Bernard Scales has been working for DGS for 10 years as a Building Maintenance Repairer. Coming to work every day with a kind demeanor that radiates around him and although the work is hard and not always glamorous,  Mr.  Scales keeps a positive attitude. When asked if  he loves his job he replied: “You don’t like a job, you won’t do a good job”.   Working   everyday to make sure every build- ing in his care is maintained to his  standards, he makes sure we all have a pleasant place to be every day. He even says, “…people know I’ve been somewhere because they say to me, ‘Bernard we could smell you had been here!” A clean building has become a signature Bernard Scales smell.

Ms. Scales has lived in Baltimore all his life and has always been drawn to repairs and maintenance. Every year as a child he helped his street win the Clean Block Award, an early 1960s award given from the City to the cleanest Baltimore block. Mr. Scales said he would scrub the sidewalk by hand and re-paint his neighbors homes to help snag the win. A huge inspiration to him was a local handyman named Bill Hearst, who helped teach him everything he knew about repair. They worked together for years, even building a house together in Virginia. When he worked as a handyman around Baltimore before coming to DGS he never even needed business cards he was so well known and trusted for his work people knew who to call to get something fixed.

Mr. Scales works tirelessly on the insides and outsides of our buildings, some of the buildings he works at are City Hall, Benton Building, Abel Wolman Municipal Building, and the Weinberg Housing and Resource Center. From large ceiling repair projects to a desk drawer that just won't close, Mr. Scales knows every task is important. The jobs we do at DGS are supported by Mr. Scales’ attentive work ethic. So you may not have seen he was there but you may be able to smell his work if you pay close enough attention.