Kent State’s Glazier Department can do anything any other glass shop can do and more. Kent State has three glaziers, or skilled craftsmen, who fix windows, mirrors, doors and more.

“A lot of people, when they hear glazier, they think of the guy who works at Krispy Kreme,” glazier Temp Walker said. “In fact, we are actually skilled workers that are trained in fixing windows and entrance ways.”

Glazier supervisor Mark Moscarello said when he started working in the shop eight years ago, most of the jobs had to be contracted out to off-campus shops. Today, almost 100 percent of the work can be done in-house.

One of the glaziers’ jobs is repairing and replacing windows on campus. Moscarello said 50 percent of the repair jobs are because of vandalism and the other half are maintenance.

“Some students like to drive around campus and shoot out the windows of the bus stops with BB guns,” Moscarello said. “We also find a lot of windows that were broken because a guy was trying to get his girlfriend’s attention by throwing rocks at her window.”

The shop also does work on screens, mirrors and glass desk tops. However, most of their work is on doors, especially automatic doors, which tend to have more problems.

“There are about 8,300 doors on campus,” Moscarello said. “Most buildings have at least two automatic doors. Some buildings like the library have over 20.”

Whenever an automatic door is broken, it is a priority because those doors are necessary for disabled students. Sometimes broken doors can be fixed in minutes and other times it can take a couple weeks.

“About 95 percent of the problems are easy fixes, but the extra 5 percent are interesting and more difficult,” Moscarello said. “Those work requests usually come in around 3 p.m., too.”

A lot of the difficult problems with the doors are first time occurrences for the glaziers.

“We always try to fix the door first by checking the obvious things, like the battery,” glazier Mitch Popson said. “But sometimes I have no idea what is wrong, and I about rip my hair out.”

One frequent problem lately is the closing speed of the automatic doors.

“We have had several doors that close too fast,” Popson said. “All we have to do is change it hydraulically. The speed gets messed up because the weather changes the air pressure in the building which speeds up the closing of the door.”

All three of the glaziers take great pride in their work, and are the hardest ones to please, Moscarello said.

“If we are satisfied, everyone else will be satisfied too,” Moscarello said.

Contact building and grounds reporter Kelly Cothren at [email protected].