Jonathan Johnson is the Director of Facilities and
Security at Pandora’s Oakland Headquarters and the Founder of Hyperspace, a company dedicated to saving millions of dollars in real estate or workplace management. He has worked in facility management for the past 13 years and provides seamless service for his occupants and clients. Jonathan has also worked with his team at Pandora and countless others to help them shift their mindsets to assisting customers in this new normal.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Jonathan Johnson recalls his transition from the Air Force to facility management
- Learning facility management in London
- The value of facility management in the US vs. the UK
- What role does a facility manager play while the US is in a state of civil unrest?
- The shift to remote work
- How did the military prepare Jonathan for his current position in facility management?
- The importance of using debriefing tactics in your workplace
- The future of facility management and the software to support it
In this episode…
How do you create an occupant-friendly building? Sure, you can use bright colors, beanbags, or communal gathering areas—or you can start with those who manage the building.
With a growing need for a blend of tech, building knowledge, and emotional intelligence, the facility management industry continues to grow within the US. Jonathan Johnson, Director of Facilities and Security at Pandora, can attest to the growing demand in his field. From his knowledge of how an HVAC system works to maintenance schedules, he describes his role as a generalist—and a skilled one, at that.
In this week’s episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens is joined by Jonathan Johnson, Director of Facilities and Security at Pandora. They discuss the difference between facility management in the US vs. different parts of the world. Jonathan highlights how his military training has helped him to be successful in his career. He also shares his idea for improving the process of finding and vetting contractors for facility management tasks.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- Jonathan Johnson on LinkedIn
- Pandora
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the watching paint dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of thousands of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:33
Good morning, it’s Friday, October 30, the day before Halloween, Happy Halloween, everyone. And this is the watching paint dry podcast. And it’s brought to you by my company McCarthy painting, where we paint both residential and commercial buildings throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. And we’re continuing our series of on this podcast of talking to the facilities managers, building building owners, property managers and people that support facilities managers out there in the world. And I’m super excited to have Jonathan Johnson from Pandora, Director of facilities and security of Pandora. Welcome to the podcast. Thanks. Thanks for having me. And we’ve got also Katrina Katrina Stevenson now,
Katrina Stevenson 1:32
yeah, to change my name.
Greg Owens 1:34
She just got married. She’s with McCarthy painting, too. And sometimes she chimes in with some questions also on this podcast,
Katrina Stevenson 1:41
and excited to be here. Thank you.
Greg Owens 1:43
Um, so just like, I always like to get started with sort of, how are things going for you personally, in this kind of challenging time with, you know, we’re still in a pandemic, all the things that are happening on election, like, three, four days away, or something like that? Yeah.
Jonathan Johnson 2:02
Yeah, I, for me, it’s just been super busy. And so it keeps my mind off a lot of these things. And so, you know, with the election, security wise, and then also with the, you know, buildings changing so much because of this, you know, I don’t think I’ve had time to even digest everything that’s going on, but yeah, it’s been okay. It’s been good. I can’t complain. But, you know, knock on wood. so sure.
Greg Owens 2:28
Right. And Pandora is doing well.
Jonathan Johnson 2:31
Yeah, I mean, people are kind of shutting themselves in and you know, so it’s a good time for streaming services across the board, you know, whether it’s video or audio or whatever it may be in Pandora is owned by Sirius XM. So Sirius XM as well. Yeah. So both companies are doing well. Yeah.
Greg Owens 2:49
Right. And Sirius XM is like, been like buying up all kinds of things, didn’t they? Didn’t they? Were they the ones that bought Joe Rogan? Or is that somebody up?
Katrina Stevenson 2:58
Now Spotify?
Jonathan Johnson 3:01
But we did not have fun? Right? Yeah, those guys. Yeah. And we did just finish the acquisition of stitcher podcast platform itself. And so yeah,
Greg Owens 3:12
I think this is I think our podcasts might be on Stitcher.
Jonathan Johnson 3:16
Yeah, keep it all in the family. So we’re
Katrina Stevenson 3:19
on Spotify.
Greg Owens 3:21
Right now. And now you were saying like, before we got on this, that you’re over in the Oakland, the Oakland facility, and you guys have how many floors there?
Jonathan Johnson 3:30
We have currently three, three floors here? Yeah, this is Oakland is Pandora’s headquarters. And you have three floors here and down right down downtown
Greg Owens 3:41
Oakland? Yeah, I’ve been there. And it’s such a beautiful space that that they have, are you guys able to start occupying it somewhat now? Or is it still work from home?
Jonathan Johnson 3:52
Yeah, I think we don’t want to take any risks. And we want to be very cautious. And also understand, you know, from an employee standpoint, how do we want to make sure that they feel safe as well. And so while we’ve done our due diligence and creating like a space that we feel is safe to come back to, we are going to you know, wait until we get some more information next year for sure.
Greg Owens 4:11
Right. So basically pushing it off, like any decision until January, and then maybe push it back, depending on what’s going on. Yeah, I hear that from a lot of companies right now. Right. And it’s somewhat what I’ve noticed, that depends on where they’re headquartered, too. Right. So some of the companies that are headquartered sort of in the Midwest and the South, they’ve been opening up more.
Jonathan Johnson 4:34
Yeah, yeah. And I think the government plays a lot of roles and like, kind of what we’re doing, but then, you know, again, to you as a company, we’ve kind of taken the stance that you know, granted we do have studios and stuff where folks you know, might have to go in but we don’t want to take any risks as a whole for sure.
Greg Owens 4:50
Right, right. Right. And and how did you get like what tell me the backstory of becoming a facilities manager and how you got into this?
Jonathan Johnson 4:59
Yeah, I mean, A lot of people get into it from various different ways. You know, a lot of times I’ve see folks from finance or from HR from wherever it may be, I actually started out in civil engineering and the United States Air Force. And then it I needed a job once I got out. And so I was like, what, what’s related? And I think from like, a military veteran standpoint, you always have to try and figure out like, Well, how do you speak? You know, everybody civilian speak, you know, how did your job translate facilities management made a lot of sense. There was also a lot of facilities stuff that were in government facilities, or companies that were working with governments that needed a security clearance, just kind of work out where I was able to be like, hey, look, I have a security clearance, I have the relevant background, and then I kind of just did my time, um, use the GI Bill to get my master’s in facilities management as well, University College London, again, they’re fortunate to, you know, the military paid for it. Right. So it’s one of those things where it was very fortunate at the time. And then yeah, I just one of those, I was one of those people that I would just apply to any company that I felt, you know, was was doing amazing things. And, you know, I might get 100 rejections, but you know, the one and then as I started to kind of gain a presence, you know, it became much more of a, you know, I became a bigger staple in the career field and then it was easier for me to kind of like branch out and get different jobs within the within Russell’s.
Greg Owens 6:24
Right. That’s awesome. That is awesome. Because civil engineering and and facilities does have a lot of like, crossover. And in that way, did you were you did you go out in unlisted or? Or no you got so you didn’t send them you went and went work your way up and got and got a degree while ago while still in the military?
Jonathan Johnson 6:44
So yeah, I went in, listed you have a it’s in civil engineering, but originally, I wasn’t a civil engineering officer, right. So I did more of the operational stuff. I did a lot of construction management survey, a lot of surveys really heavily involved road building and stuff like that. And so while I did I did get my while you’re in you got this thing called tuition assistance. So I got my you know, associates in my bachelor’s while I was in but then instead of transitioning into an officer, I instead went out and tried out the you know, the civilian world.
Greg Owens 7:15
Right, right. Wow. And that’s an interesting transition too. Because I know my my nephew Katrina’s twin brother, he’s in Yeah. Oh, man. And and he cracks me up because he just like automatically thinks I know all the the ranks and the ranks and the short and the shortened words and all the you know, and all the whole all the lingo right? And it’s a it’s a whole different world of communication. And I’m just like, dude, I have no clue what you’re talking about.
Jonathan Johnson 7:46
For the longest time I had. The biggest one was EOD. It means end of day for civilians. It meant Explosive Ordnance Disposal, because I worked heavily like with like roads and like, you know, so what are we blowing up? Why, why are we doing this? And it did. I didn’t realize it until like maybe like months later because you know, you tried to pretend like you your civilian eyes enough once you kind of been around, but it just it you know, some things just kind of stick with you. And you can make those mistakes.
Katrina Stevenson 8:16
So funny because I pretend I know what my twin is talking about. I’m like, I know that lingo. You know?
Greg Owens 8:23
Yeah, exactly. Katrina’s the older one, she can’t like make it thing make him think make him. He’s a he’s Yeah, martyr.
Katrina Stevenson 8:34
Three minutes, three minutes. You still have time.
Jonathan Johnson 8:36
Right? You still you can still.
Greg Owens 8:41
Yeah,
Katrina Stevenson 8:43
I probably do army.
Greg Owens 8:44
You can easily eight years now or something like that. Okay, good. And it’s great. He’s learning a lot. And we know it would be great if he watched this podcast, though, and got some ideas to use the GI Bill and that kind of thing. Because it’s such a great opportunity to learn and what school you said the London School? Is it in London? Or is that something here in the US the news used to name London?
Jonathan Johnson 9:04
Yeah. So I’m kind of wild in that way. Where I looked up, I said, Well, what are the best schools for facilities management and because England and so many historical buildings, they have a very robust program and they have like a lot of they put a lot of effort into it, whereas the US not as much right. You don’t really have I think Georgia Tech and maybe one other school have very formalized pricing, huh. programs. But yeah, England has this huge program again, I at the time I yeah, I didn’t have I don’t have kids and I wasn’t married. I was like I have this GI Bill, why not go move to London. So that’s awesome.
Greg Owens 9:40
That’s awesome. And what was the what was that experience like being in London and learning facilities?
Jonathan Johnson 9:46
It was it was super helpful, super amazing. It’s helped me with any jobs that I’ve applied for that have like a global footprint. Because I was the only American in that course. Most of the students were either English. Um, a lot of folks from In the Middle East and China, even Singapore, and so it was a very, it was interesting to see how everybody else looked at facilities, how they, how they just kind of manage them, you know, for instance, England, you could go to jail if you don’t kind of do the preventative maintenance on your water and somebody gets Legionnaires disease, right. Whereas the US it’s not as as common. And so it’s, it’s one of those things where I got a lot of really, really, really good information. I made a lot of really good international friends and colleagues. Oh, that’s so great. Yeah, we talked to a guy from Scotland. And, and, and he brought up Legionnaires disease to which is not something we think about. I mean, it’s not something I’d like top of tongue sort of say, like, here in the US, it happens, but not as often. And I think it’s one of the things I was thinking about was like the older buildings like right, so England has, you know, we think we have old buildings, we’re not even close to what
Katrina Stevenson 11:01
fornia You know, we’re so new here.
Jonathan Johnson 11:05
Yeah, exactly. I mean, it’s, it’s Yeah, it’s totally, totally different. I mean, my, that university is, is so old, that you know, they have you know, actual museum kind of pieces there. You know, that are that are English history and stuff like that. So it’s a pretty any legionnaires, you know, the climate and, you know, the climate of the UK is just perfect for and the buildings are so old, they use a lot of cooling towers. And so yeah, it’s just a very, it’s a different thing that we like you said, we have it in the US it is it does happen in like New York and some other places up in the northeast, but right, we don’t think of it as like some as like a sinister thing lurking in the water. Right?
Greg Owens 11:45
Right. Did you have any culture shock? Where do you Where did you grow up?