Greg Owens 23:40
You’ve had a bit of that kind of fierceness in you anyway. Because you have in your, in your LinkedIn profile, battle tested facilities manager. But you’ve you’ve had you have that in your LinkedIn, in your profile. bilities a manager, right, like so. After? Where, so where did that that kind of attitude Do you think that come from in your life? I’m assuming some experiences or you know, childhood, that kind of thing. Yeah, absolutely. I
De’Shawn Kelly 24:12
mean, growing up, I mean, first off, just growing up in East Oakland, just all of that experience, the all the experience we experienced outside of the house. I mean, that was I grew up in a time like, in as far as a drugs entering all the low income neighbourhoods, we have one of the biggest drug kingpins in America just a couple blocks away. Felix Mitchell, and so we were all caught Well, I wasn’t I was not intentionally about but anyway seen a whole lot of stuff experience a whole lot of things that is outside of home inside the home, that’s a whole nother whole nother story, but to able to hit all that still continues school, they come out of that somewhat sober minded there. I you know, especially the neighbourhood I come you know the neighbourhood but you know, I grew up and they, you know, they say when you 1819 years old in that particular neighborhood, you can say their senior citizen, you know, because not many. Yeah, especially not many, you know, make it out. But, uh, and then just just fast forward to my building maintenance background, I’ve had the privilege of being able to I’ve worked at probably every type of facility regarding people, I’ve worked nursing facilities. So I’ve learned how to cater to those who are ill, or even the parents and the visitors, family members and friends, we have people that are dying, how to properly cater to those folks, conversational wise, service wise, we’re low income properties, in inner cities, also, one of my state on site. For two years, people thought I was crazy friends and family, but I was able to just be like there and just kind of help improve the whole dynamic regarding just kind of, by example, teaching people how to take care of their property, without forcing it, ramming it down their throats, or work high in brand new buildings in San Francisco, with all the Google texts, all the, you know, musicians and lawyers, and you know, so all these soaps, so I really feel that regardless of who the individual is, if, you know, if I’m working at that particular site, whoever walks through the door to properly accommodate you, sir, you know, if I walked through their door, meaning their place of residence, they’re building their office, regardless of what background? So battle test, you know, so that’s kind of why, you know, put that stamp on there on the LinkedIn account there.
Greg Owens 26:40
Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I mentioned earlier, like part of this podcast is to shine a light on the unbelievably different types of opportunities that are out there, right. Now, I truly believe this, because I’m gonna drop out of high school. And if it wasn’t for a few people that like, took me under their wing, kind of show me some paths of how to work or what you could do, being an entrepreneur or working in, you know, following their path. In a lot of ways. I wouldn’t be where I am today, by any means. And I know this, and I feel this to be true is that no matter what your circumstances are, like you, you want to, you want to see that there’s a game you can play to succeed in life. Even if you’re coming from a really, you know, East Oakland, or, you know, the Bronx where I spent a bit of time in when I was a kid, you want sometimes you feel like there’s like this weight on your shoulders, that there’s no way out of this. And there’s a few people that find a way out because they Something came up in their life, that they shine that light on opportunity or awareness that there’s a possibility. Do you have any sort of experiences around that for yourself, and then what you can offer to others? You mean, as far as shining the light on opportunities within like to to get out of your own circumstances? Right? Because you said it. You said it earlier, you growing up in East Oakland, and there’s, you’re an old man at 18. Right? That’s, that’s unbelievably challenging, right to know that true. But then you’ll sort of have the fortitude to work your way out and work your way out of that environment, and not get sidetracked and go down that other direction, that a lot of your your friends, family, people that you might know, went down because it was a path. Right, right. Absolutely. Not smart. And smart people will take that path. Right. I understand that. Right? Like, yeah, because, you know, you’re like, Hey, I can go this path and become, you know, if I in and go out there and become a lawyer if I was that smart, but I’m not good at schools, but there’s this other path where you can make a lot of money. And it seems pretty easy, right?
De’Shawn Kelly 29:02
Absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah, I you know, I think for me, I was also athlete during high school. So that provided a whole lot of it sucked up a whole lot of my time. And I think that’s one of the things that I saw with a lot of people coming up like France that I came up with, I mean, some of the smartest people like as far as quick thinkers, mechanically inclined, you know, they can strip they can strip down old school, 65 Cougar motor and put it back, you know, put it back together in a couple of days. I like you know, 16 years old, 17 years old, because so I think we plan sports, there’s practice and then in the offseason, there’s also practice, I was able to get have an opportunity to not be around the neighborhood as often and from traveling. We’ve had one of the we had an experience at Oakland high, where we would travel to kill CBl metre Kirkland Lake area, like a three or four day basketball tournament. And we we got exposed because in I mean, outside of, Oh, you know, we there was kind of a, we, you know, we talked about people outside of our race or whatever we’re not, there was a uncomfortable little vibe there. So we had this opportunity, Scott Ferris, he was the only white basketball coach in the open athletic league back then. So some of the turn a lot of some of the tournaments that we were able to attend, we would we, you know, we were right up there thinking that we will stay in a hotel, be able to rip and run. But when he did, he already pre planned that we would hook up with kelseyville high, and we would spend a night we’ll pair up and spend a night with for those couple of days at that player’s house from Kelsey view. And that was a totally different experience. And just seeing how, okay, we are different. If we look at the skin tones, if we look at the socioeconomic status, we look at our neighborhoods. But when we have those conversations at the dinner tables with the parents and the other players, we have all freakin saying, you know, it’s Yeah, so I think just taking advantage of some of those opportunities is kind of, you know, extra curricular activities and kind of knowing who I was, like, Okay, I’m not a drug dealer. A lot of people who sell drugs and drug dealers, there are a lot of people who also there might be not aren’t really letters, but they’re they’re just getting, they don’t have a sense of who they are. And they get, they just get wrapped up in these other things that’s common for their attention. And, unfortunately, some traumatic things happen behind that. But uh, I can name a tonne of people who grew up in my very neighbourhood who are successful. I know folks who have, you know, UCLA, Stanford, of course, in you know, especially Oakland, it gets a pit bull reputation. I think it’s starting to the reputation is starting to get a little bit better now, because of the massive budget justification that’s been happening, but we’ve been going in and rocking it before then. We just didn’t get the publicity. We just didn’t get the lifestyle, you know. So, anyway,
Greg Owens 32:18
right. Right. No, that’s, that’s so true. And what a great story. And, and then how did you What’s your origin story for for becoming a film facilities manager and finding out about this sort of career path?
De’Shawn Kelly 32:31
Right. So yeah, I would say maybe 13 years ago, I was residing in El Cerrito. And I was actually a truck driver. Local. I didn’t do any overnight. And this was a I worked for a flooring supply company. So I trucked foreign material. Right. So we you know, I did deliveries to construction sites, to flooring stores dropping off. Yeah. All the variety of flooring, material and tools when it you know, installers. So think about the third year that this when the housing crisis hit? Yeah, everybody.
Greg Owens 33:08
anybody involved in that? Yeah. You know,
Katrina Stephenson 33:12
like the 2008, nine times
Greg Owens 33:15
when things like flooring and painting in a lot of ways got hit even earlier, because it’s like they turn all of a sudden they turned off the economy in that direction, right? We’re sort of on end of things. Here we are. We’re going gangbusters. You just can’t You can’t deliver enough goods and then the next thing you know, it’s like what what’s happening? What are we do it wrong? wire wire where all the planes go?
De’Shawn Kelly 33:41
Absolutely, absolutely. Yeah. So here I am. I’m just I’m just sitting around watching my hours just trickle down from 88 every two weeks to 40. Man 23 and then it gets to a point okay, we’ll call you when we have work. I’m like, okay, you know, I can’t Yeah, I love to eat 632 190 pounds. So I was like, No, I can’t miss a meal. So I’m like this is crazy. Because you know, the one thing that I enjoy doing well in brought consistent income is it’s pretty much done now because of what was happening to live with the housing market. So what I started doing for about three months, a buddy of mine, he’s a collector antique collector. So he basically is like the shy dude until you find some get your car you can kind of my house and just load up your vehicle. And he showed me all the places flea markets. I started selling things, antiques at flea markets, he told me what sales Okay, you want to go to this location on Tuesday, and I’ll give you all this for that conference site. And then we got to San Jose, there’s a lot of antique collect So anyway, I did that for about three months. And and that was just bringing in little pennies it wasn’t you know, cuz some days I’ll be out there only make you know $75 make it long story short, I had there was opportunity down the street at a nursing centre. A buddy of mine is Mother was the director. And she told him about my situation. She was like, Oh, yeah, bring him in. And I didn’t have any experience. I wasn’t one of these guys. I grew up working. You know, I hate overall. I mean, then I love them now, though. I wasn’t. You know, I knew what a hammer was. Yes. I know what a screwdriver was. Yes. But as far as fixing leaky toilets, and this, I had no clue. But I did tell her, you know, once I get in there, I’ll do whatever it takes to stay on that job and to learn, you know, that task. So I got on. And it was, it was challenging, you know, because I’m expected I was expected to, you know, we had leaks are, you know, the nurses, you know, they put in all these requests, it was expected that I’ll be able to address them. So I just started purchasing books. It was Black and Decker book. It was a home repair book. Yeah, very visual colours, simplified a whole lot of things. And then I started finding out about a local adult education programme. They had a home repair classes, you know, building maintenance courses. So I started taking those and I found out about the colleges, Laney college, you know, Home Repair does construction around there, San Francisco City College, so I started taking all these different classes. And then the supervisor just kind of took a liking to me, he was a contractor. So he started taking me on projects on the weekend. So I have opportunity to learn and make money. And I just fell in love. I just fell in love with it. And I think it facility maintenance to kind of it aligns with who I am. As far as variety goes, You know, I love variety. If you
Greg Owens 36:43
variety is a big variety is a big key to being a facilities manager. Not just putting toilets in every day, and you’re not just doing fixing lead. It’s every day is a different day. So that that resonates with a lot of managers, right?
De’Shawn Kelly 37:00
Yeah, if you tell me now, if you tell me that I have to take a job. For the next 20 years. Well, I got to stay at an assembly line and just screw on tail lights for my life, and less time you gonna find me dead? I’m not gonna shoot myself. I’ll fall on my sword. Yeah, so this was like, the first time in my life where I had a job that just kind of flew with me, you know. And I love the idea of when I come in. And next day, I don’t quite know what I’ll be doing. I definitely plan. But even in my planning, I leave some space for the unknown because in a facility management where there’s always the unknown, it happens almost every
Greg Owens 37:38
day, especially, especially like a nursing facility or where you’re at now with residential facilities, right things pop up that, that, you know, that is urgent and necessary and right now.
De’Shawn Kelly 37:51
And even if it means I’m in the middle of having Christmas dinner, which happened right after the prayer, I’m about to dive into the plate, I get a call. We got a water heater busted leaking downstairs a couple years ago. Gotta go. Yeah, it is what it is. But uh, yeah,
Greg Owens 38:08
that is it is so true. And I think that’s one of the one of the best aspects of being in building as a building facilities manager is that variety every day, every day and you get to you do, like you said, You’re making a plan. You’ve got projects on the books that you’re working on. But sometimes those emergencies come up and you’ve got to be the person that’s right there on the spot, taking care of them.
De’Shawn Kelly 38:33
That’s right. That’s right. Yep. Even at three o’clock in the morning, I’ll get a call. And I have I got I just even though I probably was in REM sleep, I answered a phone and, you know, get even just shout out How can I help you? As if I’m, you know, I just got into the habit of I could be in the middle of day asleep and just wake up, you know, Johnny on the spot, you know, we got
Greg Owens 38:54
cancer. And you mentioned this earlier, so you weren’t one of these kids that were growing up that could take a 1965 Cougar apart and put it back together again. No, it wasn’t that wasn’t you what, you weren’t one of those cuz I I had some of that. And I had friends that were even way better than me. I mean, just me and my brother, my brother can take a diesel, a diesel truck transmission apart, right? You know, it’s like 14 gears like that. And y’all have spread out all over his whole shop, right? All the pieces, like there’s like 70 gears in there or something like that, and all the ball bearings. And there’s two pieces that he’s got to replace, he has an order that they’re going to come like next week. And so then he gets those two pieces, and he puts this whole transmission back together. And I’m like, That thing’s gonna work. Like how is that possible? I mean, you know, parts up on the shelf up there, like really, right? Right? And he just knows this stuff, right? And those kinds of people are are incredibly rare. And then there’s people like myself that can figure stuff out right, and it sounds like you fall into that category too. I know. I was telling you earlier that I was doing some electric Work and happen to be in the panel. The panel used to scare the living daylights out of me, right? And I get to walk, I can use light switches, outlets, those kinds of things. But the panel was like, that’s organised. That’s scary is a lot of power and air. I’ve been electrocuted times that I’m not going near that. Right. Yeah. And what was what’s great about this day in air era, which wasn’t true when you got started, or myself is that you have YouTube, right? So I watched like, six or eight YouTube videos like on double speed, because that’s my brain. Right? And, and then and I’m like, oh, okay, I could go into this panel and pull some of these wires out now and, and under understand this electricity thing a lot better, right. But then it’s so great that you found some classes in some places to improve your skill sets along the way.
De’Shawn Kelly 40:51
And here it is, what, 13 years later, I still take classes. But still, I mean, just last week, I just finished up a Laney college, a stair building course. It was like a six month course. And they’re building. Yeah, yeah, those are that’s complicated. If I would have known it was that complicated, I would have took something else. That’s how scary and intimidating that class was in order to get through the course. But anyway, we got it done. Yeah, yeah. Can
Greg Owens 41:19
you build cutting those risers is not? That’s right. That’s acknowledge, yeah, learn plan
De’Shawn Kelly 41:25
and all that. And when I tell guys, I’m not in a position where I could just go into a, you know, I’m in a position where I can go, you know, do estimates and bids on stairs? Yes, I could do a flight of stairs. But now I understand. You know, just the whole concept, how they come along the thinking that goes behind it, the math, the formulas, the ratios, and yeah, right up, right.
Greg Owens 41:45
Getting the cadence, right. You know, right now that painting is off, it’ll trip people up, right? People don’t realise that, that we’re so used to walking down stairs that are correctly built, and I’ll literally trip you up, it’ll literally step that’s off by like, a centimetre it’ll go, because you’re used to a cadence as you walk down those stairs that you will just like trip over yourself, right? Absolutely. That’s great. So always you’re constantly keeping your skill sets up even in things that you know, you might not use, but they’re but you know, you’ll use it because they’re cross or in your case. Now, I guess, when you’re if if Homeward Bound needs a staircase built, and you’re getting bids on that you can more intelligently look at those bids, and say, yes, these guys know what they’re doing. They’re competent in this? Absolutely. I’ll be like, nope, don’t don’t know. There’s a reason this bid is twice as low as everybody else. But it helps you win in the entire industry, right? I noticed in my own life, that the more I even when I kind of go down some rabbit holes and learn something new that it’s it’s applicable in other areas of our business, or in what I do in the basis, right,
and nothing goes to waste. Where did this, this desire to keep improving and learning stuff from?
De’Shawn Kelly 43:07
It’s weird, it’s just like that exposure thing. Like if, if you don’t know, what you have a heart or desire for, if you don’t give a certain thing an opportunity, or if you’re not exposed to this particular thing, like a construction for instance, like, yeah, 90% of the classes are construction classes. And I just fell in love with construction, the last couple, maybe four or five years. And because I’m still as far as facility manager timewise a lot of people they have me beat, right, because a lot of the guys that I know, they come from construction backgrounds, they worked, you know, union jobs, they were doing construction workers, yada yada, begin to build a maintenance. And I saw that early, they have an edge when it comes to troubleshoot, shooting certain things because for instance, plumbing, electrical, they know how the wiring is ran through the wall, you know, how, you know, things were plugged in, you know, the combos, otherwise, there’s a wide drop in here to drink. So I’m like, wow, I need an I need to know that. You know, because, you know, facility maintenance here, all you have as the walls you don’t, you know, you’re not looking at framing. So that was so I took it, so I can kind of boost up my skill set my head knowledge. And in that I just fell in love with construction. I mean, literally, I love it, you know? And I just like how they both kind of coincide with each other. It’s like a happy No, it’s a happy marriage, construction facility. facility maintenance facility management.
Greg Owens 44:36
It also sounds like you didn’t like to be your competitive right and you didn’t want to like not know what some of these other some of these other people that had these skill sets. No. Right. So you’re like, wait a minute, he knows a lot a lot about electrician I want to be maybe not the same level but understand what he’s what they’re talking about.
Katrina Stephenson 44:57
general sense of just inquisitive. In this show, right, exactly. what’s what’s in that wall? what’s right. Right. Exactly.
Greg Owens 45:08
That’s great. That’s great. Because I think there’s there’s a lot to be taken out of that to keep never ending learning, right? Like constantly working on your skill sets. Even if you’re like, I think you probably day one of building stairs, you’re like, why am I? Yeah, you’re right. Right, right. But you’re like, No, I’m gonna power through this because we take stairs for granted. Right? Definitely do I think it will take? What’s that Katrina?
Katrina Stephenson 45:32
Well, you really tall so you trip on a step? Like it’s, you know, you?
De’Shawn Kelly 45:36
Yes, it’s a rat. Take my wallet. So we’re taking my keys to the cars.
Greg Owens 45:42
We’re both really tall. And I’m six four, then but Oh, yeah, you’ve got me beat on weight by quite a bit. Right? Don’t man it’s a it’s one thing. It’s a long way down, right. Aren’t falling, there’s no stopping that momentum. A little booboo? You know, that’s all over for us. That’s Yeah. What would you tell somebody that either was transitioning into your field, right into building maintenance facility manager, that kind of property maintenance? Or was a young person like looking at a new career? Like, what what what what things? Do you think they should like? Consider learn? Find out more about?
De’Shawn Kelly 46:25
Right? Well, I know for one, kind of try it out for yourself. I mean, right now, regarding? Well, I’m just looking at construction, you know, we got folks retiring, there’s, there’s such a shortage, and it will continue to be such a shortage of construction workers. So that is one. And then people who think construction will Okay, I got to work outside, you think about the carpenter, I think about the plumber, like, No, you have stationary engineers, you know, local 39, out of San Cisco, whatever working hospitals, and they’re like, the cleanest guys in the building, you know, they just, you know, preventive maintenance stuff. I mean, of course, it goes down sometimes when they, you know, you got chillers and boilers and stuff going, going out. But just just try not in facility management. I mean, I didn’t know until I started getting more involved with LinkedIn, like how vast this field is, and how diversity is and like all the different types of companies that are that hire facility managers. Like for instance, I’ve as far as a fallen all the guys I follow all the friends I have, I’m like, Am I the only facility manager that’s actually really still working, you know, like actually doing the work, I do just as much work as all the other technicians. So it’s, I don’t see a robot replacing us in the foreseeable future. Now, whoever comes up with that concept, that blueprint for that robot, God bless him, but there’s Deanna work is tremendous, is diverse. So it depends on who that person is. Some people love to know what they’ll be doing the next day, all day. But there’s a lot of people, you know, who would love such an opportunity. So just just not being afraid to, you know, have that exposure and just try it out? Regardless of what everybody in the building says about this particular thing? You give it a try and see if you know, this is something that that you did and that, you know,
Greg Owens 48:15
yeah, I mean, I think that’s so true to trying it out and, and knowing who you are, like learning more and more about who you are as a person, because like I said, there’s some people that really like to know that they’re gonna, they’re gonna do this project today. And this and they’re gonna do that all day long. And from person like you and myself, there’s definitely I like, and Katrina in a lot of ways. I know Katrina pretty well, it’s like, it’s, it’s nice to have a tremendous amount of variety. And then even though the unexpected can be kind of painful at times, right? Like, weren’t, you weren’t planning on getting your hands wet today. And all of a sudden, right? Now you are, but that’s what makes it more fulfilling in a lot of ways being able to problem solve and figure that stuff out and get to it. It’s interesting, as you were saying, as a facilities manager today, you’re right, it’s you’re, you’re definitely a dying breed. there’s not as many that are doing the hands on work and managing the whole facility as well. Right? There’s a lot of out there that that are coming into this industry with no mechanical ability, right? They learn it all they have to know about it, they have to know that, but they don’t actually do the work, right. It’s a more of a rare person that you find. But we’ve talked to a few, quite a few actually, people that were sort of the old school building engineer, and then they, you know, they burned every aspect of that building hands on themselves and done the right. And I think there’s an I think there’s still a place for that kind of person, because there’s so many different types of buildings, right, that are out there. And sometimes to be able to actually fix things is, you know, it’s so much better than like calling a person in definitely, I agree. 100 percent. Yeah, I know, I know, for I know for myself, it’s like, because I grew up as a painting, painting actually painting and in the construction industry right there, so I’m so many skills that I can still do. Right. And even though I’m running a company now, and I have a lot of employees and, and I still, like I said, I was inside the electrical panel working on that, and that was fun. Yeah, and maybe, you know, and it was like, it was something about it like to be able to use your hands and work on it and know that you can get through this project and figure it out. There’s, that is fulfilling, right? Not as fulfilling.
De’Shawn Kelly 50:36
You’re right. You’re right on that, Greg. So I don’t even know if I, you know, I, I’ve pondered it like I’ve had, you know, honestly, I have had some opportunities, folks have reached out what am I, you know, I don’t know, if I am even I know, as far as equipped not to say I am equipped. I don’t know if it’s for me to be in that role, slacks and doctors of facility manager because I get such a such as this, as far as putting my hands on things. Now. I’m still taking care of things as far as, you know, got invoices, paperwork, meeting with vendors, looking at different estimates, you know, following up on benders, and all that was just something about, you know, getting out there. And, you know, jumping in and helping out with with repairs and installations and troubleshooting, but maybe that’s just I’m still somewhat new food, maybe in another 10 years or so that that have changed. But, uh, yeah, so I have turned out, you know, a couple opportunities, because I just feel like, you know, as of right now, kind of dig in where I’m at. And when I’m doing and it’s been such, it’s such such a reward and also rewarding to be able to serve people in this capacity. So it’s, it’s a dynamic thing. We’ll have an AI Lee once said, A was it by service to man is how we pay for CPR on Earth, you know, and coming out the building maintenance property management thing where it was more so how fast can we flip and repair things to get? Our focus was more bonus space. It was money. It wasn’t people, you know how fast I mean, in that I’ve learned to be a hell of a painter. I could paint pretty good and take care of repairs quite rapidly. But here just yeah, just serving certain people is really tough, really tough times on my heart. So
Greg Owens 52:23
that’s wonderful. What a good quote, too. Yeah. Yeah. So this has been absolutely super fun talking to you. I think, you know, there’s definitely, I think more awareness on these different little niche businesses out there that you can get involved in, work in and find sort of your true calling or what fulfils you as a person in it. Right? Yeah, this has been thank you so much for being on this. How can people find out more about you is that would would it be going through LinkedIn? Is that the best way? Sure. Yeah.
De’Shawn Kelly 52:54
LinkedIn, LinkedIn is the best way and I’m, I’m pretty active on LinkedIn also. So I’ll respond.
Greg Owens 52:59
All right. This is been the Watching Paint Dry podcast. We had De’Shawn Kelly from Homeward Bound here in Marin, and absolutely pleasure talking to you today.
Outro 53:11
Goodbye. Thank you. Thanks for listening to the Watching Paint Dry podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click subscribe to get future episodes.