"51 to 90. 51 to 90," the voice of the dispatcher crackles over the CB radio. "We've got a problem in 105 Andres."
"I'm on it," Dave Porter responds. He wheels his truck around on Tuck Drive and heads for the East Wheelock cluster.
But Porter isn't responding to a fight or a sick freshman in a dormitory. Porter is heading for an overflowing toilet.
Porter is a Dartmouth College troubleshooter, a member of an elite task force of five men who handle problems that arise in any College-owned building after Buildings and Grounds closes for the day.
The Buildings and Grounds office is open 40 hours a week, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Troubleshooters handle the problems that arise during the other 128 hours of the week, according to Porter, who has been a troubleshooter for 14 years.
"We fix locks, flooded rooms, overflowed toilets, broken pipes, broken elevators, radiators that are too hot, radiators that don't work at all, even broken windows," Porter said.
"But we handle only emergencies," he added. "We don't fix faucets that have been broken for four days."
Porter works five eight-hour shifts a week, which he spends cruising around campus in his green pick-up truck, listening to 101.7 FM country radio between calls from the dispatcher.
His black loafers, brown pants and "Dartmouth College Troubleshooters" shirt worn over a safari shirt all bear the stains and grease marks of a six-foot man who has been crammed into a five-foot furnace room one too many times.
A flashlight, a walkie-talkie and a set of keys that will open any door on campus adorn his belt. A four-inch black tattoo decorates his right forearm.
When the crackling voice of dispatcher Robert Morris drowns out the twanging radio guitars, Porter heads to fix the Andres toilet.
Five minutes after receiving the toilet call, Porter is already back in his truck. All he did was walk in, plunge the toilet three times and leave.
"We have to get in and get out quickly, because we have so many jobs," Porter said. "We can't spend a lot of time in one place."
Porter said he usually spends only about five to 10 minutes on a call. He fixes complicated problems temporarily, and then has Buildings and Grounds call in a plumber, electrician or other contractor to permanently solve the problem.
The number of calls that come in varies each night, Porter said. Some nights go by with only one call, others have 20 or 30. Wednesday night, Porter worked on six calls at once.
"I really enjoy my job," Porter said. "It's so interesting. It's always a challenge. One minute I'm getting a kid locked in a bathroom out, and the next minute I'm taking apart someone's furnace."
Porter said he was the first one to reach a fire on the fourth floor in Russell Sage Hall in the late 1980s.
"I rushed up the stairs," Porter recalls, "and the glass window was pitch black. I thought, 'Those crazy kids they painted the window black.' But then I opened the door and saw that the window was clear and the entire hallway was filled with smoke."
The other four College troubleshooters are Wayne Wheeler, Stuart Bacon, Tony Jukosky and Anthony Owens, who has been troubleshooting for over 30 years.
Porter said that throughout his 14-year tenure as a troubleshooter, he hasn't forgotten the main focus of his job.
"We're here for the comfort of the students," he says. "They're the ones paying the bills. Complete comfort isn't entirely possible, but as long as we make a valiant attempt, we're alright."
The radio buzzes again.
"51 to 90. 51 to 90. There's a roof leaking in the Choate House."
