A “Small Project” for Generating Skilled Labor Has Provided a Powerful Loss Control Tool for the Chattanooga Housing Authority
W hen the Chattanooga Housing Authority (CHA) was experiencing difficulty finding skilled workers to maintain their facilities, Larry Daniels, CHA’s Maintenance Supervisor, took it upon himself to create a training facility that equips maintenance staff with the skills needed to safely and correctly perform their jobs. “CHA employs 50-55 maintenance staff workers,” said Mike Sabin, CHA’s Director of Housing Operations. “We had been having issues finding trade labor for several years, but even more so after the pandemic. We were having to hold job fairs to recruit maintenance labor.”
Judy Housley and Larry Daniels at PEP’s 2023 Risk & Insurance Symposium, where Larry was honored with an Excellence Award
CHA maintenance technicians spent five months preparing a building that was out of service and transformed it into a training facility. “Larry took it upon himself to create this facility, which had no budget,” Mike said. “When he started, it was only going to be a small training area for small projects, but Larry had something more significant in mind, and worked evenings and weekends to achieve it.”
“This facility enables our maintenance staff to be well- trained for the jobs at hand and has had a tremendous impact on employees doing work correctly,” Larry said. “It gives them the knowledge they need for approaching potentially deadly work when working with electrical items and the confidence that they are doing the work correctly. The program also creates more productive employees and fosters interest in various trades, which can further employees’ careers at CHA.” A 45-year CHA veteran, Larry holds numerous certifications from Chattanooga State Technical Community College. He is a certified manager of maintenance and a housing quality standard specialist, and has earned a state master’s electrical contractor license. He is a mechanical board member for the City of Chattanooga, and serves as chairman of the Tennessee Association and Redevelopment Authorities mechanical board. He was promoted to his current position with CHA in 2007, and has a lengthy track record of commitment to quality that has helped CHA earn a longstanding reputation for public housing property maintenance excellence. “Larry is committed to providing public housing residents with safe, well-cared-for places to live, but he went above and beyond with the training facility,” Mike said. “It is a loss control tool for preventing on-site injuries, has decreased liability for property losses due to repairs being properly completed, and has set a new standard for the entire industry.”
Larry at one of the electrical training areas
The facility’s grand opening was held on July 20, 2022, and the first training took place the very next day. Training is currently offered in electrical and plumbing, with plans to expand to other areas, including HVAC training. “In each room, Larry has built a training ground for connecting electrical services, maintaining gas and water heaters, and repairing and replacing water lines, toilets and showers — anything CHA’s maintenance workers might encounter,” said Judy Housley, PE Partners’ recently retired East Tennessee Loss Control Consultant. “The maintenance workers go through extensive training before being released to work on CHA’s facilities.” Larry leads the training for the maintenance staff. He is assisted with the plumbing training by John Alier, owner of South East Total Service. John is a Tennessee master plumber who has donated materials to the facility and aided Larry with training since the facility first opened.
Larry proposed a training facility for maintenance staff and received approval to move forward with the project in January 2022. Larry and a team of experienced
Larry leading a training class
Annual Report 2023 19
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