Elias Nacif is the Executive Vice
President of Service by Medallion, an award-winning, family-owned company specializing in facility services for Fortune 500 companies, start-ups, and more. Service by Medallion won the 2019 BSCAI Award for Best in Class.
Elias has worked with Service by Medallion for the past 13 years, specializing in B2B service delivery, logistics, and organizational change when it comes to sustainable business operations. Together as a company, they have helped more than a thousand organizations keep their offices and workspace in premium shape.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Elias recalls how he got started in building management
- The potential for growth and impact in facility management
- How Service by Medallion’s hybrid model for remote work kept their business going during the pandemic
- The new challenges presented by COVID-19 in October for Service by Medallion
- Elias reveals his favorite part of his job
- How to maintain unoccupied buildings
- What cleaning products are best for keeping your space clean?
- The future of facility management and incorporating technology
In this episode…
Keeping our spaces clean has never been more essential than it is now, amid the current pandemic. As a result, many companies have decided to allow their employees to work from home and limit their in-office interaction. Others still have opted for a hybrid model.
Regardless of how your workspace has decided to maneuver the challenges presented by COVID-19, how you choose to keep your workers safe has become an ever-changing topic for discussion.
Elias Nacif is the Executive Vice President of Service by Medallion, a family-owned facility service company with over 700 employees and operations in the Bay Area. Elias understands the importance of maintaining office spaces and corporate campuses as companies make tough decisions around how to work safely.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, host Greg Owens sits down with Elias Nacif, Executive Vice President of Service by Medallion. They discuss how to follow health protocols, the future of facility management, and maintaining company culture at a distance. Elias recalls new challenges facility managers will face in the fourth quarter and his favorite role in his current position.
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
- Elias Nacif on LinkedIn
- Service by Medallion
- Service by Medallion on LinkedIn
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 Trascript
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. This is Greg Owens with the watching paint dry podcast. And this is October 9, it’s Friday morning. And you can feel it outside fall is coming winter is coming quickly. The leaves are starting to change here in the San Francisco Bay Area. And it’s actually my favorite time of year. It’s a great time of year to paint. And that leads us to our sponsor message from McCarthy painting my company. It was started by my uncle Fred McCarthy in 1969, right here in Marin County, and we paint both residential and commercial properties throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. And if you’d like to learn more about McCarthy painting, go to our website McCarthypainting.com. Or you can email us at info@McCarthypainting.com. And I’m really excited here today to have Elias Nacif, from Service by Medallion, which is a family owned service service business that like caters to facilities managers and building owners and, and we’re gonna find out more Welcome to the podcast Elias.
Elias Nacif 1:56
Thank you so much, Greg. appreciate the invitation. It’s an honor to be here sharing this time with you guys. It’s a fantastic day, as you said earlier, we can definitely feel the change in weather. And we are excited about what the last quarter of this year is going to bring to all of us.
Greg Owens 2:11
Right.
Elias Nacif 2:11
Everybody seems to have expectations about q4, right some businesses reopening and the economy reactivating. So hopefully
Greg Owens 2:20
movie theaters just reopened and a lot of areas
Elias Nacif 2:22
we need to leave that yes, it’s crazy. And it’s 30 stations, all kinds of businesses are reopening. So we are excited about that. We see movement in the economy. And that’s always a plus.
Greg Owens 2:34
We’re seeing the same thing within the construction constructions been there’s been a lot of movement. Yes. And we don’t know which direction but there’s a lot of people buying houses and moving which is always good for us as painting contractors and you guys like So tell me a little bit more about Service by Medallion.
Elias Nacif 2:52
Sure. So Service by Medallion. Started in 1978. By a family who immigrated from Chile. Roland Strix senior came to the United States with something like $300 in his pocket. And he was looking after the American dream, right? Okay, how am I going to make it in this country. So he started school. And as he was getting through school, he realized that, you know, he needed a job to make some money. So he worked as a janitor at night, working as a janitor for one of the large companies back then he realized that there’s a lot of opportunity in the building maintenance industry is something that is relatively easy to do. And he applied himself, he found a partner and started Medallia then, and here we are, you know, 42 years later, right? We are roughly 750 employees in the company. And it’s family owned family run. I am not part of the family. Although I feel part of the family. I’m the only person who is an outsider in the executive management team. But it’s been a great ride. We, we provide anything from cleaning services to corporate campuses, to building we parison construction. So anything that has to do with small t is right if customers want to demolish your room and then rebuild. If there is electrical work, plumbing, you know, you name it. Building retrofits for lighting, plumbing, electricity, anything like that. We can help customers. So we operate in the Bay Area primarily, but we do have services and three or four other states. So we’ve learned that some customers here in the Bay, like the level of service they received from us, and they wanted to take that elsewhere. And we’ve been successful at you know, following them.
Greg Owens 4:44
Yeah, we’ve done that a bit too, with certain types of brands, you know, and being able to they just say like, Hey, can you go over here? paint? We’re just Sure. Yeah, we’ll go there, too, right. Mostly within California. I don’t think I’ve left California. But, you know, we’ll go down to like LA for a client or something like that. Okay. And, and so people might hear my Katrina Hayes is also on this call with us. And sometimes she chimes in, she’s learning about the facilities and building maintenance and management industry herself. And so a lot of times, she’ll chime in to end. Katrina is my niece. So we’re, you know, we’re, my uncle started this company, I started working for him. And then my niece Katrina here has joined too, and I, you know, you understand the whole family feeling right. Um, and then how did you get your start within Service by Medallion?
Elias Nacif 5:40
Yeah, that’s a great question. So um, I graduated from school, you know, back in the day, San Jose State University with a business major, and then I got my first job at a building maintenance company back then. And I was trying to find my way around, I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do. I asked the suppliers of that company, you know, what are the top companies in this industry, because I saw a lot of potential, it’s a noble industry, right? There’s a tremendous amount of need for cleaning and maintenance. As you know, Silicon Valley is just full of, you know, properties all over. And they all need to be maintained, whether they are empty, or full, right? buildings, constantly need attention to retain their their asset value. So by asking around, one of the suppliers told me, you know, what, there’s this company out there that goes by Medallia, they’ve been around for a long time, they have very high standards, they have good customers, and they sort of live by the reputation, so you might want to check them out. So I call the owner Roland strip Jr. We met for coffee, you know, we spent a good hour chatting, we connected really well realize that we had similar visions. Roland is incredibly smart, he has great ideas. And I was the guy who could implement those ideas and make it happen in the field and work with employees and just carry out all these plans for growth. So So after that, it just took took a week, basically, for us to do make it happen, put together a contract, and then we get started. I started with a company when we were at, I think 17 million in revenue, roughly per year. And we’re close to 68 at the moment. So it’s been, it’s been a transformation. For all of us. It’s been a great path, lots of change and innovation, constantly reinventing the wheel, not only for our customers, right to stay relevant, but for employees to keep them engaged and show them that there are tons of opportunities with with medallion. So that’s,
Greg Owens 7:41
that’s, that’s phenomenal growth. Yeah, that’s great for you guys to get to that level. How many employees were you when you started?
Elias Nacif 7:50
So back then we had a little under 400 employees? Yeah, and now we are 750. Roughly, yeah,
Greg Owens 7:59
there’s a lot of mouths to feed.
Elias Nacif 8:01
It is it is a lot of mouseup. And employees are incredible. I can’t tell you how grateful we are for having such an incredible team, very dedicated. They’ll do anything for our customers, which is what differentiates us out there. The level of responsiveness, the commitment, and then having this vision for doing the right thing. Sustainability is one of those big components of doing the right thing. It’s it really has made medallion, a unique company.
Greg Owens 8:28
Right. Right. And and the types of what are the types of industries that you guys are in? Is there is a broad across the board? Or is it gonna sound like a narrow sort of this is the type we try to select?
Elias Nacif 8:42
Yeah, that’s a great question. So we’re pretty broad, right? We understand that every type of facility needs, again, some sort of maintenance and because we don’t just focus on on services that are cleaning related, you know, we have the construction, we have supplies, we have construction cleanup, we have a project management division, we also have a little bit of a consulting service in sustainability, waste management, we can really propel provide help to a bunch of different companies out there. So our focus primarily is high tech, corporate campuses that are global headquarters in the area, right, because they have super high expectations. They got a responsive service that is innovative, right. And that can has the ability to scale up or down depending on their needs. But we also have right smaller companies that have a, you know, three or 5000 square foot facility that need maintenance a couple times a week, and we love them just as much, you know, customers are really good all around.
Greg Owens 9:47
And I personally have found especially in this unbelievably challenging environment with COVID-19 that to have a diversified portfolio because we have some commercial buildings that haven’t we haven’t been in there at all this entire time. And others, they’re there. They’re doing projects, right? Or they’re constantly coming. Hey, Greg, can you guys do this? Can you do this project? Can you come in here and do that. And what I, what I, what I find fascinating is like the general public doesn’t always even realize, like, the amount of people that come in, generally speaking, at night, or on weekends or on, like, we probably run into each other over the Christmas holidays, because we’re inside all these high tech companies doing a tremendous amount of painting, you know, when all their employees are home, and then their employees show up. And it’s like, it’s clean, they can sit down at their desk, and they can start doing their good work, right. But they didn’t realize, man, like a week ago, the walls were all torn down. And there was dust everywhere. And you guys are coming in and making it proper again. How has so I want to get into a little bit like how things have been for you guys with with this experience with COVID-19? And the shut down? Did you guys have to stop? Or do we able to just keep going through this time?
Elias Nacif 11:09
Yeah, great question. So it has been challenging for sure. Right? Nobody expected this. And the most interesting part is that nobody really has experience right? operating a business during this time window, which is? Yeah, the guidance changes every week. Right. So we’re glued to the screens trying to find out okay, what is the government saying? Right, what are the authorities elsewhere saying? What are the health experts thing, right? And what do we do, right to make sure that we keep everybody safe.
Greg Owens 11:39
And then I do have a funny story about that. It’s because I was, I was in one market, downtown San Francisco, talking to a facilities manager, I was coming into the building. And I had just heard on the news, it was like March 17, or 18th. And they had like, shut everything that like all construct everything down, right, something like that. And I was like, Can I be possible? Like, what does that mean? As I’m like walking in to look at like a painting project, right? And then I start talking to everybody there. And they’re like, what do you like? They didn’t even see it yet. Right? Because it’s, you know, it’s on the it was on the news, the governor came out, and I was like, yeah, the governor just like, we got it. Like they were all sitting glued to their TV. Like, what is that? What do we do? What does that mean?
Katrina Hayes 12:28
Was that shelter in place?
Greg Owens 12:29
shelter in place? Yeah. Yeah. And then like, all these new rules of how do we engage? And it was, it was, you know, super Unbelievable. Unbelievable, right? As you were talking, I was reminded how surreal that was because it’s like that never happened before. You go on, you guys will see you guys right there in it. And you are doing the same thing, doing the same thing.
Elias Nacif 12:54
So we got the whole team in a room and say, hey, how do we tackle this? Let’s try to understand it. Because it’s the first step it we didn’t really understand what was going on. To your point earlier. Is this surreal? by how do how can this be happening to us? Right? So anyway, we, you know, we’ll learn what really meant to be an essential worker and the essential services out there. And we are lucky to be a part of that category. Because as you know, if there is anything that has increased or in shelter in place, is the need for cleaning, right? Because we need to prevent the coronavirus from spreading, right. So we have a really good team of experts who’s being trained, who’s taking specific classes on infectious disease and the prevention of spreading infectious disease. And we immediately started putting together some programs. So medallion itself, never shut down operations. We always have employees in the field, or a corporate office, remain office to those remaining runs, I remain open for those employees who had to be in the office to conduct conduct essential duties. But we have this hybrid model where most of us are operating from work from home, right, that are supporting employees. And then we have the field employees who are out there, you know, customer sides. So it was again, it was confusing at the beginning. Right. But it took us about two weeks, I would say to put together a very solid plan that addressed all the needs that we have to have for compliance purposes to keep employees safe to communicate to the employees right What does it mean to wear a mask and gloves and why and how do you behave in this social distancing? Right? How do you maintain that?
Greg Owens 14:45
Well, you know, elevators and going down the hallway and going to the bathroom like Wait, how does this work?
Elias Nacif 14:50
Yes, exactly. When, especially when our culture is that there is a lot of interaction at the office right and there’s always something going on. We have a very light Culture, we have free food, we have drinks, and people are in the hallways. And they sit down in common areas, and they exchange information and have meetings. And so all of that interaction all of a sudden just goes away for a little bit. And people are just like puzzled, right? So we created protocols, you know, very clear, we actually created videos to educate our staff about what are some things that you can do now, to illustrate, you know, what are the expectations and how to keep everybody safe, so that we can continue to do our job. So it’s been working pretty good since then, by now, most employees are very, very used to write the fact that, you know, we have a hybrid mode of operation from working from home and working on the field. And it’s been working really, really well. But I think the most important part here is that the customers felt knowing, right, because when the customers requested staffing, we were there and our staff was ready to perform, which was really, really confident. Last of Us,
Greg Owens 15:58
we started to become your competitor a little bit. We were doing some cleaning, but you know, just tiny amounts. And you’re probably like our company when it comes to like, pp, we mean, we already had a bunch of stuff. Right? So that was that was helpful to get started. I mean, we not definitely had to start buying up, as you know, and finding and sourcing and that kind of stuff. But things like gloves and masks we were already used to. And my experience around service providers like yourselves, you guys work in smaller crews, too. So it’s not a whole lot of people that’s going in to clean unless it’s like a cleaning up of a construction site. And that would be where you’d probably put more bodies on it.
Elias Nacif 16:42
Yeah, so it really depends, right? You have customers, you know, the social media giants, right, that, you know, have massive campuses? And then we have you know,
Greg Owens 16:52
I’ve been in those Yeah,