Don Lynch: Making a Living, Living a Life

Don Lynch stepped off the bus near Carillon Park. Looking at his watch, he knew he needed to walk the rest of the way. If he waited for the next bus into Kettering, he’d be late for his interview. So, wearing his best shirt—a black and white polo—Don started the three-mile hike to Kettering Memorial Hospital.

The hospital, having opened the year before in March 1964, seemed to radiate eagerness as he walked toward it. Perhaps, the 25-year-old from Chillicothe thought, he could find work he liked and make a living here.

His interview lasted only 20 minutes. At the end, the interviewer asked him, “When can you start?”

Don replied, “This afternoon.”

The man, the institution

Now, Don starts his days in his office, preparing housekeeping carts, checking supplies, reviewing schedules. “Supervisor stuff,” he calls it. At 85, he tries to walk less, when he can. But that doesn’t stop him from keeping a schedule that would wear out most 25-year-olds:

Wake up at 4:30 a.m. Drink a cup of Maxwell House and let Willie, his Shih Tzu, out. Get to work by 6:20 a.m. Leave by 3:30 p.m., then drive to the second job—his business of 30 years, “Don’s Cleaning.” He’ll be there until 7:30 or 8 p.m.—Monday through Thursday. And for a few hours on Sunday mornings.

“I tried bowling in the work league. But that wore me out,” he jokes, opening the equipment room near the loading dock. He readies his dust mop.

He makes three passes in each hallway—collecting yesterday’s dust and loose popcorn. He says he doesn’t daydream. But he does stop to greet patients and staff he comes across. “We love Don, absolutely love him,” says Julie Hall, a nursing supervisor. “He’s an institution.”

Surrounded by the heavy quiet of passing minutes—waddling up and down, up and down, up and down each hallway—he focuses “on the few feet in front of me.”

All this is just step one. Next, the real fun: using his stand-on floor scrubber. “It sure was nice when they made these stand-on.” He remembers when they were hand-held, like holding a metal pole with a flying saucer at the end.

A lot has certainly changed in housekeeping since he started nearly 60 years ago. But not his approach, nor his love for it.

A unique vision and place of healing

As a new floor technician at Kettering Memorial Hospital, Don cleaned the second floor. He quickly learned the ins and outs of housekeeping, finding that he not only liked the work. He loved it. And “You have to love your work,” he says, “to keep yourself going.”

In 1967, he received his first promotion: floor supervisor. As supervisor, responsible for all five floors, he helped give life to a vision for housekeeping passionately advocated by Virginia Kettering, who saw Kettering Memorial Hospital as a unique place of healing—down to its halls and walls.

And Don taught many others to see housekeeping the same way, including his summer interns. Like 15-year-old Michael Brendel, or “Brend” as Don calls him.

They both recall when Don first put a floor scrubber in Brendel’s hands, only to watch it careen across the floor into a wall. That was in 1974. Today, Brendel serves as president of Kettering Health Dayton and considers Don “a quiet and impactful leader to so many and a dear friend.”

Though he’s less likely to run a floor scrubber, Brendel leads KH Dayton with the same vision Don instilled in him.

“Think of the Environmental Services (EVS) colleague as a bedside caregiver. These colleagues sometimes get to know patients better than anyone. They know patients from the first day they come in to when they go home. They learn pets’ names. Birthdays. Bucket lists. In many ways, they’re patient advocates. And they’re absolutely vital to us.”

Over 500,000 square feet

Don prefers scrubbing floors, especially when he’s done with his “supervisor stuff.” Over the years, no matter what title he’s held—floor technician, floor supervisor, EVS coordinator, or EVS supervisor—Don joined his teams in the hallways, whether with a dust mop or a floor scrubber in his hands.

In 2003, after 38 years at Kettering Medical Center (now Kettering Health Main Campus), Don began leading EVS teams at various KH facilities. And in February 2014, he moved to the Kettering Health Behavioral Medical Center. Where he’s still leading, dust mopping, and focusing on the few feet in front of him.

And those feet have added up. Don guesses he’s cleaned 500,000 square feet of Kettering Health facilities since April 1965—more than eight football fields side-by-side. Chances are, though, it’s more than that.

Thankfully, much of that he’s scrubbed humming down the halls on his SC1500 stand-on floor scrubber.

But he’s never been focused on the numbers, whether square feet cleaned, or years worked. Only recently has he considered retirement. In April, he’ll hit 59 years—longer than anyone else at Kettering Health.