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Dear Infrastructure and Sustainability team,

As the new academic year nears, I want to take a moment to reflect on the many successes and milestones achieved during the 2018-19 fiscal year and thank you for the passion and energy you devote to our campus.

While the list merely scratches the surface, below are some highlights of the ways in which you’ve worked over the past year to advance the I&S mission of delivering and maintaining a safe, sustainable and resilient infrastructure that enhances the university’s operations and enables our campus community to meet its mission of education and research.��

• Our Facilities Operations and Services team successfully integrated Transportation Services into the unit. Transportation Services, meanwhile, achieved multiple milestones, coordinating the launch of the Marine Street Express Buff Bus and integrating all our Buff Bus routes into the Transit bus-tracking app to improve the customer experience for students, faculty, staff and visitors. And the division laid the groundwork to take over the Stampede bus route starting next week.��
• Our Sustainability office grew and continues to act as a bridge linking together the many sustainability efforts ongoing across campus, from operations to research to student engagement. The office also continues to advance our reputation nationally on the topic, as evidenced by Chief Sustainability Officer Heidi VanGenderen’s recent testimony in front of the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.
• The Distribution Center (DC) implemented new package tracking software that enables package tracking from the DC to final campus delivery locations. The DC also collaborated with the CU Bookstore on a plan to make deliveries for the bookstore’s warehouse, reducing truck traffic and emissions on campus.
• Coming off a 2018 fiscal year that saw our campus waste diversion rate top 50 percent for the first time, our Environmental Services team collected and transported 2,400 tons of waste and recycling from more than 100 campus locations. The group also took over Green Labs materials collections from an outside vendor, increasing efficiency and improving collection intervals.
• Our Campus Building Services team partnered with the Auraria Higher Education Campus in Denver to host a COAPPA lunch and learn session on floorcare and safety, building collaboration with other schools and sharing our own expertise beyond the campus.��
• Our Real Estate Services division closed on the purchase of 1135 Broadway, which will soon become the new home of the Renée Crown Wellness Institute, and continues to work toward progress on ɫ��Ƶ���� South and a new hotel and conference center.  
• Our sustainable transportation team helped coordinate the recent launch of 10 new electric vehicle charging ports at SEEC, bringing the total number of ports on campus to 27.
• Our Strategic Facilities Visioning team facilitated meaningful discussions with stakeholders from across the campus to envision how our campus infrastructure will take shape over the coming decades to best serve the campus mission.
• Our Planning, Design and Construction team is deep into our Housing Master Plan and Transportation Master Plan efforts, which along with Strategic Facilities Visioning, will all feed into our 2021 Campus Master Plan.
• Our Facilities Management teams have overseen and collaborated on projects totalling more than 410,000 square feet of new construction on campus over the past year, including the new Aerospace Engineering Sciences building and Williams Village East Residence Hall that will officially open this month. That’s not to mention countless smaller non-capital projects, major renovations and the new 23rd Street Pedestrian Bridge spanning Boulder Creek.
• Our Space Optimization team has continued its rollout of new guidelines for space allocation and provided metrics and analysis that help us make the best use of the spaces we have on campus.
• In addition to caring for thousands of trees and flowers, hundreds of acres of pristine lawns and collaborating on new construction projects, our Outdoor Services team is making a major push toward battery-powered equipment, so far replacing 50 percent of gas-powered string trimmers, 21-inch lawn mowers and blowers.
• Our I&S apprenticeship program has yielded new opportunities for staff members in areas such as Environmental Health and Safety and the Distribution Center.
• Our Environmental Health and Safety team worked with the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health to perform a Health Hazard Evaluation for secondhand cannabis exposure to public safety personnel at the Dead and Company concert.
• I&S Human Resources has moved into the implementation phase with its Individual Development Plan (IDP) program that will help drive employee engagement and create new paths for growth. In addition, our Infrastructure and Sustainability Mentor Program (ISMP) grew by 18 percent over last year’s participation, with 50 percent first-time participants.

I am grateful for all that you do and am excited for the milestones yet to come. The coming year will see much more happening on the strategic planning front as we launch our Energy Master Plan and begin building upon the work of that plan, the housing and transportation master plans, and Strategic Facilities Visioning to create a foundation for our next Campus Master Plan due in 2021. These projects will impact how each of us supports the mission of this university well into the future.��

The impact we have on this campus is immeasurable, and I want to commend you on the great work being done.

Sincerely,
David Kang, vice chancellor for Infrastructure and Sustainability 

How long have you been working at CU?
I started at ɫ��Ƶ���� in October of 2014 so we’re coming up on five years now!

What is your favorite thing to do outside of work?
That’s a tough one.��I love to be outside gardening, hiking, biking, or kayaking, but the creative bug in me finds me making cards, scrapbooking, or creating learning games when outside fun isn’t an option.��

Tell us something that might surprise us about you? 
Our family lived in Tromso, Norway for a year when I was 12 and during that time we would cross-country ski up above the tree line and ski back down the mountain.��During that time I found a way to break two pairs of skis jumping.��I suppose I didn’t realize they weren’t really designed for that.

What do you love about ɫ��Ƶ����? 
Ralphie is pretty cool, but the people I work with at the Distribution Center are probably my favorite part of CU.��I have to say that walking out the door looking at the mountains is pretty awesome as well.

What has been the most important innovation you have witnessed in your lifetime?
Online learning.��I’ve taught piano and music theory online for a number of years both in a classroom and more recently online.��I am currently in an Instructional Design and Adult Learning master’s program through CU Denver and loving every minute of it.��The opportunity to reach so many learners locally and around the world through online learning is a great equalizer for many.��People who couldn’t attend classes during the day or in a specific location now have the opportunity to tap into knowledge they could never before have dreamed of.��I see the power in online, hybrid, and blended learning as a tool with the potential to revolutionize education as we know it.

What is your favorite type of music?
Music has been a huge part of my life.��I have taught piano and music theory for a number of years and have a son who is in a band signed with Sony music, and he produces music as well.��Obviously my favorite type of music is their music, which one would classify as alternative rock, but I’d call it more classic rock myself.

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