Malou Carreon is a Facilities
Consultant, helping clients relocate and connect with vendors and other facility managers year-round. She has worked closely with clients worldwide for over 20 years to make office expansion, relocation, and events a breeze.
Malou prides herself on building strong relationships with clients as they grow and providing them with a safe and holistic environment to ease their concerns on new COVID requirements and regulations. When she isn’t jumping from one facility to the next, you can find her enjoying the great outdoors and sharing photos with her family in the Philippines.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Malou Carreon shares her thoughts on companies relocating in the next six months
- Malou describes how her family will be celebrating the holidays and taking precautions due to COVID
- The future of touchless technology
- Maintaining a positive attitude and staying open to innovation and opportunities in the next six months
- Malou explains the importance of her role and helping companies find their new offices
- Malou recalls how she got interested in facility management and consultation
- What advice would you give someone who wants to become a Facility Consultant?
- Where to learn more about Malou Carreon
In this episode…
Facility management is full of surprises: from relocation and expansion to updating machinery and maintenance, each day brings new challenges and rewards. Due to COVID regulations, facility managers and consultants are working harder than ever to keep buildings up-to-date, meet requirements for staff returning to the office, and maintain relationships with building owners and vendors.
It’s not an easy job, but Malou Carreon, a jill of all trades, has learned the art of balance and innovation in helping clients meet their office needs. Her belief that facility management starts with building relationships and ends with a satisfied customer has become a key building block for her business—and for all the successful facilities she’s run.
In this week’s episode of Watching Paint Dry, host Greg Owens sits down with Facility Consultant, Malou Carreon. They discuss family, the role of a facility consultant, and the future of touchless technology in facility management. Plus, she recalls her transition from international relations to focus on facility management. Stay tuned for more on how Malou Carreon balances clients, hiking, and building meaningful relationships.
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
- Malou Carreon on LinkedIn
- Malou’s company, Get Going
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, everybody. This is Greg Owens here, I’m with McCarthy Painting. And this is the Watching Paint Dry podcast. And we’re continuing our conversations with facilities managers, business owners, building owners, property managers, and the people that support the entire industry. This episode is brought to you by my company, McCarthy Painting where we service commercial and residential painting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. And we’ve worked for many, many different companies. We’ve been really really fortunate and I have a lot of gratitude. This is the day before Thanksgiving. And so there’s a whole bunch of companies that we’ve done work for and and it reminds me right now because like, you know, before COVID, we would be inside tremendous amounts of companies like Abercrombie and Fitch, Spin Wells Fargo, First Bank, and many many, many others, especially during the holidays when nobody’s around this year, we’ll see what happens because the with this COVID-19 nobody’s around anyway, so we can just go inside and paint and then that’s been good for business, we’ve been able to do some of those kinds of projects. To find out more about McCarthy Painting go to info@McCarthypainting.com. I am super excited. I have my luchetti on on on the call today on the podcast. And Malou is a facilities consultant and she goes in and does special projects for facilities including like helping people relocate doing consulting as far as like expansion and how to improve or and make your business a better workplace or safer environment. And super happy to have you on the call Malou. We also have Katrina Hayes on the call to I’m getting your name mixed up Katrina because you changed it. And it’s Trina Stephenson now. So, so welcome. Hello, thank you so much for being on our podcast. Happy Thanksgiving, like the day before Thanksgiving here in November. How are you doing?
Malou Carreon 2:53
Well, thank you. Thank you for inviting me here. And yes, I’m doing great. I mean, you know, I woke up this morning, and I just can’t believe that tomorrow’s Thanksgiving and um, you know, and typically, like in your case, you’re you say that you’re so busy around this time of the year and I am also typically like swamp this time of the year because this is like the perfect week weekend. That work. A lot of companies relocate typically. Yeah, yeah. Oh, you’re like or moving into an office and we’re setting up we’re busy. You know, everyone, all the ancillary vendors are busy from furniture to cabling, you know, but yeah, it’s a little different this year, but still a lot of things to be grateful for. So, yeah,
Greg Owens 3:40
yeah. Yeah, I didn’t know you reminded me of that, like relocating was a big deal. During the holidays, especially the this holiday and and especially like the Christmas sort of holiday week between Christmas and New Year’s. That one was a big one. And I have a feeling there’s not going to be a whole lot of that going on, except I have been we have been doing a bit of work around. People giving up their leases and needing to patch and paint the holes and that kind of stuff, which isn’t as fun. Right, but it’s still work. So we’re grateful for that.
Malou Carreon 4:13
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I’ve been getting a lot of, you know, phone calls, requests it, you know, by some companies who want to get rid of their furniture and you know, and then I have a I work with a lot of furniture liquidators, but then they’re inundated with all this furniture, and some of them don’t even want to touch even like the phone booths were which were like in huge demand, like maybe a year ago because no one’s buying, you know, and then they can’t they don’t have the space to keep all this so, you know, I’m just selling some of the companies you know, if you can hold on to it, hold on to it, because I mean, I guess some companies think that they’re not coming back to work, you know, like return to an Office kind of environment, but I still see a trend, just because of what I hear that there is some loss of productivity and then, you know, really longing for that social interaction among employees. So, you know, I mean, there’s definitely a new normal, you know, people are going to be there’s a lot of companies will probably do a hybrid where they’re allowing employees to work from home, right, and then you know, and then schedule, maybe time, you know, to come into the office, because now there’s this whole concerns about occupancy, how many people will be in the office? How do you keep the social this insane, etc. But, you know, um, from what I’ve been hearing, there are some companies who are probably planning on returning to the office sometime, March, march timeframe, maybe about 25%. And then a lot of them are really kind of shooting for like, July August timeframe. But then, I guess everything is dependent on how we control the COVID numbers.
Greg Owens 6:14
Right, right. And I have a feeling after this holiday two weeks from now we’re gonna have another major spike because I talked to lots of people and I just watching human behavior. And I’m noticing that everybody you know, the kids are coming home from school and they’re walking along. Yeah. Woman and and yell and rightfully so. Right. And then families are getting together and or their, their their day are meeting up. So they are getting in closer contact with each other for sure.
Malou Carreon 6:40
Oh, yeah. I had to talk to my family, because they are planning on meeting up. And and I don’t want to outbid them, but then I tell them, no, I’m sorry, I’m not, I’m not going on that. I think they’re, they’re trying to set up a zoom party call. And, you know, of course, it’s different, you know, because now I’ll be jealous with all the Filipino food, let’s lay it out. And all my cousins is just hanging out. And I’m like, Oh, I’m longing for home more, because, you know, and then I’m also shooting for like Christmas, because usually during Christmas, I go back to the Philippines and visit my family. And, and it’s just so difficult. I mean, I just can’t imagine, like, potentially bringing in COVID to my, my parents home, so I’m just going to stay away,
Greg Owens 7:34
right? Me too. Am I my mom’s in North Carolina, and I’m, oh, we already talked in them, I’m not going to come back and visit she wants to. She wants to stay. And I was planning on like, you know, quarantining myself beforehand and getting tested and you know, but she just feels it’s better if we just kind of like, you know, postpone for a bit. Now, your culture being Filipino. I know a little bit about your culture, and gathering and food is a big deal. It’s like a much bigger deal than my own it is for sure. And so it’s got to be even a bigger, stronger poll to come together and have like, it’s what do you mean, we’re not going to share food?
Malou Carreon 8:13
Right, you know, and luckily, you know, my, my relatives, because I’m also, you know, I’m not stereotyping Filipinos, but there are a lot of healthcare workers that are Filipinos, and I have a lot of cousins who are nurses, and you know, and they understand, you know, they, they, they know, their parents are actually kind of like quarantine themselves have been quarantine themselves the past couple of weeks, just so we’ll see if this works out. I’m crossing my fingers, of course, because at least they’re taking that precaution, but, you know, um, so yes, then, I’m sure I’m just going to be just so jealous looking at them over zoom, and all the you know, all the chatter So, but that’s the reality. I mean, we just, you know, you we need to like really follow precautions, follow like the scientific advices and make sure that, you know, when we and, and the same thing in facilities, there are a lot of concerns by a lot of workplace facilities managers and opening up an office because Sure, you can do all the precautions, all the mitigation work, social distancing, the the signage, you know, cleaning, whatever, but, you know, sometimes I really wonder do like, after a while, like or everyone is talking about pandemic exhaustion, fatigue, you know, what, you then get this false sense of security and then people will start not following all the precautions and you know, and there’s always the, the legal side, you know, like, okay, If someone gets sick in the office and someone, you know, gets really sick in the office, what is the responsibility of the company? And so I think that’s why some companies are not that keen and opening up yet.
Greg Owens 10:12
Yeah, we’ve been wrestling with it ourselves. I know I’m for Katrina here, like she, she really wanted to come back to the office and feels much more productive to have an office space to come back to. And so we’ve had to, you know, we opened up our office, but it’s only heard there pretty much. I guess, occasionally somebody comes by and drop something offer or something. Yeah, yeah. And then, and then, you know, with the painters, we’ve had to about that, you know, we’ve had to, like break people up into these smaller groups, and have them dedicated team so that way, we don’t intermix, and that kind of stuff. And,
Malou Carreon 10:48
ah, okay,
Greg Owens 10:49
yeah.
And unfortunately, we went back a couple weeks ago, we were able to finally have like, a whole company meeting and do safety, and that kind of stuff, you know, and all social distancing, and washing our hands and everything. But now we don’t see how we’re going to be able to do that. Right. And this is just a small little microcosm of a company, compared to the bigger overall thing. What are you seeing? Or what is like, what are you being what’s being requested of you as a consultant for facilities managers right now? And what are you seeing? Like, what’s, what are you hearing from the different people that you’re talking with?
Malou Carreon 11:25
Well, um, you know, of course, there’s the concern somewhat, you know, what are the COVID-19 litigation? Like, what should they do? How can they, you know, make sure that everyone feels safe and secure. And, you know, so there are, so the exciting time, right now, of course, it’s there’s a lot of innovation going on, you know, everyone’s talking about touch lists, you know, touch this technology, right, like opening doors, I talked to commercial kitchen consultant, and they’re looking at how people can safely open like coolers, you know, so that it’s touch list, you know, and then maybe kind of like a bending type, so that maybe the food will just pop out and or, you know, pre package of obviously, I mean, because there’s all this concerns, you know, but at the same time, you know, there’s that, and then there’s robotics for cleaning, you know, and, you know, all the apps for, you know, managing the space, like reservation system, making sure you have the right occupancy, etc. I mean, there’s like, so many different exciting things, or even, there’s so what they’re calling computer vision of like, making sure, like in a space that, you know, everyone’s wearing a mask and social distancing. And then there’s also Yeah, I know. Now, there’s also the concern of like, privacy, right, like,
Greg Owens 12:57
right away, I’m like, whoa.
Malou Carreon 13:01
Yeah, so big brother. So which, you know, and like when I was setting up offices, so a lot of companies in California cuz I’ve had clients where they have, you know, multiple offices in some other states. And most of the time, the California companies will not go for having a security camera pointing inside the office while me some other states. It’s okay. That
Greg Owens 13:25
other countries, it’s normal. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, I’ve been to China and other countries like that. And there’s cameras everywhere. You’re always being right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, especially which I don’t think like you said, like, I think Californians probably wouldn’t go for that. Right. There’s definitely No, definitely not in Texas.
Malou Carreon 13:45
Right. Yeah. I mean, most of the time, and I’m like chatting in office, and we’re discussing, like, you know, where are this cameras going to point that and, you know, some other people will be listening, you know, some other department heads will be listening, and then you you’ll definitely, definitely hear from a manager like, I don’t think that’s a good idea. To the brother, and, you know,
Greg Owens 14:08
yeah, yeah, for sure. But those those types of things are coming in some ways more and more, right. Like we’re having to give them we’re having to give up some of our freedoms in a lot of ways, right in order to make things safer and make people feel like it’s safer to I think you were telling us about um, even just like the elevators you had mentioned, OFF AIR about like the, like browning copper buttons or putting like a filtration air or something like that right in it right, which makes a lot of sense. I was in an old right day, and they were for some of the elevators they were only allowing one person per elevator and for a skyscraper that takes a long time, right? Like when this is like for like eight or 10 people in there.
Malou Carreon 14:55
Well, Greg, and you also have to think you know, when you can only limit the number have people coming in in an elevator? Just imagine the line of people. Yeah. And then again, how do you manage the social distancing? the you know, the space like, what are you waiting all the way out of the building? And you know, it’s this capacity, you know, you’re healthier. But not everyone. Yeah. Well, just imagine you’re at the Salesforce tower. Yeah.
Greg Owens 15:29
in really good shape and Salesforce tower. 20th and 30th floor of that building boy, yeah. Right.
Malou Carreon 15:37
Yeah. So but yeah, you know, there, there’s been, there’s also the flip side on like, um, you know, we don’t know a lot about COVID. In terms of like, really what’s beneficial, you know, what really is required? You know, I remember when shelter and play start started, and some companies wanted to open up and everyone started buying those glass, you know, the plastic partitions. And, yeah, and then you’re thinking after a while, a casino people hated the cubicle feeling. And so when we’re, it’s safer, like, you know, when we have vaccine, and maybe when we have herd immunity, blah, blah, blah, and now you start taking down all those glass partitions. Now, you have all those two wastes, you know, it’s like, you know, although
Greg Owens 16:27
the amount of plastic waste right now is untenable, right? Like it is gone.
Malou Carreon 16:32
Yeah.
Greg Owens 16:33
Nobody’s nobody’s concerned about the environment when it comes to that plastic waste now.
Right.
Malou Carreon 16:38
Right. And not only that, even the masks, right. I mean, I’ve seen pictures of like, you know, marine life getting tangled with all this masks. And, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s sad, you know, but yeah, so, you know, we, everyone talks about all this, like, you know, hyper cleaning, or, you know, or some people are referring it, theatrical sanitation, because, you know, some people feel like, safer when they see someone cleaning and sanitizing all the time, but then some people are also concerned about, what’s the effect of all that chemicals in our environment, even though you know, there are some recommended cleaning materials out there, but, you know, it’s, there’s, there’s so much to learn right now. And so that’s, to me, is the exciting part of all this, because I love like, learning and all this innovation, you know,
Greg Owens 17:38
yeah, you’re so true. And I always just, I’m thinking about it myself around, like, we know, we are made up of micro microcosms, right, and little by bacteria and all that within our own system. And, you know, and it makes sense that sometimes one of them gets out of hand, like, like a COVID, or something like that, you know, and, and it makes sense that they’re, you know, that little being is trying to like, blossom and find new new partners to partner with, right and kind of came along, I think, humans, these guys are pretty good. And they probably lost their own, you know, there’s like, a lot of different species that are that are no longer exist, right? And so they probably know them, they themselves are like, oh, shoot, we need to find new hosts, right? Because like, this isn’t, I mean, I’m sure they’re not collectively thinking about that, but they are striving for life. Right. And, and so are we, right? So it makes a lot
Malou Carreon 18:34
about what they’re saying also about the long term effect of you know, some people have long whole COVID recovery. It’s because I guess the our body tried to really fight this and it’s still trying to fight it. And then that’s why you get all this other problems that pop up when you recover. I mean, I just saw that on 16 it’s over. Yeah. But then also again, the other Flipside to again, it’s just the change of facilities, workplace environment, like now there’s more concerned about wellness, you know, air quality. More, I think, compassion towards somebody who is sick, like, you know, people now don’t want you to be in the office when they’re sick, you know? True. Yeah.
Greg Owens 19:20
Yeah. Then the money to go with that, like, here’s, here’s some money to stay home right now because we don’t want you to come to us wedding something. Right. Right. Yeah,
Malou Carreon 19:29
you know, and then mental health awareness and all this various stuff that’s coming up, like it’s more holistic. So that’s, and hopefully we can really push for that because, you know, especially here in Silicon Valley, we’re so competitive, you know, we were always on the go like for me, for instance. In the beginning, I was hard because I’m always on the go, just have, you know, doing so many projects juggling so many things and then shelter and happen and I was forced to stay home and then I started hiking more and enjoying nature and you know, and then so it’s like, yeah, so sometimes, then you realize, yeah, sometimes you need to pull back, you know, and just really look at things and appreciate now we’re going back to the Thanksgiving thing theme and,
Greg Owens 20:20
you know, just be grateful, good positive attitude, because I think you’re right, there’s so much new emphasis on health and learning and, you know, on science and on so much ways, which is great, to great to see everybody really deep diving into and, and learning so much more about it. What, um, and so you as a facilities consultant, what’s what’s at this time? What kind of projects are you seeing that are coming up for you? And how are you helping facilities managers and building owners and property owners?
Malou Carreon 20:54
Yeah, so I am, I still have some upcoming projects where I’m setting up offices, they’re more in the medical. So obviously, now the medical and biotech field is more active, you know, there’s so I’m, you know, I’m being called to help with a couple of, you know, potential projects that are, you know, they’re starting from scratch, you know, so and principles don’t know
Greg Owens 21:21
anything, you do everything like the tenant improvement, or or snappiness, you come in and help consult and make help with the flow of the place and design, and also lining up contractors and that kind of stuff to do some of the work and stepping involved at that point, too.
Malou Carreon 21:39
Yep, exactly. Yeah. Because like, in this particular instance, the principal’s don’t have any experience at all with setting up an office. In fact, just a couple of minutes of meeting with them and looking at all the bid proposals from the general contractors. I told them, you know, they’re not all they’re not apples to apples. So how can you make a decision that you want this because they’re cheaper, but you know, they’re missing a lot of stuff, you know, that other general contractors, you know, put in, right, you know, and then I’m going to help them with, you know, furniture selection, the security, I even just saw, because there is like, a pathway going through their office, and we have to build a ramp. But then now with everyone concerned about touching, we need to put up like an automatic door opener, which they never thought of, and that’s pretty expensive. I mean, there’s there’s a lot of different things. And then also, there’s the flip side, I’ve been called to like, just, you know, help companies figure out, Okay, what do we need to do? How do we make it? What steps do we need to make so that employees will feel safe and secure? And then also, how, what what should? What? How can we prepare, just in case, we need to go on another shelter in place again, and you know, you know, make everything robust, so that business and employees don’t get like, no other, you know, shelter in place, you know, but, yeah, so you know, there are opportunities out there, it’s right now, it’s a really quiet time, because we’re now heading to the holidays. And again, like I said, because our COVID numbers are really high, but I’m excited for 2020 I think there’ll be some more opportunities coming up.
Greg Owens 23:27
Yeah, and I bet God, especially after the holidays, I would hope that things, and if a vaccine comes out, boy, there’s gonna be a vaccine, right? There’ll be a lot of a lot of new changes, and new challenges and new opportunities will along with that, right. And I think what you’re doing, right, because, like, I think those companies will really, really value your help at this time. And then, you know, look back to you’re like, Okay, you know, you were really positive and you came back in, and you helped us through this challenging time. Let’s now relocate, and we’re looking at a new building, and, you know, who do we call we get somebody to come in and help again.
Malou Carreon 24:05