M.O.T. is comprised of the maintenance, operations, and transportation employees at the Taft Union High School District. Rocky O’Neill is the head of M.O.T.; he started working here in 1991. O’Neill has worked here for 28 years and moved up from custodian, maintenance, gardening and now he is the “Big Boss.” He started out as a custodian in the gym area. On a day-to-day basis, he does “everything.” He has two big projects going on at the moment. The first one is the Solar Project Facility. The plan is to have six acres of solar panels behind the baseball and soccer fields that will be up in March. The solar panels will provide 82% of our electricity that we use. The second one is a master project, which is it is a 10-year facility plan for things around the campus.

Diane Wheeldon has worked Taft High for 28 years, she also started as a substitute custodian, “Jack of all trades.” On a day-to-day basis, she does laundry, moves furniture, sorts the mail, orders supplies, stocks the supplies, and is the lead custodian. She is also head of all of the custodians and student workers.

Gary House has been a part of the TUHS family for 13 years. He cleans the boys gym and stays after the games to clean. Gary loves his students and sees them as, “One of his biggest benefits.”

Jenn Garcia has been here for 5 years she cleans the art room, science building, and the auditorium. She drives the bus for activities as well. Her main enjoyment to her job is, “the kids.”

Jessica Harris started off as a substitute working in offices, M.O.T., and in the cafeteria. She worked in the cafeteria for a year until she got hired on in M.O.T. She cleans the I.R.C. Lecture Hall, does quad clean up after lunch, opens the gate every hour for the CTEC kids, and runs a staff lunch line.

Barry Jameson has worked here for 25 years. He started off as a general gardener after 8 years he moved to lead gardener. He and the other gardeners take care of all grounds, all fields (Baseball, Football/ Soccer, Softball, and Track); they also freehand all designs on the fields. Jameson coached cross country previously and also drives the bus to Cuyama to pick up a girl and then a girl from the aqueduct, and then picks up a boy up here in town. He stated that he, “loves doing something different every day–a little of everything.” He also enjoys, “the people and the kids.”

Larry Breslin works as maintenance, a bus driver and he does security sometimes when they need him. He has worked here for 19 years as ground maintenance. Breslin said something similar to Jameson, which should not be a surprise: “…love the job and the co-workers, every day is a new day.”  He enjoys “learning something new everyday.”

Kirk Kindred has worked here for 21 years, he started off as a general helper then went to mechanic as the bus garage, maintenance, now he is head of maintenance. His favorite part about the job is that TUHS is a, “great place to work, the kids and staff are great also.” He also said, “We try our best to get everything you kids need to keep the campus clean; we try to get graffiti and broken things off of the campus as soon as possible.” He also informed us that, “It makes us happy that other people come here and enjoy our campus.”