The man who keeps the lights on at Ohio State

Hannah Ross
Tue, 05 Feb 2019 03:23:34 +0000
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Mark Conselyea, associate vice president for Ohio State’s Facilities Operations and Development, was appointed to the position in December. Credit: Courtesy of the Wexner Medical Center

Ohio State’s campus is always undergoing new changes. Some are constant upkeeps, while others are new buildings and projects to aid students.

Seeing the freshly plowed sidewalks or feeling the heat come through vents in classrooms all seem normal and might go unnoticed, yet they are all strategically planned.

As the new associate vice president — appointed in December — for Ohio State’s Facilities Operations and Development, Mark Conselyea runs these operations.

With an undergraduate and master’s degree in health services management and policy, Conselyea served as a hospital administrator at the James Cancer Hospital Solove Research Institute before moving to his new position, leading the way in developing the $1 billion project for the new cancer hospital.

Conselyea has worked at the university for 22 years, with his most recent role as associate vice president of the Wexner Medical Center Space and Facilities Planning since 2013.

A month into his new position, he said he hopes to grasp a greater understanding of what each college does and how he can integrate the university and the medical center.

“Because we’re an academic medical center, I always understood the academic mission from the medical center’s perspective,” Conselyea said. “Now, I’m making a point to try and get out to understand all the other colleges at the university and what their goals are.”

Under FOD, Conselyea and other staff members work to manage the university’s academic facility needs as well as oversee design and construction projects, maintenance services and sustainability initiatives.

“The work that they do is often not seen or thought of, but it just keeps the campus going,” Ohio State spokesman Dan Hedman said. “It’s an army of 750 people that work 24 hours a day in three different shifts under the direction of Mark.”

The job requires making decisions for all campus construction, from small-dollar projects to million-dollar ones.

These projects range from academic buildings such as a new research building to an ambulatory care facility on West Campus. The strategic planning, research and actual construction take years to be completed and must be done while still running a massive university.

“This university is like a small city, so you kind of have to think about it that way,” Conselyea said.

While working on planning, the team is asking itself, “What’s the difference between where Ohio State is today and where it wants to be?”

All of this happens while balancing the impact projects have on campus and making sure they are completed in a timely manner.

While focusing on what can be done now, Conselyea is also looking 10 years out for what Ohio State can become.