River Valley Community College Discovers the Benefits of Synchronized Time with American Time
The River Valley Community College in Claremont sits on 141 acres along the New Hampshire-Vermont border near the Connecticut River. This former farmland has a long history in the machine tool industry and textiles. The single 2-story building has day and evening classes for 1,000 full and part-time students.
Skip Davis became the Facility Maintenance Director after a long career in teaching and engineering. The moment he started the job, he knew a synchronized clock system was desperately needed.
“When I first came here, you couldn’t find two clocks in the entire building with matching time. It was a major frustration to teachers and students. As a former teacher, I know how important maximum learning time is for our students. They come first. We’re preparing them for the business world and proper time management is a learned skill.”
Skip went online and started checking around for synchronized clocks. “I knew we didn’t have the budget for professional installation of a new wired clock system. And it wouldn’t make sense to try to re-use the old wiring from the ancient clock system that hadn’t worked in years. I found exactly what I was looking for in a wireless clock system because we could install it ourselves.”
The programming time was around 10 minutes. “But you have to read the instructions! The natural tendency is to take the system controller out of the box and plug it in right away, when actually that’s the very last step. You only see the password screen on the very first start up, so it’s important to get that right at the beginning. The 1-page quick start guide really helps.”
Then, Skip and his team hung wireless clocks throughout the facility. “Going to each classroom took the most time. You pull the insulating tab in the battery compartment, look for the light on the back of the clock to turn green and hang it up.”
Skip uses the same cost-conscious practices in his work as he uses at home. “Whether it’s for the college or my house, common sense says to get the best product money can buy with quality and service to back it up. The fly-by-night companies may be cheaper but they always have an excuse to not guarantee their products. Over the years, I’ve had some blame me for their product failures. That’s so wrong.”
“When I was looking for this clock system, I got three quotes. I usually go with the lowest cost, but I make sure the company guarantees the product. American Time & Signal was the only vendor who sent someone out to visit me. Brent conducted a site survey so accountability was on him and the company. I knew they’d stand behind their product.”
River Valley Community College found the robust SiteSync IQ wireless clock system by American Time & Signal synchronized the entire facility. “The teachers are so used to it now; they forget how bad it used to be. If a clock is off even a little, I get a call. That shows how consistent the clock system is. Now that I have clocks under control, I work on other projects on my list.”