Bryan Visser
A man of 59 years in jeans and a work shirt sits at his desk. He sits in his office as he considers when to plow the snow on the college.
But his eyes aren’t on the snow. They’re on a computer screen. He checks the weather reports online as he quietly considers when the snowfall will let up enough to properly plow the driveways and walkways.
He then turns his attention to charts on cleaning supplies the school has been using as he waits for his 2:00 pm appointment with a work-study student.
Duane Mulder has been working at Dordt College for the past 26 years ensuring things are kept clean, orderly, and running smoothly.
Before coming to work at Dordt, Duane worked as a carpenter for William Rens Construction but left to work for Dordt in 1984.
“Back in the mid 80’s even in the early 80’s things got really slow. We went into a recession. Building houses went downhill quite a bit. The guy I was working for said a few of us would have to go. He didn’t care who of the four but whoever could find jobs could leave. I happened to apply for this one,” said Duane.
Since then he’s been doing maintenance work at one level or another at Dordt in places such as the gym, the library, the old student union building and the campus center that replaced the student union building.
He usually starts work at about six in the morning. He checks his emails and writes down notes as he plans what needs doing for the day.
Some days he arrives at 4:30-5:00 a.m. to help plow snow in a relatively small Ford tractor that blows snow off to the side.
After that he heads over to the campus center to check on his two fulltime supervisees, Larry Van Gelder and Lyle Vanden Berg.
“He usually checks up on me. Actually he checks up on Lyle, cause I’m ok,” Larry joked before continuing, “I only see him for half an hour a day, maybe an hour. It depends if we’re behind schedule. He’s pretty patient I’ll say that.”
If he has time before morning break, Duane heads downstairs to the game room.
He goes in, turns on the lights and checks the main desk for any notes left by the work studies that work the game room.
Then he opens the register to count up the money the game room made since he was last there to ensure the money adds up to the right amount. He then takes the money to a back room to lock away most of those funds until the time comes to turn those funds into the business office.
All the while, he barely speaks a word as he focuses on his work, constantly paying attention to detail.
“In relation to all the other guys I look at the small things. I’m watching for how things are set where someone else would walk through and say, ‘Ahh that’s ok.’ I’m just a little fussy.”
Duane then turns his attention to a few things for the game room’s bowling alley.
He reboots the system as Brunswick told him to when they set it up.
He dusts the four lanes before oiling them to keep them slick enough for bowling balls to glide down smoothly.
In the back he changes pads to help keep the balls clean.
He checks the machine that sets up the pins for anything wrong and does what he can to get it working properly if there are any problems.
If he doesn’t have the time that morning, he heads to break and works on the game room afterwards. He sits down with his coworkers: Larry, Doug, Brian and a number of others.
The group seems to have a good time joking around while Duane only contributes on occasion.
On one occasion he approached the table when Larry joked around again saying, “You owe me 20 bucks already.”
His response was simply to smile at the humor and continue to his seat.
While others joke around he sits there silently smiling and enjoying their humor.
Even the jokes at his expense.
“He takes a lot of crap from everybody else,” said Doug Bonestroo
While they talk, he listens.
Once he’s had his break and hi morning routine is finished, Duane’s schedule becomes more flexible.
Duane emails his 14 work studies to coordinate efforts and see to it that work gets done while making sure that the means to do it is there.
“I might get emails from the women that they need some supplies brought to them. I usually let the work study people take care of that. I keep track of inventory. I know I’m low on some supplies, so I got to reorder. I keep a supply here so whatever they need we have right on hand.”
Aside from that he simply does things as needed. He delegates some tasks he wrote down early in the morning to people while taking care of others on his own.
At times Duane can be found fixing the vacuums of Covenant or cleaning up in the game room.
Students may find him replacing light bulbs near the mail room or being the butt of jokes in the commons.
He straightens chairs in the former Humble Bean room or sets up for some campus event in the grill area.
He will work with work study students to help them work out schedules and figure out what they will be doing on the job or checking inventory to make sure people have what they need to work with.
He may cover for a coworker that recently had neck surgery, or simply check his computer’s weather reports on snow.
Whatever he may be found doing, Duane Mulder does his part to keep Dordt College in good order and looking good.
