Bill Martorana 18:46
Exactly. And, you know, and there’s some way worse, right? So, you know, if you can just give back a little bit. Yeah, it’s funny, for a while, I was like, Well, I do facilities. So okay, but that’s not really, you know, pretty or anything, but, you know, if you really break it down, it’s, it’s, it’s, you know, I build buildings for science, so our loved ones can live a little bit longer. So if you put that in perspective, it kind of changes the way you look at facilities, right? There’s so many things that are in the bucket, if you will, not only every different kind of industry, really. Yeah. And
Greg Owens 19:20
you know, I think people don’t realize the importance of the facility working correctly. Because when facilities working correctly, those scientists can do their best work and not be concerned about a roof leaking or the temperature being too hot, too cold, like they, the facility sort of helps them inspire them to come up with their creative ideas and, you know, not tripping over carpet or something like that. Right.
Bill Martorana 19:49
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, once you ever called me and said, hey, you know, the air in my office was awesome today. Not once. But they’ll tell me about the red carpet for
Greg Owens 20:03
sure. Oh, yeah, yeah, we were painting. We were painting a CEO of a biotechs company’s house. And I was he was he was in on some of the colors and that kind of thing. And my painters are standing there, and he’s picking a color. And I was like, say, Hey, what is it? You do? Like, what is it like your company does? And they’re like, Well, we’re biotech company. And we’re working on some drugs for cancer and that kind of stuff. And I was like, I turned to my painters, I said, Look, we’re trying to get these colors, right, and paint this guy’s house, so that he feels good when he comes home, so that he can go cure cancer, because we can’t cure cancer. But we can help him do his best work. It just been and go on to do that. Right?
Bill Martorana 20:46
Exactly. It’s the service you give the value is my group and my team, I tell them, the less scientists have to do, that means they’re doing science. So no, you have to look at it that way. You don’t want them doing things that isn’t progressing the company or isn’t progressing our science. So it’s the little thing, whether it’s opening a box to get something right, that takes time away from bench time, takes time away, experiment. So that’s to be mindful of right, it’s to resource correctly, yes, hard, hard,
Greg Owens 21:17
making sure they even just even those little things like making sure that the recycling is happening in it as best you can, right so that it’s green, so that they’re not It’s not weighing on their minds, right? Just all those little things add up. And they can come through the facility, how they get through the facility. I know some of them, especially during COVID was tricky, right? Like, especially some of the biotech companies that we do work for getting getting through security was interesting. You know, they were working out bugs, right? The scanners that take your temperature, and those things weren’t quite working, right. And everybody had to have more patience, but it was still being you know, maybe now it’s gotten better. Actually, I haven’t seen those scanners take your temperature anymore. They’ve disappeared.
Bill Martorana 22:01
They’ve kind of gone away, which is good. Because, you know, I mean, it was great to have them it gave people kind of a sense, but you know, it takes longer to get into work. Now it you know, it adds a little bit more frustration for folks, right? You can’t just walk into your desk and sit down start working right? Well,
Greg Owens 22:15
I don’t know. I don’t know how other employees were doing it. But I was struggling every time I put my face in front of thing it would go beep. Okay. And then by before I got to the door, it would relax. I’m pretty tall. I could reach like, what’s going on here? I can’t make this
Bill Martorana 22:32
move fast enough. You got to be on the reflexes or something right. You
Greg Owens 22:36
know, and we’re there like, we’re doing we were doing things after hours are getting when no one’s there. Nobody else is there. Nobody can open the door. Right? Right. This thing had to work, right? Yeah. Oh, what? So? Yeah. And so one of the ways are you is there any technology or anything like that, that you’re that you guys are implementing to make these, this whole process of facilities management easier, that helps like remove constraints and that kind of thing?
Bill Martorana 23:05
I mean, I think it really comes down to whatever you’re using whatever you’re implementing, it’s about notification, right? Because at the end of the day, you don’t want to be hearing about something when it’s too late. So whether it’s, you know, equipment, whether it’s material, whether it’s cells, whatever it is, past that be monitored, and there has to be programs in place. So at three in the morning, when the freezer dies, what do you do, right? And if you don’t have that, that’s when you have really big problems, right? So I think technology is it plays a big part in it, especially if we’re all somewhat remote these days, I am not, I’m in the office pretty much every day. But it does allow monitoring from afar, if you will, and you get it on your phone, and there’s plenty of things that you can do. So that’s the technology and then just being creative on how to keep your team. You know, I’ll always say, you know, you can’t motivate anybody, but you can put them in motivating situations. Right. So it’s keeping me engaged, keeping them motivated in motivating situations throughout their day, you know, and so that’s keeping everybody you know, it does get mundane, it does get boring, it does get, but there’s always something new or something broken.
Greg Owens 24:17
Yeah, right. Right. There’s always things Yeah, and things to like, stay ahead of too, right, that makes sure that the freezer doesn’t drop off at three o’clock in the morning. And you
Bill Martorana 24:28
know, that goes back to good vendors, right? If you have good vendors to take care of you during, you know, the corner, if you will, then you shouldn’t run into those problems. And so the ones that that corners is the ones that, you know, do things that aren’t up to spec or cheap or whatever you want to do. So it’s that’s why the partnership, it’s a partnership with your vendors. It’s not yes, they work for you. You do pay them Sure. But at the end of the day, you know you want somebody who’s going to be committed and who will help you right at the end of the day. And that’s all in relation shipbuilding and how you do it and how you say it, all those things. And so that’s the only way to do it in a somewhat painless way, right? Because you do RFPs Yeah. But if you select those vendors along your way of your career, then you know who those folks are. And that’s, that’s what builds your, your team overall, your network overall to bring the best in whatever you do.
Greg Owens 25:27
Right. Right. Yeah, it’s a good feeling. For me, when we get to a level of letter of trust with a client that we have, we have badges security clearance, they just, they send an email, we take care we go in at night, we take care of it, or over the weekends, right, like, and, you know, and they just consent, they can just send that and they can rely on that right. And gone. Beyond. It’s amazing how much there’s still a lot of like, maintenance painting happening, even though there’s not a whole lot of people moving through the facilities. It’s like there’s a there’s a hanger rot happening, where there’s like, things are still degrading, even though that nobody’s using it.
Bill Martorana 26:06
Yeah, I mean, you still got to upkeep the building. Now, like, right. Now with painting, it’s probably, you know, there may be getting ready as they start to reopen.
Greg Owens 26:17
We’ve done that a bunch of times. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, there’s been a lot of like, like, surge of like activity to get ready for opening, and then we didn’t really fully open.
Bill Martorana 26:30
So I would imagine that they’re trying to, you know, like, we say, there’s all different ways to lower folks back to work, you know, but I think we’re in the hybrid for, for a while,
Greg Owens 26:42
for a while, yeah, at least for the next few years, I would think and minimal. I keep thinking that, you know, companies are competitive, right? And they’re gonna see what other companies are doing, what’s working, and what helps build culture and that kind of stuff. And they’ll, they’ll start to, you know, move in those kinds of directions, right, as this
Bill Martorana 27:01
markets really hot. So you know, it’s hard to find folks, qualified folks, and you’re going to have to be competitive, and you may have to do things you weren’t thinking you may had to do, right? Because it is so hot right now. And you’re getting pinged all the time. But I think if you’re truly engaged in what you’re doing, and you know, you just enjoy what you do, then it kind of works out.
Greg Owens 27:28
Right. How are you? Are you have you been hiring for your team here in this time? And what are you seeing as you do that?
Bill Martorana 27:37
Yeah, so and so I was hired, about, I don’t know, 16 months ago, if you will. And I came in, and there was one other person with me, and facilities, and I pretty much grew the team out, we didn’t have a team at the time, obviously, because we were, I like to use the thing going college to pro and right, so it was higher. And so I was able to build a just a fantastic team. And we have probably about 15 in our group with contractors and consultants, and then FTE so I was still in that hyper growth. So I wouldn’t have known there was anything going on outside the building, if you will. Go, go go. And so we were able to add a lot of expertise, whether it was environmental health and safety, whether it was in, you know, office management, or just facilities as a whole or lab operations. However, we wanted to dissect it, we were able to fill it, which was great, because we were able to keep up with the speed. And typically you can’t, because the roles are going to go different ways. But we were able to keep the support model the way it is. And they everyone saw the value with that.
Greg Owens 28:57
Yeah. And did you do your did you have to rely on rank recruiters or to come up with any other creative ways of finding these people? Or was it we’re in the process of finding trying to find people and we haven’t had the best of the best of luck? I know, we’re talking about like Office and project management levels. Yeah.
Bill Martorana 29:13
You know, it didn’t matter what I was hiring for, even when I was interviewing for, like on a panel, if you will, as part of an interview team for a different it was really hard to get good candidate it felt it and I would get resumes, but they’re, you know, maybe I got 100 resumes for a job and probably 75 didn’t even have facility experience. You know, and, you know, and I’m hiring for, you know, somebody who needs to know certain things and, you know, it was very interesting that people and then you would have people applying for like five jobs at the company. So then you had people really just looking for work.
Greg Owens 29:56
And just saying yeah, yeah, maybe that’s a different thing small you know, We’re a small company. And maybe it’s just like bigger companies to where they’re, they’re looking to try to get into the corporate into the corporate game in such a way. Right. Yeah. And plus plus plus it being a high growth, like, tons of potential and tons of opportunity for advancement? I would think, too. Yeah. Yeah. And then how I love talking about the origin stories of how people found the facilities as a career. And what’s a little bit because it’s an interesting path, I find it. And I think it’s a wonderful career opportunity that, you know, that is not as well known as other career choices out there, right. What’s your what’s your What was your path to this point in time? Oh, wow.
Bill Martorana 30:41
Tell you a good story. So I was, I was down in Santa Barbara. Enroll you will. And I played a little too much, and came back to the Bay Area. And I went down to the local temp agency, like everybody used to do right back in the day. Yeah. And I got this temp shipping and receiving job and
Greg Owens 31:04
started in the mailroom. I started in the mailroom. Nice.
Bill Martorana 31:08
And from there, I’ve spent my whole time in facilities. Yeah.
Greg Owens 31:12
Right. And you said you had gotten different opportunities, different types of companies. Someone not related to the buyout the biotech companies.
Bill Martorana 31:21
Yeah. So um, not only, you know, biotech and medical device, but automotive and semiconductor. So. So with the semiconductor the, it was velodyne LiDAR, and if you see the little pucks on the cars on the Google car, yeah, that’s, that’s the puck or the little robot at the mall. That is, that was the LIDAR. And so being, you know, in automotive and seeing what their needs were from a facility perspective, and then seeing the biocide or semiconductor, it’s all very similar. I think what it is, is, you know, you’re always gonna have that 25 30% of critical equipment, right, that can’t turn off that has to be looked at 24/7. It doesn’t matter what industry, right? There’s tests that are run, whether it’s science tests, whether it’s software tests, that can’t get interrupted, so uninterrupted power, right. You need to have that kind of infrastructure in
Greg Owens 32:20
place. You can’t you can’t have the painting contractor unplug it.
Bill Martorana 32:24
Right. He’s the wall. Yeah, right. On the phone,
Greg Owens 32:28
I realized that we were working at a facility that had 3d printers that takes like, 3000 hours for it to finish its job, right, but you can’t be interrupted. Because we didn’t unplug it, but it was like, it was like making sure hey, guys like this is this is critical. We need to work around this piece of equipment that’s working and we can’t disturb it.
Bill Martorana 32:50
Yeah, yeah. But you know, it was interesting in that in saying automotive, because their footprint is different. Because they needed, say, range, they needed long range for their testing. Right. Yeah, you know, farther along. And so that space and utilization is interesting, versus, you know, having labs and a bunch of different places, or having hardware and software or so it was just interesting to see the different industries, but like I said, it’s all pretty similar,
Greg Owens 33:22
right? Yeah, that’s what I love about like, Can we do a fair amount of commercial painting, and it’s always an interesting time for me to, you know, like, go in and learn about the company learn about their needs. And then like, you know, the differences in those kinds of companies or the niche categories that they’re in, where you, you know, the things they all have to consider, right, especially, and then where the building is located. is So is so critical, right? And then and then and then figuring out how to navigate that facility. Right, so we don’t disturb the tenants that we can get through in we can get out we can do our work. Yeah, yeah,
Bill Martorana 33:59
it’s it is definitely a calendaring ballet with all the different folks that have to be involved, whether it’s, you know, getting in getting the landlord approval getting security approval, or getting you know, it through the system, whether it’s a POS you know, everything is going to take a little bit of time these days.
Greg Owens 34:17
Yeah, no, it’s taking more time. That’s for sure. We Yeah, we’ve run into a new phenomenon to is new. It’s definitely happening more often, where we do actually get everything scheduled. And we have our clearances and but we get there but security wasn’t informed or we’re not on their list, right. It’s, it’s it’s a tough situation, because they’re all you know, the guy, the painters are all ready to go, they got all the equipment or in the lobby, but there’s like, nope, the securities is like, Nope, you’re not somebody didn’t fit this in here. Right. And it seems to me like they’re still trying to work out some of the companies we do work for is is those handoffs, right, let’s say yeah, I
Bill Martorana 34:57
mean, important passed down. I mean, if If you’re not communicating, then the next question will be, you know, somebody comes in and goes, Hey, I thought we were painting today, why aren’t we painting? Right? Right? And then it didn’t get notified. Yeah. And then
Greg Owens 35:11
why? Yeah. And I, you know, it’s something back to your point about, like the scientists doing their best work, right, and not having to think about the facility, right. And I bring this up to my teams all the time with the painters is like, look, we don’t want we don’t want these scientists that we’re doing work for, to have to think about why this wall is half finished, during the course of their day, right? They should come in and the wall is done. There’s no no trace that we were even there, right? Like, it’s just looks, looks, looks the way it’s supposed to, and they can sit at their desk and get to work, right. But there’s no dust on the ground. There’s just no holes that needed to be filled. That kind of thing. Right? Yeah.
Bill Martorana 35:53
And that’s, that’s, I mean, you’ll have some, some places that’ll do work in business hours, right? And then there’s stuff and mess. And, yeah, you’re trying to save some costs. But what’s the productivity that’s gone down with everybody complaining about all the noise of the ladders? or this or that? So, you know, I?
Greg Owens 36:10
Yeah, it’s gotten to the point where we just tell them, we can’t, yeah, we because it’s just so problematic, that we will end up annoying and, you know, you’ll get the facility manager, we’ll get a bunch of incoming, like, it smells like, you know, toxic, it’s this kind of thing, you know, they can’t work here and not not worth it. It’s better if we can do it when there’s nobody around. And
Bill Martorana 36:32
then you stop and you’ve already put everything you know, you started you set up, right. And now it’s Can you come back later. And that’s why you just do it after hours, and you can bless interrupt.
Greg Owens 36:43
Right? So in regards to your team, are you hiring? Are you with this grows? So you’re looking at having to hire a few more people than, you know,
Bill Martorana 36:51
right now I was able to get my team pretty much solidified. So right now I’m in good shape. From a hiring perspective, the company is hiring. So it was a great thing.
Greg Owens 37:06
But yeah, congratulations on that. And it’s not like it’s a tough, it’s a tough market right now that have the team that you’re you know, that you can at least get through the next six months with is is is pretty good. And now it’s now it’s sort of up to you to keep them all happy and make sure their content and they have what they need. Right?
Bill Martorana 37:23
Yeah, yeah. That’s the biggest challenge. Right is keeping Yeah, we can’t always keep everybody happy. But we got to keep it up the majority.
Greg Owens 37:32
Right? Yeah. Yeah. And you try your best, right, like any activities I was with, actually, I was with a facilities manager down in San Jose yesterday, and, and she got a call from her team saying, Hey, we’re all going to this sushi place for lunch. And she turned to me, and she’s, this is why I love my team. We pick cool spots, we’re gonna have some this is like on was yeah, it was on a Thursday. They’re like, they’re gonna all have some good food together. Yeah, cuz you got to celebrate the wins. Because in facilities,
Bill Martorana 38:03
you know, there’s lots of lots of misses sometimes. And so when you do hit on those wins, and you got to, that’s how the team keeps the trust
Greg Owens 38:14
to do you. So are you are, are you you mentioned, you know, your facility is 24/7. That means you’re, you’re on call 24/7? Essentially, right? I mean, you have team members that can over like, that would be maybe paying first, but responsibility falls on your shoulders if that freezer breaks down.
Bill Martorana 38:32
Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, the end of the day,
Greg Owens 38:36
right? People don’t always realize it doesn’t. It’s not like you get to turn off for the weekend or whatever. It’s like, no, usually that’s when all the vendors are coming in to like all your contractors and things like that. And so making sure to get
Bill Martorana 38:49
stuff done while people are out of the office or early morning or, yeah, like you said, on the weekends. So yeah, the phone’s always on. So it’s just one of those things as as being in facilities.
Greg Owens 39:00
Right. And, and well, what other lower, so a lot of times like people don’t realize facilities, being in facilities management is a career opportunity. And do you have any words of wisdom for like somebody to start out? Is it the mailroom direction? There’s still mail rooms? It’s amazing. We just painted one.
Bill Martorana 39:22
Go mail rooms. Well, yeah, that
Greg Owens 39:24
means so many, so many boxes coming through, right. Yeah, I
Bill Martorana 39:30
mean, if I were to give anybody starting out, I be open minded. You know, if you came out and did a construction management degree, and you’re gonna come in, fresh out of school, you know, listen, listen, make sure you listen, because just because it said that in the book in the real world, that is not how we do it. When we’re all sitting in the trailer at the construction meetings. This is how we do it. Right. And so, you know, it’s just being open to new ways. You know, not every way The right way. But I think definitely being more open minded because of all the different ways we work now, and how we have to work and what we have to be aware of, for when people come into the office,
Greg Owens 40:14
yeah, we just did some work for a company and somebody in an office position. Without she, she had like, emailed me saying she wanted it done, like, a specific way getting these elevator lobbies painted. Right. And, and I looked at it, and it’s gonna add so much more time and work. And it’s going to be so much harder to do it that way. So I just called the facilities manager, it’s on site who I’ve built up some relationships. I was like, Hey, do you mind if I kind of like, do it this other way to how we always kind of done things at your facility, and we kind of blocked that whole area off and don’t let anybody through and we just knock it out as fast as possible. I mean, it’s gonna be a little interruption to your, your tenants, because it’s a 24/7. Sony also put it would be so much faster, right. And he understood it right away. He’s like, Yeah, don’t go ahead. I’ll back you on. Because it’s like, yeah, she was she was a little bit more going by the book of how things happen. And we were like, This is how we’re gonna make it happen.
Bill Martorana 41:15
is in your let’s say, you’re doing a conference room. Right? You got to work around the schedule, the conference room, you’ve got to, it just adds so much more to just a simple
Greg Owens 41:25
project. Right, right. Right, right. Yeah. Just to just turn take it offline for a bit. That actly Yeah, well, this has been great. I really enjoyed this conversation. Any personal exciting plans for the summary? You think in traveling anywhere now that things have opened up more?
Bill Martorana 41:44
Yeah, you know, I definitely want to go somewhere like this. Most definitely. But you know, my life is soccer with my son. So my wife and I are on on the road quite a bit with the with the soccer but yeah, we’re gonna squeeze in some something tropical. How about you?
Greg Owens 42:01
Yeah, something like tropical. Sounds good. I had some French friends that just went to Costa Rica. And they’re down there for a while. And they, they they’ve got like a space and all that and they have invited me so that’s something I’m definitely thinking about. Because I love having those invites to you know, any their high tech. They’re high tech people, they they can work anywhere I can I’m I’m trapped to facility, so I come home.
Bill Martorana 42:24
You can’t pick it from? Yeah, yeah.
Greg Owens 42:27
No, it’s a it’s still it’s still we actually tried to do some like zoom walkthroughs and stuff early on and COVID for painting and stuff. And it’s so hard to figure out, like, you know, when you’re looking at that screen, and you’re, you’re trying to figure out, like, what that texture of the wall looks like and that kind of stuff. It’s yeah, I’ve been doing this so long that I can kind of sort of figure it out by looking at zoom, but I’m so much faster if I just walk the facility right and see it. Yeah, there’s, there’s a nurse, I’ve seen it I’ve actually interviewed a guy on this podcast that had a VR headsets where they go through and, and map an entire facility. So then somebody like myself could then put the gear on and then walk through the whole facility to come up with like the painting prices and things like that, which Wow, I like that. That’s cool. Yeah. It’s different, right? Yeah. And they were doing it for airports. They were doing it for high security areas, that kind of stuff so that when they don’t want to have like a whole lot of access, different people coming through. Yeah. We’ll see. The the future is definitely it’s changing and it’s changing rapidly. It is it is what
Bill Martorana 43:35
you stay safe, sir. Thank you for a nice conversation. This was great.
Greg Owens 43:39
Thank you, Bill.
Outro 43:45
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.