There are four new "go to" people for facilities work at Cornell.

They are four of the most experienced senior directors in the Division of Facilities Services, who have added "campus manager" to their current titles.

Since Dec. 1, their main job has been to create stronger relationships between the Division for Facilities Services and the units and colleges it serves. "This is all about building relationships and being very deliberate about it," said Vice President for Facilities Services Kyu-Jung Whang. "The campus managers are establishing strong, trusting, effective partnerships with the key stakeholders: deans, vice presidents, unit facilities directors and managers, the academic community and anyone else with a vested interest in the university's physical assets."

Each campus manager has been assigned a zone representing roughly one-fourth of campus, or about 3 million square feet of facilities. The campus manager is responsible for coordinating and advocating for all facilities needs and planning of the units and colleges within that zone.

The goal is for campus managers to become stewards of and experts on the facilities in their respective zones. They will also provide guidance to facilities directors of each unit in the zone, advising on the coordination and oversight of everything from the planning of construction and the use of space to construction and renovation administration to the management of maintenance, operations, code compliance, utility conservation and sustainability. They will also serve as a liaison between units in each zone and the facilities division, facilitating the sourcing of services from such units as engineering and real estate, said campus manager Randy Lacey '77, M.E. '99, university engineer and director of facilities engineering. "From my position inside facilities, I can see a lot of capabilities, a lot of talent, and if I can connect that better with the needs of the college, I think that will be very helpful," Lacey said.

The Division of Facilities Services has named four campus managers. They and the zones they serve are:

Jim Kazda, Zone 1: Colleges of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Human Ecology, Veterinary Medicine, and the ILR School;

Gilbert Delgado, Zone 2: Colleges of Arts and Sciences, Architecture, Art and Planning, the Johnson School, the School of Hotel Administration, and Day Hall;

Randy Lacey, Zone 3: College of Engineering, Cornell University Library, the Office of the Vice Provost for Research, the Law School; and

John Kiefer, Zone 4: Student and Academic Services units, including Campus Life, Dining, Athletics, Gannett Health Services and Cornell United Religious Work.

Note: See the campus map for other facilities.

They will also manage, account for and report on each zone's budgets for capital improvement, maintenance and facilities operations, Lacey said. "With tight budgets, you've got to be smarter about how you spend what you have. We can't afford to have something that was really important to a college not get approved because people didn't understand the college's need," he said.

The campus managers also are trying to pair a unit's renovation funds with the facilities division's maintenance funds. For example, a 2010 Olin Hall renovation was funded equally by the College of Engineering and the facilities division, Lacey said.

"That resulted in a really wonderful space, a tremendous upgrade, that neither budget would have been able to handle by itself: window replacements, air conditioning, lighting, everything put together in one project," Lacey said. They'll also look at ways to leverage the resources allocated to the zone as a whole, taking advantage of economies of scale and scope.

The initiative is part of the Administrative Streamlining Program, which the university established in December 2009 as part of a strategy to "reimagine Cornell" as a leaner, more academically excellent university.

"The zone system is one of several tools we're using to streamline facilities services. It will enable facilities professionals from various units and functional areas to work together as a responsible and responsive team," Whang said. "Eventually the zone system will replace the redundant functional areas now in so many units. But that can only happen when, through partnerships, we build trust among stakeholders in each zone."