Employee Spotlight
Meet Richard Boucher
Head Groundskeeper, Building Services, Transportation & Grounds
When spring comes to Woods Hole and many MBL employees are getting ready for another busy summer, head groundskeeper Richard Boucher is already working at full tilt.
“This is my busiest time, when things are starting to grow,” says Boucher, who keeps the grass cut, the hedges trimmed, the flowers watered, and the grounds tidy on all the MBL’s property.
A May day might find him working on the village campus; or at the Devil’s Lane or Bar Neck Road parking areas; or at Whitehall, the MBL director’s residence near Nobska Light; or even at the MBL warehouse in Falmouth Industrial Park.
“It’s nice when someone says, gee, the place looks great. It makes you feel good,” says Richard, who dug and planted several of the perennial beds on campus.
After working solo all winter, Richard gets help from seasonal employees in the spring and summer.
“Summertime is gorgeous here,” he says. “Can’t have a better place to work.”
Some of the seasonal crew drive the MBL vans that bring employees to and from the Devil’s Lane parking lot, a service that Richard manages. He says most people are understanding about the summer parking crunch in Woods Hole.
“Some people complain about the van, but hey, look at WHOI! They run a van year-round,” he says.
It’s also Boucher who makes sure reserved parking spots are saved for people—a very important job at the MBL!
The toughest season, Richard says, is winter, when snow cleanup is his responsibility. The MBL custodians help him plow, and the last few winters have been light for snow. But the winter of 2004-2005 was brutal, especially the January blizzard that dumped more than 30 inches of snow on Woods Hole.
“We had to clean out the snow with Bobcats,” says Richard. “The plows couldn’t handle it. I was at work for three days. I couldn’t get home.”
Still, he says, last year’s renovation of Rowe Laboratory, where visiting scientists set up their labs, was nearly as rough. “Everything had to be moved out of the building. We took truckloads and truckloads of stuff out of there. And then it all had to be moved back in, after the renovation.”
Richard is also the person visiting scientists call when they want their stuff removed from storage in the MBL’s warehouse. “I have hundreds of their boxes at the warehouse,” Richard says. “Some days, I move boxes all day long.”
If this sounds like Richard works hard, he does! He first came to the MBL in 1989 as a custodian, and he was named head groundskeeper in the Building Services & Transportation Department in 1998. Before moving to the Cape, he lived in Worcester, where he drove a bus.
When he’s not at work, Richard relaxes by fishing. “I like to fish off Menauhant Beach
in Falmouth,” he says, typically catching striped bass and bluefish.
Richard, who is 67, is “starting to think about retiring,” he says. But while he’s glad to have younger employees at the MBL do more and more of the heavy lifting, he still enjoys
his job.
“I enjoy working with everyone here,” he
says. “Everyone is nice to work with, and everyone pitches in when we need it. That makes the job.”
