“My wife has accused me of being married to the Tanner Building,” jokes Alvan Williamson, who recently handed over his keys after 20 years as a building-care specialist at BYU Marriott.
Williamson has kept the 200,000-square-foot Tanner running smoothly through floods and fire alarms, packed conferences, and late-night emergencies. Home to more than 150 faculty offices and 30 classrooms, the building welcomes thousands of people to learn, lead, and belong—many without realizing the behind-the-scenes work that makes it possible.
With a shift that stretched into the evening, Williamson spent years walking empty classrooms and making his rounds through 37,000 square feet of hallways after dark. (He insists he never encountered a ghost.) His favorite spot in the building is the NAC room on the seventh floor, with its view of the mountains.
As Williamson now rides off into retirement in his side-by-side, he reflects on a career spent caring for both a building and the people who use it.
1. What’s it like to spend 20 years in the Tanner Building?
I’ve seen a lot of changes over the years. I actually applied for a custodial position at the Conference Center but didn’t get it. A couple weeks later, the manager over BYU custodial called me about a position in the Tanner Building. Shortly after I started the job, construction began on the Tanner Building addition. That was pretty trying because a lot of the building was closed off.
As an essential worker, I was here through COVID. Most of the students went home, but a few stayed, and we just did what we could. When COVID was ending and people started returning to the building, it was hard to hire employees.
In the summer we do a lot of deep cleaning—things that we can’t normally get to because classes are going on. I always looked forward to fall when school started.
My job was a good fit because I like service. I like to care for people. Christ is in our lives, and that’s who we serve; through serving Him, we serve everybody else.
2. What made working with students memorable?
I normally had 11 to 13 students working on the team. Five of those students locked up the building at night and worked weekends. Since I supervised them, I was basically on call seven days a week.
One day, I had a girl come in—she was a Japanese student—and she asked, “Do you need help?” I hired her, and two weeks later, she asked, “Do you need more help?” She brought all her friends. I ended up hiring seven Japanese students, which was fun because I served my mission in Japan.
About 10 years ago, I fell off a ladder, broke seven ribs, and was in the hospital for 11 days. When I came back, the students didn’t want me doing much of anything. I had to tell them, “I need to do my job.”
This year, I made sloppy joes for the students, but some years I do a waffle party. The rule is I make waffles until I run out of flour or they quit eating.
Usually, I run out of flour first.
3. What goes into preparing a successful event?
My team did all the setups, which varied every day. Some days we had as many as seven events. On Saturday nights, we’d set up for church on Sunday.
I learned that you have to be flexible—a lot of this job was figuring out what works. People just think rooms are bigger than they really are. I’d look at setup requests and think, “That won’t fit.” So I’d go to the Deans Office and say, “How about doing it this way?”
We saw all kinds of events over the years. One was in 2010 when a big choir was supposed to perform at the Provo Tabernacle, but it caught on fire and the concert was moved here. We set up around 600 chairs throughout the atriums, and about 1,500 people came. The concert actually sounded great on the upper floors of the Tanner Building.
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Photo By Bradley Slade
