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06/15/2016 08:30 AMLifelong Madison resident Maurice Masse graduated from Daniel Hand High School in 1964—and started full-time work there that same day. For 52 years, he and his team kept all six Madison schools and a few town buildings sparkling clean, and helped plow sidewalks and mow grass around those buildings.
He’s finally taking his well-deserved retirement at the end of this month, and plans to do work around his yard and the house he shares with his sister, Vera, and dog, Barkey, a dachshund and Jack Russell terrier mix.
“After 52 years, I want to take it easy for now,” he says. “I have a lot of yard work and outside work to keep me busy.”
As for the long career he’s leaving, Maurice says, “I started full-time work for the Madison Board of Education in 1964. The same day I graduated from Daniel Hand High School, I started to go to work for them. I actually worked a year before that, 1963, as a part-time student helper at Island Avenue School.”
Once he graduated, Maurice began as a nighttime custodian, worked his way up to daytime custodian, and then became the head custodian at the high school, then at Jeffrey School. He’s now chief custodian with 30 people working under him, a position he’s held since 1988.
He says, “We take care of all the cleaning and custodial needs for all six school buildings in the town, plus about six town buildings like the Police Department, the Town Campus, and the Center.”
Maurice’s job now mostly involves coordinating the 30 custodians who work for him, making sure they’re placed where they’re needed, showing them what to do, and introducing new machinery and products, he explains.
“We take care of everything from one corner of the driveway to the back corner of the field—windows, floors, carpeting, outside work. We did all the maintenance, like painting, ourselves back in the day, but now they have people who do that. We still do some of that type of work, but our job now mainly involves the cleaning and upkeep of the grounds.”
Maurice says the equipment has changed quite a bit over the past five decades.
“Back when I started, you had a mop bucket and maybe a small, 20-inch scrubbing machine. Today, we have small machines that are battery operated, and ride-on equipment where you can either sit or stand on a machine and wash or vacuum the floors. You used to go in to clean a bathroom and just mop the floor and scrub the toilet and everything that’s in there. Today, you can go in and clean with a pressure washer. They call it no-touch cleaning. It takes about the same amount of time, but it’s like a pressure washer. You can clean everything in one shot.”
Just this past January, Maurice and his team began using robotic cleaning equipment.
“We have a robotic machine that we set and we just send it down the hallway and it vacuums the hallway or washes the floors,” he says. “It has what must be a built-in GPS. We have two of them. One does all the vacuuming at all of the buildings, and one does the floor scrubbing at Daniel Hand High School. You set the machine and come back two hours later and it has cleaned the hallways. It can’t clean a classroom where the furniture is—you have to do that manually, the old-fashioned way.”
Along with the equipment, the cleaning chemicals have also been upgraded.
“Everything has to be environmentally friendly, what we call ‘green,’” Maurice explains. “Before, you used whatever you had to use and you were done. Today, everything is regulated.”
Technology has changed his job as well.
Maurice says, “You can set all the outside lighting that comes on around the campus, and all the locks are pre-set. You can unlock and lock all the doors at a set time via computer with one push of a button. We still walk around and make sure everything is working properly.”
Current DHHS Head Custodian Bob Burr, who has worked with Maurice for about 25 years, will take Maurice’s place.
Maurice says he’ll miss the people most.
“The camaraderie with the kids, or being around the kids, or just coming to work and being with the guys I’ve worked with, especially now and the staff in this office,” he says.
But Maurice can look back on a job well done.
“My goal was always to keep the schools looking great, make sure the first time somebody comes in and forms that first impression, that the grounds look good. I’ve always really taken a lot a pride in keeping the schools looking good.”