North Campus

  • Before: North Campus Infrastructure
  • During: North Campus Infrastructure
  • During: North Campus Infrastructure
  • During: North Campus Infrastructure
  • During: North Campus Infrastructure
  • After: North Campus Infrastructure

Reid Ferrero, Director of the Maintenance Project Management Department, has always been motivated by a desire to beautify, create and innovate. From 2002 until 2006, Ferrero served in the US Navy. In 2007, he returned to Athens to receive formal training as a Landscape Architect. He learned from professionals like Chris Swann and David Hale, landscape architects in the UGA grounds department who led the effort to re-green and restore Herty Field in 1998. As a student, Ferrero studied the Herty Field restoration project and learned from many other great campus sites about how to shape environments as a whole.

After graduating with a Bachelor’s of Landscape Architecture in 2013, Ferrero returned to UGA to become a Double Dawg, receiving his Master’s of Landscape Architecture in May 2022. Between his two degrees, Ferrero became a registered Landscape Architect and committed many years of service to UGA, working in FMD’s Grounds Department for three years before joining the Maintenance Project Management Department as a Project Manager in August 2017. 

As a project manager, Ferrero usually worked to coordinate plans involving outdoor landscapes and underground utilities, which he knew a great deal about thanks to his varied work and life experiences. Ferrero says that the greatest skills he learned throughout included the ability to adapt to situations as they were happening, work under compressed timelines and develop a sense of place within individuals who interacted with an exterior environment. It was this combination of unique abilities that allowed Ferrero to manage the renovation of infrastructure and landscapes on North Campus starting in 2021.

“We were incorporating cutting edge infrastructure into some of the oldest buildings on campus, structures that are nearly 200 years old. Sustainability is a big part of everything that we do in Maintenance Project Management. In this specific project, we worked to extend chilled water distribution from district energy plants and increase its use in more buildings on campus. Additionally, we worked to convert a gas-powered steam reduction plant into high-efficiency heat exchangers that would circulate and reuse energy in Candler Hall, Meigs Hall, Moore Hall, Holmes-Hunter Academic Building, the UGA Chapel and New College. All of this was done in the name of maximizing resources, reducing waste and increasing our energy efficiency. That way, the university as a whole can reduce its carbon footprint.”

Previously, the chilled water loop system has been employed in other buildings across campus to reduce water waste, allowing water to be re-circulated for air cooling. It greatly reduces water and energy consumption by including multiple facilities within a single system. Likewise, heat exchangers work to reduce energy waste while also  providing a more reliable energy source for heating and cooling. It provides increased efficiency in controlling indoor climates and reduces the rate of disruptions to HVAC systems. 

The North Campus Infrastructure project has been completed in phases, with the last one set to finish during the upcoming  summer. Now that Reid Ferrero has been promoted to Director of the Maintenance Project Management Department, he will directly oversee the completion of the project, which includes a beautification of the greenspace.

“Going from training under David Hale and learning from his designs for Herty Field on North Campus to reworking this space to incorporate more sustainable infrastructure has been such an amazing experience. As we work to renovate the greenspace here, we have also taken measures to preserve its history. We are planting new native pollinator plants, utilizing crushed, recycled red bricks, that would otherwise end up in a landfill, to be placed around the perimeter for a walkway, and carefully conserving the original 1998 granite curbing for reinstallation after completion. I think this project perfectly encapsulates our aim here in Maintenance Project Management: working to advance sustainability, conservation and preservation, marrying innovative technological advancements to infrastructure, and always still striving to remain true to the rich history and mission here at The University of Georgia."