Employee highlight: Mary Beth Greer
April 3, 2024
Mechanical engineer volunteers on the slopes and with Virginia Men's Rowing
Mary Beth Greer, mechanical engineer with the Capital Construction & Renovations Design Services group, keeps herself busy when she's outside of the office.
Greer spends weekends in the winter volunteering as an adaptive ski instructor at Massanutten Resort, and early weekday mornings in the fall and spring she can be found on the Rivanna River coaching Virginia Men's Rowing.
The CC&R staff member — who graduated from UVA in 2018 and joined Facilities Management in 2021 — spends her working hours creating HVAC designs and drawings for renovation projects.
Most of her projects involve preparing labs for research or a new use, or problem solving in an area with a HVAC system issue. Current projects include the lower laser labs in the Physical Life Sciences Building, the Fralin Museum HVAC system, and the Newcomb Hall and Thornton Hall conversions from steam to support the larger Low-Temperature Hot Water (LTHW) Project.
A recent project she completed in the McCue Center brought her back to her days on the Virginia Women's Rowing team.
“When I was on the rowing team in college, we lifted at McCue and it would always get to 80 degrees in the winter and it was terrible,” she said, recalling her motivation to take on the project.
Addressing building HVAC issues often involves working with the Building Automation System team to adjust controls, installing occupancy counters, increasing ventilation, and adjusting air distribution.
“With COVID there was a big push for ventilation, and we've seen that it has good effects on people anyway, it keeps them alert and feeling good,” she explained.
For the past five years, Greer has been volunteering as an adaptive ski instructor through a UVA club that partners with local nonprofit Therapeutic Adventures.
“We get anyone we can on the slopes and adapt skiing to whatever their need is, work with them where they are,” she said.
This might involve special equipment or skiing together using tethers. Greer has worked with individuals of all ages with limb differences, those who are blind and others who are mute.
“I've worked with a kid for the past five years who has one leg and one arm so we put a ski on his arm and a ski on his leg,” she explained. “This past year he can now do 20 seconds by himself which is huge.”
In order to allow a mute child she was volunteering with to better communicate on the slopes, she gave him a hula hoop that he could raise over his head to indicate he wanted to stop.
In addition to her volunteer ventures, the mechanical engineer is also an active member of “Patchwork Orange,” a team in SOCA's adult soccer league with many FM staff members as players, and recently restarted playing the violin, a hobby of hers from childhood.
Jane Centofante
Communications senior generalist
UVA Facilities Management
(434) 982-5846
janecentofante@virginia.edu