The Mayor of SWAP

Did you ever wonder what happens to all the furniture and equipment that your department no longer uses? With a bit of sweat and toil, seldom-seen workers from Surplus With A Purpose, UW–Madison’s surplus property disposal program, enter and exit your building in a flash with the mystique of Santa Claus.

But instead of leaving gifts, they take away a burden and put it to good use.

“We’re in and out as fast as we can,” says Kim Woelke, explaining why university employees rarely catch sight of them. Woelke, a driver for SWAP, does the majority of pick-ups on campus.

SWAP, located at 2102 Wright St., collects more than 900 tons of surplus property from the university and state agencies in the Madison area. More than 98 percent of those materials are either sold for reuse or recycled.

“SWAP keeps all types of things out of the landfill,” says Tim Sell, the program’s business manager. “And it keeps cost down for disposal. It’s very much a money saver for the university.”

SWAP sells surplus in two ways. One is at the SWAP Shop, which is located in a warehouse on campus. It essentially operates like a garage sale and makes inventory available for sale to campus departments, state agencies, municipalities and non-profit organizations on Thursday of every week. On Fridays, materials are open for sale to the general public. The shop’s inventory includes computers, lab equipment, office furniture and supplies, home furnishings, building materials and other miscellaneous products.

The program also uses a process called “Offers to Sell.” This operates like a blind auction in which people can bid on exceptionally large, unique or highly valuable items that they may view on-line. These items stay within the department so they can be more secure and knowledgeable faculty and staff can answer potential buyers’ questions about equipment.

“Departments that have low or limited budgets can buy [surplus] cheaply at a centralized location,” Sell says. A five-drawer steel filing cabinet that costs around $400 brand-new can be purchased from SWAP for $25 to $60. “So they can make their money really stretch,” Sell says.

“It gives people a chance to reuse stuff that has basically become obsolete to the university,” says Woelke, who bought a rowboat from SWAP recently.

SWAP employees do not get first crack at the program’s surplus materials. They must wait for the general public sale, Woelke says.

SWAP also reimburses departments that contribute surplus property on a sliding scale. During the 1997-98 fiscal year, SWAP earned about $1,417,000 from the sale of surplus property, 71 percent of which the program returned to contributing departments.

“It’s kind of like profit-sharing at a business,” says Sell. “The more you put into it, the more you get back.”

The SWAP program also earns revenue through contracts with recycling companies for materials like computers, toner cartridges and wooden pallets.

Woelke plans his campus route every morning according to requests from departments for surplus pick-up and deliveries for Materials Distribution Services, a university program that sells and distributes new office supplies, lab equipment and other products. Woelke says he appreciates several aspects of his job.

“I’ve gained a lot of knowledge of the campus,” he says. “I know my way around outside and inside the buildings. I could be a tour guide.”

Woelke enjoys meeting and getting to know new people on his route, which earned him the nickname “The Mayor” among his colleagues at SWAP. “I like to be out and about,” he says. “Especially with pick-ups, everyday is different for the most part.”

The students are yet another bonus of his job. “They help keep me in my youth,” Woelke says. “If you’re around young people, you start to feel younger.”

The SWAP program is a part of the Sales Program in UW–Madison’s Division of Business Services, which also features MDS. Both SWAP and MDS work with Purchasing Services to coordinate the purchasing and property distribution programs on campus.

For more information on SWAP, call 245-2980, e-mail swap@bussvc.wisc.edu, or: http://www.bussvc.wisc.edu/swap.