City of Gainesville Fleet Director Jason Foster knows why the National Association of Fleet Administrators (NAFA) has ranked the city’s 1,600 vehicles and team of 17 mechanics and support staff 24th on the 2022 list of 100 Best Fleets in the Americas.
“Our team of mechanics are second to none,” Foster said. “There’s nothing they can’t fix. They get together and find a solution, and it’s very rare that we send something out of the shop that they haven’t figured out first.”
Foster, a former light-wheel vehicle mechanic in the U.S. Army who went on to work at Ford where he earned his master technician certification, has worked alongside his fleet team members since 2013. He is a certified automotive fleet manager (CAFM) and was named director of the fleet in April.
Foster joined the team the same year that the City completed construction of its centralized fleet maintenance facility. The 44,000-square-foot service center was a way to combine two maintenance facilities under one roof that has 30 bays and sits on 19 acres.
One side of the facility caters to fixing light vehicles ranging from lawn mowers to pickup trucks.
The heavy equipment side of the garage is dedicated to firetrucks, GRU bucket trucks and the Gainesville Police Department tactile vehicle. The City’s Regional Transit System (RTS) vehicles are maintained as a separate fleet.
The garage is equipped with fixed and portable hydraulic lifts. Each portable lift can support 18,500 pounds and as many as eight of them can be used together in servicing the large vehicles.
A Quint firetruck weighs about 65,000 pounds, a GRU bucket truck tips the scales at 30,000.
According to Business Services Manager Barbara Beck, a Quint firetruck weighs about 65,000 pounds, a GRU bucket truck tips the scales at 30,000 pounds and the heaviest vehicle owned by the City is the Cat coal dozer at 100,000 pounds.
The NAFA annual ranking criteria includes accountability, use of technology and information, collaboration, evidence of a high trust culture, performance recognition, efficient turnaround, competitive pricing, resources stewardship and staff development.
Foster said the department’s efficiency comes from the commitment to preventive maintenance and the use of a scheduling and database program called AssetWorks.
“By having this tool at our fingertips, we are able to return vehicles quicker while accurately tracking all supporting resources,” he said. “In our industry, data matters and we are proud that the numbers reflect how much our team has raised the bar over the past year.”
The fleet also has staff and service trucks available 24 hours a day for field triage that go out on the road to perform afterhours maintenance.
A majority of the staff are Automotive Service Excellence (ASE)-certified as Master Automobile Technicians.
“A lot of the heavy work is done here,” Foster said about the main fleet maintenance center. “We have a satellite garage on the other side of town with two tenured mechanics with 32 and 35 years of service.”
Foster has put an emphasis on employee recognition and has encouraged the technicians to nominate peers rather than have management always choose recipients.
“It has morphed it into something new,” Foster said.
“They have day-to-day interaction and now there’s a lot of commentary with why they suggest a coworker as employee of the month.”
Foster pointed out that the facility includes a gym for employees, a parts room, and a library with vehicle manuals to accompany the digital versions used for vehicle manual reference materials.
To see the complete list of 100 Best Fleets in North and South America click here.
NAFA rated San Bernardino (California) County’s Fleet Management Department as No. 1, and Alameda County scored 100th. The City of Tallahassee was ranked at 35.
--Story and photos by Suzette Cook for the City of Gainesville