Emmanuel Lopez-Calderon is a hardworking man who is always trying his best for everyone.
Mr. Lopez-Calderon is the maintenance supervisor at the Ojai Valley School Upper Campus. He’s scheduled to work Monday through Friday, but everyone knows he’s often at Upper on the weekends handling one issue or another. He works a busy schedule, with daily routine checks and a never-ending string of maintenance requests from students and staff.
With requests coming every day, Mr. Lopez-Calderon has become an expert at time management and at managing the other members of the maintenance staff.
Off campus, Mr. Lopez-Calderon likes to spend lots of his time outside in the beautiful hills of Ojai. He spends his free time mountain biking and hiking.
“I would love to go on a backpacking trip with all of the students and staff,” said Mr. Lopez-Calderon, noting that he was supposed to go on a school backpacking trip last spring, but the trip was canceled because of the shift to online learning.
Mr. Lopez-Calderon grew up in Mexico and moved to the United States when he was 14 years old. He started working at Villanova, as part of the maintenance team there, before moving to Zebra Technologies, which specializes in computer printing and other .
He joined the OVS team at Lower campus in March 2005 and became the maintenance supervisor at the Upper Campus in 2012.
OVS senior Meline Ellwanger has known Mr. Lopez-Calderon for four years, and she thinks very highly of him.
“Manny is what makes this campus work,” she said, adding that she does not think campus would operate as well without him.
When Mr. Lopez-Calderon was younger he played soccer and football as a child, and through high school. After high school, he did not play competitively but played for fun during his free time.
Mr. Lopez-Calderon also loves watching those sports on television — his favorite football team is the Chargers, while his favorite soccer team is the Liga MX team.
He is a hard worker, with a lot of passion for what he does. He loves the people he’s around, he loves the food, and he loves his job.
“Work can get busy at times, but it never gets boring,” Mr. Lopez-Calderon said. “There is always something to work on, to check up on, or to help out with.”