There are people who run the University and there are people who keep it running.

The people who run it include administrators in South Building and faculty members in classrooms and labs.

The people who keep it running are men like Gary Tomkins was, people who work around the clock to power it with all the electricity and steam and chilled water it takes to keep the lights on, computers humming and buildings heated or cooled as needed.

From left, Jim McAdam explains the center’s control room to Dannis Tomkins, Jason Tomkins and Mette Tomkins.

On May 23, representatives from both groups gathered to honor Tomkins’ memory outside the new chilled water operation center on Mason Farm Road.

It is appropriate that the center bears his name, speakers said, because his fingerprints were all over it long before it was built. Tomkins conceptualized it in 1992, said Jerry Schuett, project manager for Affiliated Engineers Inc.

The Gary R. Tomkins Chilled Water Operations Center is part of the new $20 million thermal storage facility and chiller plant that Tomkins helped plan.

Once the new Cobb chiller plant begins operation this summer, the plant will be one of five chiller plants that Tomkins, as the system’s longtime manager, helped plan and run before his death on Feb. 2, 2004. Tomkins was 49 when he died and only days away from the early retirement he had planned to spend with his wife Mette and son Jason.

The chiller system that Tomkins oversaw for so long grew under his leadership into one of the largest and most complex such systems in the country.

Schuett joined a host of colleagues and friends who gathered under a white tent at the back of the chiller plant, nearly under the shadow of the thermal storage tank that stands
85 feet in diameter and 115 feet tall and constantly holds five million gallons of water.

The tank is the tallest one ever built by the Chicago Bridge & Iron Co., Schuett said, drawing laughs when he added, “I think Gary wanted the tallest.”

Planners affectionately call the tower “the Thermos bottle.”

At night, when energy costs are at their lowest, the 6,000 tons of refrigeration equipment in the plant basement are turned on to chill the water in the tank to 40 degrees by morning. Throughout the day, the chillers are shut off and the chilled water is discharged throughout the system. The operation of the thermal energy storage system Tomkins envisioned began in April and has already saved the University thousands of dollars.

Sandwiched between the chillers in the basement and the cooling towers is the operations center, with offices and computer systems that connect the chiller plants with information in the same way they are connected with pipes.

“Gary would have loved to hear the roar of the chillers from his office,” Schuett said. “But you know the nature of this project is a great tribute to the University and to Gary. UNC continues to lead in many areas and this is another example of their leadership in utility infrastructure. There was a lot of great foresight on the part of many people at the University for a project like this, and we are just proud to have been able to participate in this, and I know Gary would be proud of this today.”

Carolyn Elfland, associate vice chancellor for Campus Services, said such a dedication was a rare event for an energy services facility on campus. The building named for Tomkins is the only other energy services facility to be named for an employee, she said, including the old power plant on Cameron Avenue that now houses the University’s cogeneration facility.

Tomkins, she said, will be remembered as an equally innovative leader for energy services as the first manager of the University’s chilled water system.

“We are proud of our energy facilities and our infrastructure and we are committed to continue being a national leader in energy,” Elfland said. “Our cogeneration facility has been recognized several times by the Environmental Protection Agency. We just signed a contract with Orange Water and Sewer Authority for what is going to be the largest reclaimed water system in the Southeast.

 “This new thermal storage plant that Gary envisioned for so long is another major step forward for us in leading in energy in the United States among colleges and universities.”

Bruce Runberg, associate vice chancellor for Facilities Planning and Construction, advocated the center naming as an appropriate honor for “a loyal and truly outstanding University employee.”

Jim Mergner, a former director for Facilities Services who was a longtime friend of Tomkins, recalled Tompkins not only as a superlative technician, but also as a trusted friend and a loving husband and father. He was respected by all who knew him, just as his memory is respected with the naming of the building in his honor, Mergner said.

The funny thing, Mergner said, is his old friend would not know what to make of all the fuss.

“Gary would have wanted the names of everyone he worked with to be on the building,” Mergner said.

But knowing that about his old friend, Mergner said, made naming the building for him seem even more like the right thing to do.

After the speeches, Tomkins’ widow and their son Jason, a senior at Virginia Tech, received a booklet of reflections about Tomkins written by his co-workers. Many spoke of his athletic prowess in noontime basketball games played at Woollen Gym. Others talked of his technical proficiencies and personal qualities.

One of them wrote, “Gary Tomkins was a listener. His employees could sit down and talk with him, and he would give his undivided attention. He never interrupted or voiced any opinion until you were finished. Our voice, opinions and issues were important to him, and he never threw people off track. This was a special trait to have in a supervisor.”

Many of the people who wrote in that booklet will now be following in Tomkins’ footsteps, and seeing his name above them as they go to work each morning in the operations center.

As Ray DuBose, the University’s director of energy services put it, “It’s where Gary’s people are.”