Greg Owens 25:03
So many different things you have to consider right now. And like you said, Oh, everything. Everything’s up in the air and everything’s being looked at. I’d like to change. What? Go ahead.
Eric Horn 25:14
Yeah. Well, one of the things that sorry, but one of the thing was the restroom procedures, right? We have even the offices as they were built, originally, you know, whether it was in the 80s or 90s. Even the density is not near what it was today. So men’s room, for example, has has two stalls and two urinals in it. And that’s a, you know, hundred hundred 50 square foot restroom. Are we going to social distance and in a situation like that? So we have like, lines queuing up for the restroom. Before you can even go in there. So, yeah, again, everything is on the table.
Greg Owens 25:52
Yeah, we’re in some buildings right now. We’re being asked to come in to start painting like all the doors and all the You know, to high touch areas and that kind of thing, because they want to just make sure that when they do coming back to like that 30% number I’ve heard a few times now that they that all those surfaces are as clean as possible to start with and easier to scrub in that kind of stuff going forward, but I didn’t even think about like, cuz those bathrooms are tight in a lot of those buildings. And you’re always like, coming down a hallway and passing within a, you know, shoulder distance to somebody else, right. And queuing up for the path. Oh, wow. Things are gonna be different, much different. I’d like to just take a little bit go different direction here with the questions on because I’m also like, very interested in this in the being in the career of being a facilities manager, property manager and kind of stuff and a little bit about, like, What led you to it and things that you like about it, that kind of thing?
Eric Horn 26:53
Oh, yeah, but the first time my dad actually was You know, building operations manager, so it kind of ended up being a family trait, if you will, something I hadn’t really considered. And in my early years, you know, I went to college for social science. I ended up being a I went to Cal Poly and their motto was learned by doing so that resonated with me quite well. Honestly, I found it very similar to to any school though. I mean, it’s a great school and phenomenal school, don’t get me wrong, but a classroom environment isn’t really what I learned, well, they learned much better on the job. And I know you’ve talked a little bit before we first spoke about, you know, young people getting into, you know, facilities careers, you know, I think it’s a great path for anyone who’s starting out who may not have you know, a college background or experience or just you know, that type of environment isn’t great for them, that they learn better by doing and if you know, and facilities management and facilities in general you are doing you know, more than anything. So when I was looking to get into the workforce taking me way back, I actually started out as a Building engineer, so, an apprentice engineer you know, working with the local 39 and you know, it was great experience back then, you know, you had companies like Ask Jeeves and NorthPoint communications around I started out in Emeryville and it was great but I actually started working with other like office managers, their facilities managers, and one thing that I you know, had above and beyond all of them was this like real knowledge of building infrastructure that a lot of did not possess because they had not hadn’t been exposed to it. So I found this unique niche of being able to take my hands on experience and then bring that into the office which made me better adept at working with trades whether it be painting or HVAC or security vendors and so on and so forth. So I you know, took that and honestly just found my niche and ran with it from there. You know, the couple different companies, the admin software, which is still around work with them, I can put them into a new headquarters over over on Seventh Street. In San Francisco, yeah, that was a great achievement and feather in my cap and I moved around a couple consulting and contract positions from there. But then I started back up in this whole like tech startup community you know, with a gaming company it cabanne which led me over to to Airbnb, Airbnb I’ll say was that like height of the hyper growth phase right where a lot of companies really started becoming as unicorns and taking off quite a bit. And for me, you know, not everyone likes sitting at a desk, you know, eight hours a day and plug in when a laptop and prefer to be more physically active and I think that’s what’s great about the role is that you can have a mixed bag other certainly, you know, nowadays I am behind the computer a lot more than than before, but I kind of missed the days of like, just doing furniture setups or you know, going on walks, walks with the techs and going into the idea of them MDS and looking at servers and, you know, the hands on approach that I I’m a little bit removed from from these days.
But it’s a great, it’s a great field and that you really get to work with every single person in the company. And that you, you get exposure to a lot of those different, different environments. So, you know, I’ll even say this that I actually put this as a pitch out to people who are coming in who want to do reception. They’re like, hey, this may not be like you know, your life dream to be a receptionist here, but guess what you get to touch base with every single person in the company at some point. And that’s very true with like a facilities coordinator as well. Yeah, you may find that you work really well with like a biz dev team and like something a light bulb goes off, and you go into that and meet as a manager, bringing a facilities coordinator and if I can, you know, bring somebody in if they do well on my team so well that you know, the team wants to incorporate them there. Then I feel like I’ve done my job here, right that I’ve really brought someone in who’s was valuable. To the company, whether they say on my team or not as irrelevant at that point, you know, I brought somebody in who was great. So it’s the I always like the you know jacker Dre and Jane of all trades master of none type mentality that comes along with with facilities management, because you really get this just broad knowledge of building infrastructure and even like business development how companies tick and work behind the scenes. So if you’re the type of person that like really, you know, just enjoys figuring out things and learning things and you know, maybe you’re good at puzzle games and you know, in numbers and whatnot, this is like definitely like a career path for you. And that has been needs you know, in the past and to date so you know, that’s that’s why I think it’s a great career. So it’s been a great career for me. You know, and I’ve been super fortunate to be a companies like Airbnb, even Optimizely was a great company, Opendoor, you know, conquering residential real estate for some time, there on the to Wish now is a you know, huge ecommerce platform and growing quickly. So I will say there’s a little bit of luck in the draw there of where you end up. But you know, you keep plugging away in these industries and you will get noticed for it. I think the other thing there is the what I enjoy about it is like hard work really pays off. And it’s one of those industries where people do notice the hard work, like they noticed the stars, like they notice the person really putting in the extra time and effort to make the company that much better. So you do get that like, you know, a sense of pride beyond the the recognition that you get from from senior management.
Greg Owens 32:38
Right, right. And I think that’s what always amazed me about being a facilities manager is you do touch all aspects of the building and a lot of ways and all the different departments, and then how invaluable that experience of being a building engineer is because you, you sort of know how the inner workings of the building is which is sort of, you know, what I’ve seen over the years And I’ve been in the painting business for over 30 years and I’ve watched facilities managers roles change, and, and the differences between a building engineer and a facilities manager and a lot of times they don’t have the newer sort of facilities managers don’t have that sort of background of the actual like, coming from the trades or hv AC a tremendous amount of times what I’ve seen is building engineers having like a background in HPC, and that kind of stuff, what kinds of what kind of buildings was your dad involved in? Back in the day?
Eric Horn 33:33
Oh, he, he actually did a bunch of stuff. So he worked for TSA for a while. So he was transferred around a bit when, in my younger years, but then he got in my teen years, he was actually more into doing shopping centers. You know, he actually managed, you know, several shopping centers throughout the Bay Area, which he liked a lot because he is you know, very independent person. So he could he like, you know, traveling from site to site and kind of working directly with the tenants there. You know, you Do your you know, ti projects for a retail tenant are much different than with a tech company. But he worked with those companies and tried to help you know, build out their new little taqueria or maybe it’s a larger you know, Safeway or some type of like larger grocery environment. So to you know, that’s what he really loved is again, the changing environment and the different types of vendors and retailers he got to work with. He did end up back at more of like construction type stuff. He worked for Cahill for a while. Oh, yeah, that’s in the end of his career and largest part of his career. He was actually working for Chevron at the main Park over in San Ramon, the main headquarters. He finished his his career over on the Richmond side of Chevron though, which was a little bit more blue collar and a little bit more for his speed. He really liked working with those with those guys with the boots on the ground there and said that was a nice nice enough for him to be able to work there his last few years.
Greg Owens 34:58
Wow. That’s a that’s a broad career. in engineering, too, because those are those are different animals, you know, shopping centers to buildings to Chevron, so many different things.
Eric Horn 35:10
Absolutely.
Greg Owens 35:12
I wanted that for sure. And, you know, he was gonna, I was gonna say I wanted to switch and ask you a bit about your own your own company too. So on top of everything else you’ve got going on and how busy you are. You have a company called CREW Consult, Consults. And you’ve, you’ve started and tell us a little bit more about that and how people can learn more about it and what you’re up to in there.
Eric Horn 35:37
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. It’s the you know, it’s something I just put together the tail end of 2019. The past several years. I hadn’t even really thought about it that much. But more and more I get people reference my direction where they’re like, hey, Eric, I need some great vendors to go to for painting or a factory or security or even food services. What do you recommend? You know, a lot of times with some of these companies were growing so quickly Coinbase was a good example of a company that just started to explode. And someone was like, who brought into me like an office manager of a couple hundred person office like, Eric, we’re building out a floor for like, you know, multiple floors of, you know, 10s of thousands of square feet. Like I’ve never done this before. What do so really it was the kind of taking what was you know, progressing naturally as it’s like, hey, let’s just touch base and have coffee too, you know, putting in something a little bit more and more legitimate behind it and have the company and you know it right now, it’s, I’d say it’s, you know, it’s maybe a little bit more of like a side gig gig, if you will. It’s honestly not something I’m looking to capitalize off of, you know, maybe it becomes something that I do in the future, more of a full time as companies start to look at more of a part time. You know, real estate in workplace support model, which is certainly happening and in a lot of different environment, or more companies that may be struggling to find that next head of workplace or head a real estate Like, hey, we just need some help getting through the next few months here until we find this person, can you help us on, you know, navigate these deals. What I have found, interestingly enough is like that was a 10th of it. But I’ve had a lot of vendors coming to me asking for support on their models, right? So food service is a good example. It’s not necessarily my forte, but they really want to know what the clients looking for. Right. So I obviously have a vast experience that I’ve also worked with 20 different food vendors. So I really can like help them navigate Well, this other vendor to this way, and that was actually really beneficial to our employees, they appreciated A, B and C. So you might want to think about incorporating that. Now. Beyond that now, even with you know, COVID coming into play companies, all these companies are, you know, food vendors, again, are changing the models, like we’re not serving food in the office anymore. Maybe we’re not doing a period going forward. So they’re looking at us like Eric, how can we help like reach your employees and be supportive to them, you know, during this time when we’re shut down with operations, but we’ve got a warehouse full of food and we’ve got a bunch of it. cooks in the kitchen, literally, who can help, you know, put food on people’s plates here? So, yeah, it’s a one of those things that just kind of like naturally progressed. And, you know, finding it’s useful. And I’ll say I mentioned this before a little bit before we got on the line officially. But um, you know, I think right now I’m happy to help, like, navigate people through through their times. I mean, you know, I’m not looking for for any, like, funds here, I’m happy to, you know, have a 30 to 60 minute like consultation with people, if they’re looking to just kind of like, navigate through these times. Maybe they’re having a tough time going through their lease, because they can’t pay rent right now to do some like, you know, downturn and their gmv and whatnot, which is obviously very common. Happy to just just hop on the phone with somebody or send a few emails back and forth. And just to get a hold of me, that’s a crewconsults.com or info@crewconsults would be the best way to get a hold of me.
Greg Owens 38:55
Yeah, that’s great. That’s great that you’re offering that and sharing sort of your knowledge And especially now with all these changing times you’re going to be, you know, being at Wish you’re going to be at the forefront in making significant changes, and you’re going to find what works best and what doesn’t and sharing that information right now it’s going to be more valuable than ever, you know, just kind of all those things we’ve touched upon earlier in this podcast, any books or any tools or things like that, that you’ve come across that are super helpful in your field?
Eric Horn 39:31
You know, I’ll say the the standard organizations out there, IFMA is one that I belong to for a long time, you know, I have my FMP facilities management, professional certification and designation from them. You know, we were talking about people who are interested in getting into the field if there’s someone who’s in their first or second year and really wants to jump on their facilities career, highly recommend the FMP through If not, that’s that’s a great great materials there. Beyond that there’s you know, message forums and chat boards all within that. So there’s their own little community. You know, yeah, Bowman and other ones out there too. I personally just found IFMA to be a super great help to me.
Greg Owens 40:11
Yeah. We’re members of IFMA too and it’s a it’s a great organization for spreading, you know, best practices and things like that around being a facilities manager taking care of buildings. That’s great. Any last thoughts on on the state of being a facilities manager and things you’re, you’re up to?
Eric Horn 40:31
Now, not really, other than, you know, it’s a again, come back to my own experience with it. It’s, it’s been great. It’s phenomenal. You know, I think the one thing that I’ve taken to my past several years now is taking that facilities experience and diving in more into the real estate side of things. So again, you know, the project management and setting new office lease says that absolutely, you know, intrigues me at this point. It’s even more interesting these days with considering like how You know, offices are going to expand or contract or the entire workplace environment is going to change with, you know, layouts and how we just utilize the office, and then what a remote workforce look looks like, then so it’s it’s been a great career for me, I absolutely, you know, recommend it. And again, if somebody’s honestly looking to just get some further advice on that and is thinking about it, you know, same thing hit me up on on either LinkedIn or via CREW Consults. And I’m happy to guide them through their their first steps of facilities manager.
Greg Owens 41:32
Yeah. And we’ll make sure that that’s in the show notes, more information about how to contact you. And that’s great that you’re offering that as a resource out there. And so thank you so much for your time. And we’ve had Eric Horn here with Wish as a facilities manager, and it’s been really fascinating finding out more about what’s been going on. Especially all the challenges right now and to stay in time. Thank you so much.
Eric Horn 41:59
Thanks for having me on Yeah, really appreciate it.
Outro 42:11
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.a