Keeping it hot—and cool

Sam Yankson makes your work environment pleasant. Well, the temperature at least.

When the August mercury tops out and the air conditioner shuts down, Sam’s your man. When the February freeze kicks in just as the heating unit fizzles out, Sam’s your man.

As a facilities maintenance technician at AU for the past 11 years, one of the most important aspects of Yankson’s job is to repair faulty air conditioning and heating systems.

“I keep the students, faculty, and staff comfortable,” he said.

Roughly an equal number of service requests come from people who are too hot or too cold, Yankson said.

“Some of the people who call in the summer are the same people who call in the winter,” he said.

Yankson also works on buildings’ plumbing systems and does a little bit of whatever needs to be done around campus.

“The biggest challenges come from the smallest jobs,” he said. “After having all that experience, you kind of overlook the smallest jobs. The moment you get confident, you get burned. You need to follow step-by-step detail.”

That’s something Yankson has been doing since before he came to the United States from his native Ghana in 1977. In his West African homeland, he studied mechanical engineering, but he emigrated to the United States with the hopes of finding more opportunity. He settled in the Washington area because relatives lived here at the time.

The nation’s capital has turned out to be a nice fit for Yankson’s personality.

“I like the life pace,” he said. “There’s never a dull moment. It keeps you on your toes. It puts the world right in front of you all the time.”

Yankson now lives in Virginia, but it’s at work—not at home—when he’s most likely to run into his daughter. Chyle Robertson, 20, is a junior at AU, and like most college students, she values her independence.

“She likes campus life, so I try to make my presence normal, like she’s going off to school,” he said.

For years Yankson has harbored an interest in buying and refurbishing historic homes in Washington and northern Virginia. The activity satisfies his desire to solve problems.

Yankson considers the men he works with at the facilities building on Tenley campus to be some of his closest friends.

“It’s just like a family,” he said. “We practically lean on each other to keep such a place [as AU] going. It’s an interesting job. There’s never a dull moment.” —MU