You may have seen him on the roof inspecting an AC unit, or on a ladder fixing a ceiling tile, or maybe rescuing a feral kitten, or even cleaning eggs of someone’s car.
James Nackashi has been a part of the Bishop Kenny family since the 80s when he was a student here, and now he works to help renovate the campus from what it used to look like.
He started working as a bus driver in 2014, and over time, his role at Kenny grew.
Today, Nackashi is the Director of School Facilities.
In Nackashi’s 10 years at Kenny, he has played a part in the changes as small as fixing an electrical outlet, and as big as the remodeling of entire buildings.
“The one that I’m most proud of would be overseeing the remodeling of the 200 building classrooms, both upstairs and downstairs,” Nackashi said.
Since working at Kenny, Nackashi has learned many things about maintenance and safety, including staying concentrated when working, as well as keeping calm in case of emergency.
“You have to be proactive and stay on top of things,” Nackashi said. “If you don’t have this mindset, you will have issues that will shut down classrooms during the school day. You need to have problem solving skills to resolve unexpected problems quickly to minimize disruption to students and staff.”
Sometimes, Nackashi’s experiences include funny moments. He once got a call about there being a chicken in one of the boy’s bathrooms, so he went to check it out; sure enough, there was a chicken in the bathroom!
He has handled everything one can imagine, even multiple issues at the same time. For example, he was trying to fix an outlet in the cafeteria, but in the middle of doing that, he got a call saying that a toilet was flooding. He needed to go fix the toilet, but before he went anywhere, he asked someone who was in the cafeteria to watch that outlet while he fixed the toilet.
But there are some things that even Nackashi doesn’t know the answer to, so he asks for help from the maintenance team.
“Together, we help each other out with any maintenance issues that are hard to resolve,” Nackashi said.
One of the things he learned as a maintenance worker is that it doesn’t hurt to ask for help.
“You’d be surprised how much you can learn by just watching someone else,” Nackashi said.
