Fleet Services Division Highlight

In order for many of the City’s departments to efficiently function, they need reliable transportation that will get their employees to various locations throughout San Diego. This includes emergency transportation like fire trucks and police cars as well as service vehicles including utility and trash trucks. Yet little time and attention is devoted to highlighting the division that is responsible for purchasing and maintaining all of these vehicles.

Prior to 2008, the City’s fleet services were the responsibility of three different divisions. All police vehicles (approximately 1,500 vehicles) were bought and serviced by the Automotive Maintenance Division of the Police Department. The roughly 350 fire department vehicles were the responsibility of the Fire Department Repair Facility. The rest of the City’s 2,500 vehicles were under the jurisdiction of the Equipment Division. The three fleets were responsible for running their own day-to-day operations which entailed purchasing, maintaining, fueling and disposing of vehicles.

The three divisions were consolidated into the Fleet Services Division on July 1, 2008. This merging was the result of an extensive Business Process Reengineering effort undertaken by the Business Office, Equipment Division, PD Automotive Maintenance Division, Fire Department Fleet, Local 127, Local 145 and MEA. Currently, Fleet Services is responsible for roughly 4,050 pieces of equipment.

The Fleet Services Division has a staff of 249 employees which include auto parts stock clerks, fleet parts buyers, equipment repair supervisors and automotive engineers. Although job classifications and responsibilities vary among Fleet Services employees, the entire staff shares the same goal of providing safe, economical, environmentally-friendly and reliable vehicles to City service providers.

There are a large number of team members who have enjoyed a long tenure with the division. Although the average length of time with Fleet Services is just over 13 years, Equipment Mechanic William Davis will surpass all of his co-workers in November when he’ll have worked for Fleet and the City for 36 years!

Most of Fleet’s maintenance facilities operate on a two shift schedule, five days a week. The first shift begins bright and early between 5:15 a.m. and 6 a.m., and the second starts in the afternoon between 2:30 p.m. and 3:30 pm. Regardless of the shift schedule, Fleet Services employees are on-call 24/7 in order to provide assistance to the various City departments.

Due to this demanding work schedule and the fact that staff are spread out among several different work locations, the division’s extracurricular activities tend to be decentralized with each facility planning and participating in their own activities. Fleet Services celebrates as a whole twice a year, however, with an annual picnic in July and a holiday party in December. These two events allow the division to come together and provide an opportunity to welcome new team members and to recognize those who have recently received a promotion.

With such a great group of employees, it’s no wonder that the division has a 95% satisfaction rating from their customer survey. It was also recognized this year as the Number 11 Best Public Fleet in the United States out of over 3,500 Public Fleets! MEA is proud to represent such a committed and talented group of employees. Thank you for all you do!

Special thanks to John Alley for his assistance and division profile.