Program in the Elevator Shop provides on-the-job training and helps grow team expertise.
Photo: Edsel Spellman (left) and David Fultz at World Facilities Day
UMB’s Elevator Shop within Operations and Maintenance (O&M) is responsible for maintaining all campus elevators and lifts. With 381 customer requests, 2,864 preventative maintenance (PM) work orders, and 81 corrective actions taken on those PM work orders in 2023 alone, the small team is kept busy! Thanks to an elevator apprenticeship program, the team is growing in expertise to better service the UMB campus.
Edsel Spellman has been at UMB for five years, starting out in the Electric Shop within O&M. During this time, he went through an apprenticeship program to become an electrical journeyman. After moving over to the Elevator Shop, Spellman was looking to complete the four-year Certified Elevator Technician (CET) program. The first two years of the program teach core curriculum and conclude with a CET Level 1 exam, after which the candidate becomes an Associated Elevator Technician. Luckily for Spellman (and UMB), the first two years of the apprenticeship programs for electrical journeymen and elevator technicians are the same. Thus, he was able to test out of the first two years of the CET program and skip straight away to the advanced curriculum of CET Level 2, which will take two years.
Spellman aptly describes the elevator apprenticeship program as a place “where aspiring technicians rise, one floor at a time, sculpting a future of safe vertical transportation.”
With several staff members nearing retirement, the Elevator Shop expects to have another apprenticeship opportunity in the near future to certify the next generation of technicians. In addition, the shop has an open position now for an Elevator Technician I, II, or III; more information can be found on UMB’s Jobs Portal.
“There’s a very small community of elevator technicians,” says David Fultz, manager of the Elevator Shop at UMB. According to Fultz, the apprenticeship program has been a great way to fulfill staffing needs and strengthen the team’s technical skills with education and on-the-job training.
Melissa Morland, executive director of O&M, adds that the shop is “lucky to have the expertise on our team through David Fultz so we can offer this on-the-job training program. This apprenticeship program allows us to provide a current employee with a growth opportunity while filling a historically hard to fill position.”