Community College Uses SiteSync IQ Wireless Clock System to Replace Multiple Brands of Synchronized Clocks
At the ripe old age of 100 years, the historic Saint Paul College is the oldest two-year public college in the state of Minnesota. It was also rated the No. 1 community college in the U.S. by Washington Monthly magazine. With over 500,000 square feet, synchronized time is important to keep its 4,500 full-time students on schedule. The instructors are sticklers about starting the classes on time due to the nature of the hourly licensing some courses require.
The college had a mixture of Honeywell and Johnson Controls clocks. When repair costs to fix the mechanical clocks skyrocketed to more than the cost of replacement clocks, Tom Doody in the Maintenance Department found American Time.
“We switched to American Time clocks over 15 years ago. When St. Paul College was part of the St. Paul School District, they had one person fixing and maintaining the clocks in all 60 buildings. Daylight Saving Time and power outages were a huge chore. It might take months to get everything straightened out in all the buildings. Even though Saint Paul College had a wired synchronized clock system, it never seemed to work very well,” according to Doody.
During a 2008 construction project, Doody worked with the school’s Vice President and Owner’s Representative Bill Hansen to select a clock system for the entire campus.
“The wireless GPS antenna system worked well for us. At first, we located the system controller in the East Tower. Since then, we have moved it to the West Tower. All future construction will be to the west of our building and it was easy to re-locate the head end. We’re adding a parking ramp next year and building around the ramp after that. Getting signal coverage in our existing building and new areas without having additional repeaters is important to us,” Doody explains.