus do, is key and paramount to making sure that level of excellence is always there… at places like Notre Dame, you just take for granted how well things go. You take for granted that the dining hall is going to be operating the right way so that you can grab food at any point after a late practice where it may be. You take for granted that when you walk into your building you can get up to your dorm.”
Tony told us he is pleased with his experience working with IUEC mechanics, who he considers an important part of the Notre Dame community. “They are true Notre Dame people… they’re top-grade mechanics that have been at this university for a long time. They have wonderful camaraderie and relationships with all the other contractors, our building managers, and our supervisors.”
“Their technical skills are amazing,” he continued. “I can’t remember the last time we had a failure with an elevator, new or renovation, that they couldn’t quickly address. And it’s the reliability of knowing what you’re going to get, and, basically, not having to worry about what’s behind the curtain.”
