Greetings FM team,
Now that power has been restored to campus, I want to pause to thank everyone across FM who played a role in responding to this challenging event.
Beginning Saturday afternoon, our teams quickly got to work following a significant electrical fault that disrupted power across campus. While much of campus was back online within the first 24 hours, isolating and repairing the underground fault required extensive testing and careful coordination to ensure the work was completed safely. Many of you worked long hours over Father's Day weekend to get campus back up and running, and I know that meant time away from your families.
Events like this are never the work of a single team or person. They require collaboration across FM, where we support each other, solve problems together, and work closely with our contractor partners. Every contribution mattered, and I am incredibly proud of the way you showed up for campus and the teamwork you demonstrated throughout this response.
I want to recognize the outstanding work of our Engineering & Energy team, Electric Shop, and HVAC staff, whose technical expertise and tireless efforts were essential to getting campus back online. Thank you to the Customer Response Center for serving as a steady point of contact throughout the outage, coordinating service requests, answering questions, and helping keep the campus informed as conditions evolved. The FM Warehouse also played an important role in ensuring crews had the materials and supplies they needed throughout the response.
Finally, I want to extend a special thank you to Brian Trest for coordinating this effort. Large-scale incidents like this require steady leadership, thoughtful decision-making, and constant communication, and Brian helped ensure our response remained organized and focused from start to finish.
Thank you again for everything you do for the UMD community.
Best,
Bill
William Olen
Interim Associate Vice President and Chief Facilities Officer
Facilities Management
University of Maryland
301-405-7336
wolen@umd.edu