Episode Details

Superintendent:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Have you ever wondered what it takes to store everything needed to run a school district that covers six cities with 64 schools and more than 56,000 students? Where do we safely store food for our kitchens and cafeterias or furniture, paper, and cleaning supplies for our classrooms. On this episode of the Supercast, we take you inside the District Central Warehouse on a fun and fascinating tour with a man who has taken care of business there for 39 years.

We're here at the Jordan School Cistrict warehouse with Randy Gray, the Distribution Coordinator. Good morning, Randy.

Randy:
Good morning.

Superintendent:
We're here at 7:30 AM, which is early for me, but you start your day very early. What time does the warehouse get rolling?

Randy:
I get here about 4:20 AM. My guys show up around 5:00 AM.

Superintendent:
4:20 and 5:00 AM. Why does everyone start at that unearthly hour?

Randy:
Because we have to get all the food to the schools before they are ready to cook. So if they need it for the schools, they need anything for the lunch that day, they have it before they need it.

Superintendent:
So everything starts with you really here in the morning at 4:20 AM. So tell me, you've got a stack of calendars here. How long have you been coming in to work at Jordan School District?

Randy:
In one form or another 39 and a half years.

Superintendent:
39 and a half years. And we're about to lose all that 39 and a half years of experience from what I understand.

Randy:
Right.

Superintendent:
When do you retire?

Randy:
December 22nd.

Superintendent:
And how does that feel after so long?

Randy:
I'm going to miss a lot of guys, but I got a lot of other stuff I want to do, so it'll be fun.

Superintendent:
Well, you're certainly going to be missed. There's no question about that. Your stack of calendars goes back to the nineties.

Randy:
Yeah, 1996. I've got another door that has the other ones on it. That's about how long you and I go back right to one of those calendars. And I saw a long, long time ago.

Superintendent:
We met a long time ago. Tell us a little bit more about the warehouse. What what does that involve?

Randy:
We do all the food supplies go out of here, every day produce.

Superintendent:
So that's the main bulk of the load in the morning?

Randy:
That's my big crew. So that's getting everything to the school programs. Anything that they may run out of, they are short on, we get it to them as soon as we can in the day, as early as we can.

And then I have separate crews when we do the school supplies, custodial supplies and the maintenance supplies. And we picked orders every single day.

And then we do all the receiving for everything that comes in and clean books or any non inventories that come into.

Superintendent:
When you say picking, is that just pulling what the order is from the inventory that you have, what the schools have requested?

Randy:
Yes.

Superintendent:
Okay. So you have regular orders and then when they run out, then