Today@Dal

Three questions, each answered in 150 words or less. One-Minute Meeting is a quick and easy way to get to know more about your colleagues, new and old. Learn how you can nominate someone at the bottom of this post and read more about the series on Dal News.

Today's meeting is with Mateo Yorke, Assistant Director of Facilities Operations with Ancillary Services.

What’s your favourite thing about working at Dal?
 
Being on campus for almost all of the last 29 years, I’ve had the opportunity to work with a wide variety of people from all kinds of departments. Since the pandemic has started, I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of great conversations with some amazing people. But the thing I enjoy the most is that every day presents a new challenge. No two days are alike. I’ve handled floods, fires, hurricanes and now a pandemic. There is very little that happens that feels routine and there are constant opportunities to learn something new. Each year, new students from all over the globe move into residence and each brings something with them. Their experiences and their expectations constantly challenge us from being satisfied with the status quo. It’s a lot of fun!
 
What’s the most surprising thing we might see on your resume/cv?
 
While I’ve been a Dal person pretty much since the day I stepped on campus in 1992, I’ve managed to do a few other things than work for Ancillaries, including having a few years on a children’s television program in the 80’s and teaching web development courses in the Killam. The most surprising thing on my resume/cv would be the time I was invited to facilitate a meeting of international honeybee health experts at the University of Bologna in Italy. While the experts came from a variety of countries and knew everything possible about agriculture, bee breeding, mites, disease and climate change impacts, my role was to keep the meeting focused and to ask questions from the perspective of a non-expert and compile the meeting’s communique. It was fantastic trip, with great food, a bit of sight-seeing, and some really intense meetings over three days.
 
What’s the strangest job experience you’ve ever had?
 
A great job allows you to blend some of your personal interests with the things you do on campus. In 2018, in celebration of Dal’s 200th year, my AVP, Heather Sutherland, suggested that I might want to do something with my interest in LEGO to mark the important milestone in Dal’s history. I immediately agreed to build the most iconic of Dalhousie landmarks out of LEGO bricks. After 100 hours of designing a minifig scale building on my computer, I had a team of coworkers and students help assemble the massive LEGO Henry Hicks display over another the next 2-3 months. The model was unveiled at the 2018 Open House and was then moved to its permanent home in the Welcome Centre at LeMarchant Place, where new students and parents get to see it whenever they come to campus for tours before starting their Dal careers.

Now, nominate someone you'd like to see on One-Minute Meeting.

Is there someone at Dal you'd like to know more about? Email today@dal.ca to suggest them for a One-Minute Meeting. Please provide contact information for the person you are nominating and let us know if you are comfortable with them knowing you nominated them (in case they ask). We'll then send the nominee an email seeing if they'd like to participate.

Previously on One-Minute Meeting:

Jake MacIsaac, Assistant Director of Security Services

Linda Parker, Director of Housing and Conference Services at Dal

Steve Morley, IT architect with MedIT in Dal's Faculty of Medicine