A proactive approach to campus recreation facility maintenance can help departments extend asset lifecycles, control costs, improve safety, and keep facilities ready for students and campus communities.
When a campus recreation facility runs smoothly, most students aren’t thinking about what keeps equipment working, fields playable and spaces clean.
Behind daily use is a constant cycle of inspections, repairs, preventive maintenance and asset management. For many campus recreation departments, that work extends far beyond just fixing what breaks.
At the University of Wisconsin-Madison (UWM) Recreation and Wellbeing, the facilities team is responsible for everything from fitness and sports equipment to gym floors, pools, an ice rink, outdoor grounds, and more than 50 acres of natural and synthetic turf.
Brian McGuire, the building and grounds superintendent at UWM, said the department uses a work order management system to inventory assets, schedule maintenance, and let staff and students report issues.
Proactive maintenance is key to keeping facilities safe and clean.
In addition to the department’s management system, student staff at UWM regularly clean, inspect and adjust equipment to identify minor issues before they become larger problems. A group of full-time professional staff oversees the facility, ensuring inspections are completed on schedule and all required maintenance is performed.
“For outdoor spaces — including tennis courts, volleyball courts, basketball courts, the ropes course, over 40 acres of natural turf and over 10 acres of synthetic turf — we conduct daily morning trash collection and facility inspections,” explained McGuire. “This proactive approach helps us quickly identify and address maintenance needs.”
UWM’s approach shows how preventative maintenance can become part of a department’s daily operations. Online systems can also help teams move beyond scheduled inspections by giving teams more insight into equipment status and service needs.
Rather than waiting for equipment to fail, maintenance management systems can help teams use service histories, usage data and automated alerts to identify potential problems earlier.
The result is a shift in how departments think about maintenance: from a reactive task to an ongoing strategy for keeping facilities safe, functional and ready to serve students.
McGuire said the system at UWM automatically generates maintenance requests based on customized schedules and a barcode process allows every staff member and student user to report issues.
“We take a highly proactive approach to maintenance,” said McGuire. “In the long run, this strategy reduces unexpected work orders, makes it easier to stay ahead of maintenance demands, and provides a better experience for our users by minimizing equipment and facility downtime.”
That approach is becoming increasingly important as many campus rec teams look for ways to extend the life of their assets, limit downtime and make smarter use of limited resources including maintenance budgets.
Thomas Meury, the product manager for Life Fitness, said he’s also noticed more proactive maintenance in campus rec departments, with more teams wanting to minimize downtime.
“Each hour a machine sits out of service is an hour it isn’t delivering value to members or a return on the facility’s investment,” explained Meury. “Reactive maintenance — fixing things only after they break — increases that downtime because it takes time to assess the issues and then make the required repairs.”
For Meury, shifting from reactive to proactive maintenance should be the expectation. Automated alerts on equipment status, service due dates and usage trends can help teams focus on what’s immediately needed rather than waiting for the next problem to occur.
Want to learn more about Life Fitness Facility Connect? Learn more here.
Preventive maintenance also helps teams manage budgets. The facilities team at UWM aims to replace equipment regularly, and since they take good care of it year-round, trade-in values are high and the cost of new units is reasonable.
“Too often, I’ve seen organizations invest heavily in major repairs only to replace the equipment shortly afterward because it was already nearing the end of its lifecycle,” said McGuire. “I prefer to avoid that situation. With proper planning, budgeting and preventative maintenance, these unnecessary expenses can often be prevented.”
For campus rec leaders, that long-term perspective is critical. Maintenance isn’t about simply responding to the next broken piece of equipment but understanding what’s being used, when equipment needs attention and when it should ultimately be replaced.
Ultimately, when equipment is available, facilities are safe and spaces are ready when students need them, leaders know the work behind the scenes is doing exactly what it should.
