Staff Spotlight: Joe Ameral

A lot can happen in a building as large as Youville Place, and Joe Ameral has seen most of it. As Environmental Services Manager, Joe works with the maintenance and housekeeping teams to solve all the expected and unexpected incidents that arise in the building.

When asked to describe a typical day in the life of an Environmental Services Manager, Joe laughs. “My phone doesn’t stop ringing all day, but otherwise there’s never a typical day. I never know what the next call is going to be about. It could be that a housekeeper is having trouble or there’s a problem with the boiler not producing heat. Last Friday a drain backed up and we had a little flood. When you’re in this job, you have to be able to stop whatever you’re doing and address what gets priority at the time. If I’m hanging pictures and get a call that a drain is backed up, figuring out the drain will take priority.”

“Joe knows Youville Place better than anyone, including me,” says Vinnie Rodriguez, Director of Environmental Services. “He’s been here 14 years and knows how all of our systems work.”

Joe hails from Billerica and has lived in Nashua, New Hampshire for many years. His first job was as an electronic technician for General Electric. Later, he spent time in construction, apartment maintenance, and was a foreman for a concrete construction company. This combination of experience gave him a major advantage when it came to familiarizing himself with internal workings of Youville Place.

Joe began his career at Youville with a unique inside view into the culture of the community, via his wife, Deborah Wildenberger, whose family has a long history with Youville. As many residents know, Deborah is the full-time receptionist at Youville Place. “Before Deborah worked here, her dad, Gerry Buzzell, worked here,” says Joe. “And before Gerry worked here, Deborah’s mother, Deborah Buzzell, worked as a nurse for the Grey Nuns.”

Joe particularly enjoys the friendly culture that exists among residents and staff. “My favorite part of this job is interacting with residents and the Grey Nuns,” he says. “They make it such an enjoyable place to work. Everyone here is kind and happy.” When he’s not at work, Joe enjoys kayaking on the Nashua River, cooking, finding culinary inspiration on the Food Network, and restoring antique stationary engines, a hobby he picked up after seeing some antique engines exhibited at a fair. “They’re called ‘hit and miss’ engines and they were used on farms to power water pumps or for milling grains. Often, they’d have a big leather belt attached to a piece of equipment that they would be running.”

Joe says that another big part of his free time is devoted to firewood – gathering it, splitting it, piling it, and using it to heat his home in the winter. “The stove we have is an ‘insert,’ which means it goes in the fireplace and uses the flue in the chimney. Every year before wood-burning season, I’ll take it apart and clean it. So far it has lasted for ten years and still works perfectly.”

Another bonus to working at Youville Place is the reliable supply of wood pallets that come through with deliveries. Joe enjoys taking them home to use as fire starter, before adding in the chopped-up cords of wood he has processed and piled up in the yard.

Joe’s responsibility for keeping Youville Place operating smoothly at all hours means he is on call 24 hours a day. While he never knows what problem might present itself on the other end of a late-night phone call, he is always calm and collected. Joe offers the following advice: “There’s no sense getting worked up over a problem – that doesn’t make it better or fix it any faster. If something breaks, I don’t get excited. I just do what I have to do and move on.”