David Lobato is a Practice Lead at Aerotek, a company that specializes in recruiting and staffing needs. Aerotek has won countless awards over the last 30 years, becoming a global company that meets the high demand for top talent in various organizations. David started specializing in recruiting during his college years when he helped various students and other job seekers get a steady foot into the corporate and traditional workplaces.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Learn:
- David talks about his experience with the current pandemic
- David describes his role at Aerotek
- Paving the way for facility managers and maintenance
- How do you find the right facility manager for your company?
- The makings of a good facility manager
- What makes Aerotek different from other companies?
- David describes finding the balance between what the client wants and the skill sets offered
- What the future of facility management needs: more opportunities for the younger generation
In this Episode:
Who works behind the scenes to hire the right facility manager for your office building? Who helps clients identify their needs and evaluate talented individuals based on skill sets and prior knowledge? Five years ago, Aerotek made a formative decision when they opted to promote David Lobato instead of hiring someone from outside the company who was experienced in facility management. Since then, he has helped other managers in his company move into the same role and thrive.
In this week’s episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens interviews David Lobato, Practice Lead at Aerotek, about the attributes of an excellent facility manager, the importance of trade skills, and the future of facility management. David also recalls how he got into recruitment, his role at Aerotek, and the need for apprenticeship programs in facility management and beyond.
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
- David Lobato on LinkedIn
- David Lobato’s Email
- Aerotek
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 0:32
Hello, this is Greg Owens here with the Watching Paint Dry Podcast. And we are continuing our series here talking to facilities managers, business owners, property managers and anybody related to the construction facilities management industry. It is Friday, July 31. And it’s another moment month has quickly gone by. We are here in the San Francisco Bay Area and unfortunately the Coronavirus is spreading here. And you know when we’re all doing our best to stay safe at this time and hope everybody out there is to. This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, or we serve residential and commercial painting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. We have been in business since 1969. We’ve done tremendous amounts of work for different companies like Google, Facebook, Autodesk Abercrombie and Fitch, H&M, retail stores, and many, many more. You can find out more about us and the types of types of buildings we paint by going to McCarthypainting.com or email info@McCarthyPainting.com and I, our guest today, David Lobato from Aerotek. Aerotek Inc is the leading provider of technical professional industrial recruiting and staffing services. Welcome to the podcast, David.
David Lobato 2:26
Thanks for having me. Great.
Greg Owens 2:28
Yeah, it’s good to have you here. Um, first of all, how are you doing and how is your family and you know, where are you? Where are you with these? These days in the San Francisco Bay Area?
David Lobato 2:42
Yeah, I mean, I was I was born and raised here in the Bay Area. I’m doing a lot better, um, as well as my family. Unfortunately, we did catch the coronavirus. So, overall, we have been resting the last two weeks. But outside of that, I mean, I can’t complain at the end of the day everyone’s safe and everyone’s getting home. Fear, which is one of the biggest blessings we have right now.
Greg Owens 3:04
Right? Yeah, this is it’s, I think when we talked before this, like we had our one of our office gals had come down with it and no idea how she got it. And we were super thankful that it was just a mild case, she lost her sense of taste and had a headache. And we’ve had some close calls with our painters, where their family members got it, but the painter actually never got it, which was really, um, you know, it’s it’s interesting how this this virus can spread really fast, but it’s also like, an anomaly and that it doesn’t contact some people. What’s my experience around that? Or do you have any idea of how you were able to you guys picked it up or just no clue?
David Lobato 3:53
Well, the only thing the only way I can think about it is um, my sister visited my cousin about two weeks ago. My cousin works in construction. And the back, he went back to work for the first time, a couple months because he wasn’t the stability. And my cousin and my whole family got it. So it was about 13 unless I got a total. So my cousin lives with his brother and his sister and they all have kids. So all them got it. Then my sister came back home, but we got it. So thankfully, my grandparents didn’t get it because we did see my grandparents one day. So I’m just happy that they weren’t impacted since they are a bit older than parents.
Greg Owens 4:39
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And you know, I’ve also we’ve been having to tell our painters constantly to take this seriously and to be careful because they start relaxing, especially as we got back into work mode and that kind of thing. And it’s, it’s it’s something that We can’t relax around and we keep having to tell them like, Hey, you got to wear your mask. That’s easy. But the social distance part that gets tougher for them?
David Lobato 5:10
Yeah, definitely has.
Greg Owens 5:13
And not even just for them, I’m noticing it with a lot of my friends and stuff to where they, you know, their circles have opened up more and it’s so easily gets to exponential numbers of people that you’re, you’re coming into contact with on a daily basis.
David Lobato 5:27
Definitely. I mean, I think that quite honestly, before I was just like, hey, it’s not impacting everybody and not that it impacted me. It’s like, my perspective have definitely changed.
Greg Owens 5:40
Yeah, well, hopefully you’re everybody in your family gets through this. And you’re on the on the back end of it, and healthy.
David Lobato 5:49
Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Greg Owens 5:51
Yeah, and I know I know from for some of my friends and from our office person eight she feels like first her immune systems like you know, likes a superpower right now. This is like, I got through that.
David Lobato 6:06
Yeah, I know. I mean with questions personally with my dad being in the hospital, like, he ended up getting some of the plasma treatment and once I’m at least two weeks healthy or at least get a couple of negative test and now that I have antibodies, I definitely want to donate plasma to help others, you know,
Greg Owens 6:24
right. Right. Yeah, that wouldn’t be good. Um, so tell us tell us about Aerotek. And, and your your role there and what you guys do?
David Lobato 6:35
Yeah, so we are one of the largest privately held staffing firms in the country. We have over 350 offices across the US. Specifically for me, I am what’s called the practice lead for our San Francisco market. So I oversee all industrial hiring, whether it is warehouse or food production, Can you be a manufacturing or more skilled trade your construction trades, but also your facilities maintenance. My main business that I focus on right now is within the facility skilled trade and Construction Trades. My goal is to promote another manager to be doing the construction trades going into 2021. And then I would still only be focused within facilities maintenance.
Greg Owens 7:27
And so and so you’re recruiting and you’re you’re you’re out there looking to fill positions inside, inside companies that have facilities needs or construction needs or supervisors and that kind of thing. Yep.
David Lobato 7:44
That’s exactly what we do. And I mean, I’ve about five years ago when I got promoted to be an account manager. My director initially told me, I want you to do all of the skilled trade, business and primarily skilled trade for Aerotek was go after all the machinist openings go after all the welding openings go after all the maintenance mechanics, all the mechanics. And living here in San Francisco, I realized that we’re a lot more urban city, and we don’t have a lot of those skill sets. So that’s when I actually became the first manager Aerotek to only do facilities maintenance.
Greg Owens 8:25
Oh, interest. Oh, yeah.
David Lobato 8:26
So for me, I, I saw that. Facilities always needed people. There was always job postings. My dad actually used to do facilities about 15 years ago before he did real estate. And then my uncle used to be a facilities manager out at William Sonoma. So, five years ago, when I started going after facilities, I realized also that there was not a lot of recruiting companies that were supporting the facilities department. So that’s when I started selling Aerotek services on Hey, we can do facilities like this is what we do. And we went from me being the first manager. So right now we probably have 30 managers across the country doing facilities. Oh, nice. And just in the Bay Area, I have three other counterparts. I do facilities in East Bay, the South Bay, and then I have San Francisco to Menlo Park.
Greg Owens 9:24
Oh, wow. That’s, that’s great. So you and, and you saw this opportunity. And part of Part of the reason you saw the opportunity is because your, your father and your uncle were just sort of involved in facilities and you said your uncle worked for William Sonoma. Yep. As a facilities manager. Yeah. And so you’re able to like spot this sort of this niche basically have a need really right. Because like it sounded, it sounds like as it’s grown across the country, that it’s something that’s become very popular and You guys are filling a need that’s out there. Yes. I
David Lobato 10:03
mean, I’ve seen that almost every company needs these needs. Whether, I mean, you look at times right now, where Yes, a lot of your commercial real estate companies might not be busy or as busy within tech, but then you have all these facilities need within the life sciences and bio funding verticals. So, that’s where we’ve said, been busy over the last couple months.
Greg Owens 10:28
Wow. And so and what kind of Um, and so part of the emphasis on this podcast we’ve been talking about how a lot of times we’ve we’ve gotten into the conversation around how being a facilities manager is such a great career opportunity for certain types of individuals. And you know, in a lot of ways, it’s a person that doesn’t really want to be stuck at a desk. All day they kind of want to be moving around is probably Solving, you know, seeing, seeing what needs to be done on in the building and learning it, what’s your experience and the type of people that you’re, you’re helping find these jobs?
David Lobato 11:12
I mean, honestly, it varies. Because when I look at facilities, it can mean so many different things. You look, for example, at UCSF, and part of their facilities department is they’re down to our department. Then you look at a company
or any of the biopharma companies, they have your facilities coordinators, your facilities, techs, your facilities, project managers, your facilities managers. So the biggest thing I’ve learned within facilities is, is this individual culture fit. And are they going to be somebody that’s more hands on? Or are they going to be more managing the vendors and making sure that they have good customer service skills to make sure that the vendors Come on site and get the job done?
Greg Owens 11:57
Right, because there’s there’s there’s these different Sort of each organization has a different different needs and sometimes your hands on and meaning like, they actually need to be more of a building engineer somebody that can actually do some of the repairs or fixing of things. Correct. Yeah. And then on the other side, there’s, there’s, especially when we look at like multi, multi use buildings and or a big campus like, like a university, there’s, there’s just too much work on a daily basis. So then it’s managing how many vendors are coming in and how they’re doing things and how they’re getting it done.
David Lobato 12:39
Correct. Right. So I mean, every every company I work with is different. Every company I work with has a certain culture fit on what they want to have their facilities team. But then you also have facilities teams that work 24 seven, so you have to be able to cover your day your swing your grades, We are shifts, but there is also some people just have a regular eight to five job. So, I have learned a lot of the different types of facilities companies that support.
Greg Owens 13:12
Right, right. And, and so, um, and I’ve been painting in the painting industry for 30 over 30 years now and have you know, back back when I when I first did this, it was mostly building engineers do they do they dealt with and then now the the sort of the facilities manager sort of like, became sort of a newer role in a lot of ways like and given more power basically or more sort of, credit to or abilities to want to have, they have to go out and like, do a tremendous amount more in taking care of the building. And but I’ve also seen like a lot of different terms used for what is the facilities manager? What? What, um, terms have you come up with? or what have you seen out there? As far as like job description and titles?
David Lobato 14:14
I mean, I think the biggest thing I’ve seen is you have your facilities managers, you have your workplace managers. I feel like, in my opinion, more someone that’s more of a workplace manager is someone that does facilities more in the tech industry. Then Then you have the facilities manager, which is more of the generic type of job title. But I’ve also seen a lot of companies just have an office manager become a facilities manager. So he was literally with every company, it’s different. In the what I’ve seen in the biopharma space, because that is where I have about 60% of my clientele, is at times it’s even just an engineering manager. And you have to look at it is this engineering more on the contract engineering side where they’re doing software engineering hardware engineering? Or is this the engineering the, hey, this is just the mechanics of the building and how that’s being wrapped.
Greg Owens 15:17
Right. Right. And you see both of those needs inside some of those companies. Correct?
David Lobato 15:23
Correct.
Greg Owens 15:24
Yeah. Yeah. And we’ve and during this podcast, we’ve interviewed different people that have like, been an office manager and then became the facilities manager, and they absolutely love it because and they didn’t, they didn’t know it going in and they didn’t know the complexity of the role. What else have you seen and like what sort of attributes make a good facilities manager?
David Lobato 15:54
I think the biggest thing is someone that can stay very organized with you In the job functions done in, in some companies, they want facilities managers to have that CAD experience and someone that can work on Office layouts. Other other companies want a facilities manager that has project management experience. So you have companies asking people that, like, I want somebody that has the PMP cert.
So if
and those are the types of facilities managers I’ve seen, I’ve also seen a lot of FM’s that have experience with HMS work. So it does very much vary within the industry that we work within.
Greg Owens 16:43
I didn’t quite hear you on that the what what type of work which it was it with each and s environmental health and safety. Okay, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, and it’s a it’s such a diverse field and it’s so great that you Have you found this sort of niche? That’s obviously it’s needed? It’s spread throughout the whole country? What? What got you into working for Aerotek? And what’s a little bit of your background? In this?
David Lobato 17:16
Yeah. So I ended up as a as a senior in college. So I went to Saint Mary’s College. I remember I applied to I kid you not probably 30 different jobs. And from every job that I applied to, I got rejected. And looking back at it, the reason I got rejected was I immediately said, I wanted to go to grad school. I put myself now in the company perspective, why am I going to hire somebody, pay them the salary, have them, go to grad school and leave my company. So, for me, I remember it was two days after I graduated I’m from Saint Mary’s. I didn’t know what to do. And I went back to Aerotek, which was the last company that I interviewed for. And I just asked them, I was like, Hey, I just graduated. But can I be an intern? So, their their response was, you can be an intern, but you have to be back in school. And I said, I’ll go sign up for a class in the summer I cheer cause that’s not an issue. So, from that, I was I was given my opportunity to intern and I interned for three months and October of 2013, I was offered a full time role as a recruiter, where I recruited for about three years, specifically in the one of the warehouse food production space. And two years. Back in 2015, is when I got promoted to become an account manager and I’ve been doing basically the facility account manager for facilities maintenance ever since
Greg Owens 19:01
Yeah, and it sounds like you’ve you really learned a lot what has been like in this sort of path of learning? What has been some of the most interesting things you’ve come across, or types of companies?
David Lobato 19:19
I’ve worked with so many companies in the past. I mean, one of my clients I’m working with right now make smart homes. Which, that’s a pretty cool company, because literally, it’s like the whole house has Siri on it. So we’re hiring for them right now. All their carpenters, all their electricians, all their plumbers and HVAC techs, and they’re going out and building these homes across the peninsula and looking to continue to grow. I have worked with companies that at one point or even making good electric bikes, so electric bikes, I’ve worked with Spin with Uber So you name the companies and we work with a lot of them here in the area. We actually partner a lot with even some of the autonomous vehicle companies that we have here and every company is unique.
Greg Owens 20:14
Yeah, we’ve done we’ve done some painting for Spin, and we’ve done some painting for Zoosk. And Katrina. Katrina is on the, on this podcast with us. She works in my office and what was the other autonomous company? I always forget that.