Samantha Pryor

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Dan Williams wakes up each morning at about 4:30 a.m. and arrives at Cal Poly around 6:00 a.m.

His first task is to check for garbage can overflow. He then investigates the stairwells, making sure there are no safety hazards that could cause a person to trip or fall. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, he mows each lawn for three to four hours. Mowing can start as early as 5 a.m., depending on the day.

Williams tries to get to work early in order to get the task finished before a majority of students show up for class. Mowing can be a noisy chore, especially behind the echoes of building 10; he can only pull it off until 10 a.m.

He begins at the corner of Highland Drive and California Boulevard. From there he mows the following areas on campus: engineering buildings, campus market, key shop, North Perimeter Road, library, Dexter Lawn, Alex and Faye Spanos Theater, Christopher Cohan Performing Arts Center, Graphic Arts building, health center and the president’s house.

Before working as a lead in the inner campus zone, however, Williams began working at Cal Poly as a grounds worker for the sports complex and then as a lead in the housing department.

“I went over to inner campus because I wanted more of a challenge,” he said. “It’s event driven a lot in the inner campus.”

Working in the horticultural business for a little over 30 years now, Williams laughed as he mentioned that he started out as a business major in college.

“I didn’t like sitting behind a desk all day, so I stopped and went to a junior college,” he said.

Williams went on to work in a nursery and started to learn the trade by watering plants and delivering flowers. He even became a certified nurseryman.

“I loved it,” he said. “You work with customers a lot and people coming with problems with their plants. It’s a lot of interaction.”

Williams has worked at Cal Poly for 14 years and each year enjoys taking pride in all the landscape areas. According to Ron Hostick, landscape manager, Williams’ desire to have a successful facility is very evident.

“He is thoughtful on how he does his work,” Hostick said. “He takes into consideration a variety of different attributes that each person has and tries to build on those.”

William’s position as a lead allows him to facilitate a group of five other grounds workers. He assists them in their daily workload and helps them build upon new landscape projects.

One of the more recent landscape projects Williams conducted was the renovation of Dexter Lawn between Soar and Week Of Welcome (WOW).

The renovation of the lawn was short lived, seeing as the “WOW tank,” as Williams calls it, arrived directly after he had just finished seeding the lawn.

“I see that as just the cost of doing business,” he said. “We’re here for the students.”

When asked where Williams sees himself in 10 years, he chuckled.

“Hopefully retired,” he said. “[But] I really do like working here. I’m real happy.”