The F&S Card Access team keeps campus safe, by changing lock and unlock permissions of individuals on campus. For example, when a new person is hired, they can get in the parts of a building they need to; just as importantly, names and identities can be removed from entrance and exit permissions lists. The i-card holds all the value, as it is the ‘key’ to … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Card Access Opens Doors
At the 2025 Chief Engineers & Facility Managers Conference, Mike Larson, director of utility operations at Abbott Power Plant, described part of why the Urbana campus is so remarkable in utility and energy production and distribution: chilled water. Cold water, taken down to 42 degrees Fahrenheit at five chillers in Champaign and Urbana, is pumped throughout the campus in 26 miles of underground pipes to … Continue reading 2025 Chief Engineers & Facility Managers Conference: What’s So Cool About Chilled Water
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is a world-leader in teaching, collaboration, research and workforce development – and a conference has helped position Illinois as a leader within the state and region for those who perform similar work to F&S. The Illinois Chief Engineers & Facility Mangers Conference was a two-day gathering held in March, meant to spur discussion and find solutions to common issues at … Continue reading 2025 Chief Engineers & Facility Managers Conference: Keynote Recap
Like most other past winters in Champaign-Urbana, a cold front hit campus hard in January 2025, causing temperatures to plummet to around 0 degrees Fahrenheit for days on end. That’s when the F&S Temperature Control shop does some of their most important work, bringing the heat to buildings, or parts of buildings, that may start suffering from cold. Most impressively, a combination of efforts helped … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Temperature Control Brings the Heat
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is always looking for more Illinois-based companies to perform the work of designing, building and maintaining facilities and land on campus. A team of attention-detailed F&S Capital Programs experts help businesses cross different thresholds to allow them to bid for work to be done. They are the ones to shepherd the project along, and help contractors earn the opportunity to … Continue reading F&S Looking for University Construction Vendors: “We Invite You to Join”
F&S, and the crafts and trades nation-wide, are always looking for the next generation of skilled, passionate professionals who maintain critical utilities systems. Buildings have required heating and electricity for decades, and will continue to for the foreseeable future – it might be the folks from a recent tour to do just that. Parkland College, located in Champaign, is just the place for many students … Continue reading Snowy Daze: Parkland Students Tour F&S Facilities
The President of the University of Illinois System appreciates and values F&S work done at the President’s House, even without considering transformation of beech tree to valued milled artifacts. As one would expect with a home of such symbolic and real world value, the President’s House, completed in 1931, is as marvelous as dozens of other iconic campus buildings. Making it a functional living quarters … Continue reading President’s House and Grounds Upkeep: “Exceptional”
The story of the beech tree at the President’s House was driven mostly by the love the Killeen family had for it – from a toddler grandson to President Tim Killeen and his wife Roberta Johnson Killeen. Johnson Killeen has been an avid gardener in her time at the President’s House, and she valued the beauty and size of the tree; in the growing season, … Continue reading Killeen: F&S a ‘Jewel in the Crown’ of U. of I.
Over 100 years ago, the Main Library opened with a secret kept behind brick. Now 100 years later, it’s been revealed to the modern public: a time capsule! And the only way in was through ‘caveman stuff’ as brickmason foreperson Eric Quinley said. F&S brickmasons wreck, tear, beat and saw their way through walls like these every day. But the impressive part is the ability … Continue reading Shop Spotlight: Brickmasons Part of History
The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is no novice at securing federal research grants. The campus regularly receives among the most federal money between all research universities from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and other federal agencies. And nearly every dollar is for administrating the project or team to accelerate innovation and discovery — they are almost never for ‘capital’ projects … Continue reading $51M IBRL Grant Thanks to F&S
