Filholm List Gives Recipients a Look at SDSU Campus Transformation

Tony Filholm has certainly seen his share of changes on the South Dakota State University campus over his nearly 40 years as a dedicated Facilities and Services employee.

Hired as a building maintenance worker in October 1986 at age 23, Filholm eventually acquired the nickname “Mr. SDSU” and retired from his full-time work at State last September. 

But in the last few months on the job, he started thinking about all the ways the Brookings campus had changed.

He took notes, compiling an eight-page list of major facilities that didn’t exist when he started, other buildings that have undergone major renovations, and more that were demolished to make way for newer structures. He added buildings that used to surround campus, as well as major events that he witnessed impacting the university and its operations.

Family business

Filholm served just short of 13 years in the South Dakota National Guard and worked as a locksmith, bartender and on various construction jobs before coming to SDSU.

Coming from a family of locksmiths (his late father and three brothers), that was his first focus on campus. After five years, he became supervisor of the lock shop, followed by general services supervisor and then a building maintenance manager. 

“In my opinion, the locksmithing is one of the most critical parts of the job at SDSU, because you’re providing the physical security for people and goods. You’re trying to keep people safe in the residence halls and control access in and out of facilities, limit things,” he said.

Most of his job was “get ’er done. … You helped wherever you were needed to get a project accomplished.”

His work included material handling with forklifts and handcarts; shuffling offices from here to there to accommodate new construction, remodeling and other updates; setting up and tearing down after events such as graduation and football games; surplus handling; cleaning up after natural disasters, like flooded buildings and the May 2022 derecho; and even cracking an old safe in the basement of Hilton M. Briggs Library.

If he couldn’t do a job, he knew where to direct people. He led work to convert locks across campus to card access during the COVID pandemic, and he was part of the effort to put air conditioners into residence halls during a heat emergency in 2013 and permanently install them in 2014.

Filholm was also trained in asbestos abatement, which has come in handy to fill another role at State. Ten days after his retirement, he was hired back part time for a one-year general services assistant position, using his years of experience to survey and catalog areas of campus still in need of attention.

In addition to his part-time work, the father of two and grandfather of three also spends time deer hunting and pursuing shooting sports, especially archery.

Looking back

“Probably over a period of a few months when I was getting close to the end, I’d just jot something down. Just the amount of change that’s happened on campus in that amount of time, it’s amazing,” Filholm said of his list of changes on campus over four decades. He would know, as when a new building comes online, the lock shop gets very involved in all its functions. 

Everything that happens on campus is documented in SDSU Archives, “but nobody really puts it all together to show what happened. I’ve seen a lot of interesting things.” 

Filholm has shared items he’s found over the years with SDSU and the South Dakota Agricultural Heritage Museum, but his newly compiled list traveled further than that, to various departments, colleges and all the way to the President’s Office.   

Calling out the numerous co-workers, directors, coordinators, supervisors and student employees he’s served with over the years, Filholm’s list noted that people are SDSU’s greatest assets.

“It’s easy to go through the world oblivious to what it takes to make things go like they do. All the untold people behind the scenes making things happen for the benefit of the people. Pat yourselves on the back,” he wrote. 

“This was not a career, just a job, when I started. It has turned into my life’s work. It’s the people that make the world go round. Be good, be nice, work hard, and like Stig says, make a difference through your words and actions.”

Written by Jill Fier, University Marketing & Communications