Employee Spotlight: Jaret Vasey

Our second longest tenured employee in the grounds department is Jaret Vasey.  Jaret has been employed at Wakonda Club for nearly 16 years.  Through the years Jaret has gained a wealth of experience and knowledge of all facets of golf course maintenance.  Jaret's main responsibilities include maintenance of our irrigation system and of our mower fleet. 

Jaret resides in Altoona with his wife of 14 years ,Tiffany, and sons Braeden (13) and Deacon (4).  Jaret is a hard- core Iowa Hawkeye fan and enjoys attending football games with his family.  Jaret's sons keep him busy.  He has coached football and basketball and spends many weekend afternoons attending football, basketball, and soccer games.  Jaret is also a home improvement guru and is continually working to improve his castle.  When Jaret does have some spare time he enjoys playing golf.

Employee Spotlight: John Phillips

In the coming weeks, we are going to introduce you to the full-time maintenance staff employees. These full-time maintenance employees are the reason this course remains in pristine condition. Each person is extremely knowledgeable with all course operations and takes pride in the job they do every single day.

We will introduce each employee one-by-one, in order of seniority; therefore, first up: John Phillips. John has been with Wakonda Club longer than any other maintenance employee, 25 years. His wealth of knowledge is very beneficial for maintenance operations. During the winter months, he services many of our mowers and large equipment, which is a very time-consuming and delicate task. During the playing season, you will most likely find him on his John Deere tractor mowing rough.

Living only a few doors down from the maintenance shop, John is the only maintenance employee who lives within walking distance from the shop. John is the proud owner of one of the manliest garages you'll ever see. Inside you'll find three, large flat-screen TVs, along with comfortable furniture, which is sure to satisfy any viewer. Most of the time, these TVs are tuned into Nascar, football or the Iowa Hawkeyes. John's favorite thing to do is watch Nascar and racing. During the racing season, he also likes to attend most of the races at the Iowa Speedway. His all-time favorite Nascar driver was Dale Earnhardt, which led to his purebred pug's name, Dale, who has an Iowa Hawkeye nametag.

Home Sweet Home

Another winter month has come and gone, and we continue our preparations for the new season. This past week, we began construction and assembly of our bird houses and bat boxes. One of our planned improvements for obtaining our Audubon Sanctuary certification was to construct nest boxes and place them at strategic locations throughout the course to enhance the local environment and natural habitat.

Bird houses were constructed first using natural cedar wood. Below, you can see Assistant Shawn Fopma cutting the cedar wood down to size.

In all, ten bird houses were constructed. Each bird house has a side door that pivots open, which is essential for cleaning out old nests and monitoring the nesting birds. We hope to see various bird species using these boxes this coming year.

In addition to the bird houses, bat boxes were also constructed. Also made out of natural cedar wood, these bat boxes provide a safe, undisturbed home for bats. Bats are essential because they feed on moths, mosquitoes, beetles and other insects. These bat boxes can hold approximately 100 bats; however, it is unlikely each box will reach full capacity. Inside each box is three wooden baffles with rough sides to give the bats something to cling to.

Since bats favor warm conditions, each roof was darkened with stain to increase heat absorption. Five bat boxes were constructed.

Interesting fact: a typical summer colony of 100 bats feeding 200 days will consume more than 2200 pounds of insects or approximately 600,000,000 bugs!

IPM Planning Guide

Another environmental project we recently starting working on is an IPM (Integrated Pest Management) Planning Guide. Developed by the Environmental Institute for Golf, the IPM Planning Guide helps us in the development and implementation of IPM plans that meet our facility's environmental, agronomic, and budgetary goals.

An IPM Planning Guide improves our ability to predict turf quality problems. We used historical weather records, such as average monthly air temperatures and average monthly precipitation for our location, to plan management strategies to optimize turf growth. This helps us explain turf performance at different times of the year.

The course was broken down into the following management zones: greens, tees, fairways, and rough. Each management zone was given its own comprehensive IPM strategy and plan to predict how they will function throughout the year. These management zones help identify areas of high risk of damage by pests; as well as, aiding in reduction of pesticide usage.

Implementing a successful IPM plan will help us provide greater protection to our environment and help us continue to achieve our environmental goals.

Audubon Update

This winter, one of our goals was to continue efforts on our Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program. The Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary Program helps golf courses enhance wildlife habitats and protect natural resources for the benefit of people and wildlife.

The program begins with a planning stage, which we completed last spring and received a Certificate of Recognition in Environmental Planning. The second step is the action stage, where we implement the environmental measures and goals which were decided upon during the planning stage. One of the action steps golfers will notice on the course is the addition of bird and nest boxes, which will be strategically placed on the property this coming spring. You may also notice the grass height around shorelines is raised to reduce chemical and mineral inputs into the water. We will also be conducting water tests to analyze our water inputs.

Our main focus this winter has been on the third, documentation stage, which we use to achieve certification. We are in the process of filling out numerous forms to verify our accomplishments and progress. In addition, we are also providing pesticide records and photographs to illustrate our stewardship activities.

Once all of our plans are implemented and documentation has been completed, we look forward to achieving designation as a Certified Audubon Cooperative Sanctuary. We hope to receive certification within this coming year.

Bearings, Grease, Seals, and Paint!

January is nearing an end and we have had a busy month. The week of January 17- 21 we attended the Iowa Turfgrass Conference and Trade Show. We attended classes for three days. These conferences help us keep up- to- date on current research and products which improve turf health, course playability, and environmental sensitivity.

We have also been busy in the shop while we wait for favorable weather for tree pruning to continue. Assistant Shawn Fopma has logged many hours in the office preparing forms and evaluations regarding our Audubon Sanctuary Program.


Equipment maintenance continues... Above the bearings and seals are removed from a rotary mower spindle to our intercut mower. Below a fairway unit is being reassembled and is nearing completion. We have also completed preventive maintenance on our fleet of more than 40 articles of small power equipment- weed eaters, chainsaws, blowers, and mowers. Time spent on preventive maintenance in the winter prevents downtime during the height of our season and streamlines our operations while our seasonal staff is present.


These photos are of work being completed by technician Beto Ramirez. Beto has spent the past two weeks reconditioning our tee markers- we have over 200 and the work is all completed by hand. The tee markers are cut from Mahogany and need to be sanded down and repainted each winter. Below you see a faded marker and one that has been repainted.


Finally, our new sprayer has arrived from TORO. This particular unit is a brand new model and was just put into production. Wakonda should be proud to own this machine. It utilizes the latest technology to increase the accuracy of fertilizer and plant protection applications.

Can You Guess?

Don't cheat - no scrolling down! Have a look at the first photo and see if you can guess what we are working on this week. (Click on the photo to zoom in.)


If you guessed that we are doing winter maintenance on our fairway mowers then you are correct! Above, you see the parts for an individual cutting unit waiting for new bearings and reassembly.


The second and third photos are of a completed cutting unit. Above you will see the mower as it would appear mowing a fairway. Below, we took a photo of the bottom of the mower where the turf is cut.


Each year we must replace all the bearings in each cutting unit. When the bearings become worn we are unable to attain precise quality and height of cut.


We have three fairway mowers and each has five cutting units. Each cutting unit has 10 bearings that must be replaced. Above, technician John Phillips is replacing the bearings and seals in a roller. Below, the fairway units are lined up in various stages of service. These mowers are expensive and the parts are as well. Each mower will require more than $1700 in parts and fluids.