Paint and Finishing Shop

Though the campus has grown 22% over the past decade, the Saint John's Paint and Finishing Shop staff has been reduced (through non-replaced retirements) from three (3) full-time painters to one (1) full-time painter (Rob Stoeckel), who is assisted by a corps of student employees.  The shop is responsible not only for interior finishes and exterior painting and staining, but it also provides finishing (and sometimes delivery) of furnishings constructed by the Abbey's Woodworking Shop.

Our painters responded wholeheartedly to the call for re-engineering when that call was first made.  The reduction in full-time staffing noted above was made possible by the introduction of new painting techniques and through the identification and adoption of three standard colors - red brick white; Breuer white; and Flynntown white.  The adoption of a standard palette means more time is spent applying paint to walls and surfaces and less time is spent in "tinting to match" dozens of colors which had appeared over the past decades.

As a skillful negotiator, the painter has also leveraged the adoption of standard colors to secure attractive pricing - often times paying less for materials than we did twelve years ago for the bulk of our supplies.

Always open to a challenge, the paint department completed the painting for the renovations of Benet Hall, Luke Hall, Wimmer Hall, and first Quad, and most recently Seton Apartments.  The student employees have also taken on the restriping of parking lots and crosswalks, which had previously been outsourced.

Because our facilities are fully occupied for the vast majority of the year, the windows for maintenance painting are very limited.  The reduction in year-round personnel allows for strategic outsourcing during those limited periods of vacancy.

The Paint and Finishing Shop also uses appropriate spray and paint application technologies.

The Paint and Finishing Shop is under the direction of Jim Habiger.