Jeffrey Holton 25:10
I always tell my guys the same thing I go, Look, you know, the most important thing for me is that you as an employee are happy. And a big part of that is that you have a good, fair, equal work life balance. Yeah, I’ve also got those, it’s, it’s always those kids that are in their mid 20s, that are like, I want to work those extra hours, you know, price of beer, and Ben and Jerry’s is going up, you know, I’m, I’m working those extra hours, though, you know, I love and I admire people with that same work ethic. And that seems to be a work ethic that’s becoming more and more rare. But I do also fully respect people’s, you know, rights to be able to have that family time. So I always tell my guys like, oh, look, you know, as long as I’ve got coverage on that day, I’m never gonna say no to a request for time off, you know, I’m just never gonna say, and the reason being is that, you know, I’m the one who I hold myself at a higher standard, I expect myself to always be here on those days. And, you know, I’m not just going to be that boss, that’s just going to delegate and walk away, you know, my guys are actually always telling me how refreshing it is to have somebody that goes and walks the jobs with them. And that goes in, and really tries to brainstorm ways that we can be more creative about solutions to problems, you know, and you just be amazed that even when you’re at an organism, like, I’m going to, I’m going to be as Frank as possible. The Doctors Company, we are in great position, you know, financially and monetarily, that I will never have a problem, you know, needing something and being able to provide that for my customers. Yeah. And that’s one thing, too, that people got to realize is that facilities management, we are a customer service based industry. And if you don’t like customer service, don’t get into facility because that’s what we are, you know, we are really, you know, we’re just that that’s our main objective is keeping our customers happy. So when I can find innovative solutions to you know, ridiculous problems. So just throw this out there. My first week here. Actually, while I was interviewing, I was getting ready to go to Hawaii for a week. And I had pretty much told them, I said, Look, I’m leaving Hawaii in a week. So you guys gotta let me know soon. And they go, while we’re dealing with a problem where we had an oak tree fall on our pavilion. And I was like, Oh, my gosh, wow, that can that can definitely be a problem. So yeah, no problem. Just let me know as soon as you can. And they told me the day before I left to Hawaii, yes, we’d like to have you and I was like, great. So when I started, I knew in my mind right away, I was like that pavilion job, that’s going to be my first one that I just knock out. And right when I came in, I look and you know, this pavilion must have been built by, you know, several, you know, engineers, and architects, that all just made this thing, it could withstand a house falling on it, it was just so resilient. I couldn’t believe it, and the oak tree fell on it. And when I started, I was like, Look, you know, typically going out shopping bids, and most of the contractors were coming back to me with, hey, look, we’re gonna need to replace the whole pavilion, you know, all the metal columns need to be replaced? This one is compromised slightly. This one is not, you know, and it was like, No, you know what, actually, I’ve got plenty of friends of mine who are architects, I got plenty of friends of mine, who were engineers, and they’ve told me, if it’s a one degree pitch, we would be much better off correcting the pitch, as opposed to replacing the entire, you know, taking the footers out and redoing all the grout packing and all that stuff. I was like, you know, we don’t need to do any of that. So we came up with a really innovative solution, save, you know, the company over $60,000 on the cost of remediation, and everybody is happy, you know, the vendors that we hired are happy because they don’t have to go put a backorder on steel that’s going to, you know, show up six months from now. And they’re basically sitting on their hands until then. And, you know, and of course, you know, everybody here is like, hey, that’s great, you know, we can save that money and not compromise the integrity of the structure. And that’s really what’s important to me. So I just really love you know, I love being at a place where they see the value in doing these repairs, and I love being at a place where they they really do value people and that’s something that I’m definitely not accustomed to, but I’m getting used to it,
Greg Owens 29:39
and they and they valued your opinion in your experience behind that. Right. That’s great because yeah, I mean, I see that with a lot of I’m a general contractor to but I don’t, we don’t don’t get into building houses or building remodeling kitchens, but we do do though is a lot of wood repair work and a lot of replace, remove and replace kind of things right. Thank you I see it all the time where other contractors will come in and, and they will do it. They’ll say no, it’s not saveable. Like it’s better if we tear it down and I come in, and I’m like, or No, I think we can just replace this, these areas here. There’s some other methods, there’s some epoxies, we can use, we can pull back together, right? Keep the integrity, integrity, integrity, goal strength, yep. And make it look beautiful. And maybe you’re gonna have to have to pay attention to it maintenance wise over the next, you know, every two years, but that’s just a little that needs to happen anyways, you know, right, like on some of these things, so. And
Jeffrey Holton 30:37
I appreciate contractors like you that do that, that actually put in the effort to think outside of the box and not just go, oh, Greg, he’s got tons of money, he’s fine, we’ll just go ahead and just throw out a bid to just do a full replacement and a teardown and, you know, because he’s got the money, so it’s, you know, I’d rather do that and then rather not have to, you know, I’d rather be able to pay it all these other little little jobs that I can do are big, these one big ones that I can do, you know,
Greg Owens 31:05
I think it’s also a level of like creativity, I’ve just problem solved so much. Right. I’ve been doing this since I was 16 years old. And and and, you know, just problem solving, especially here in Moran length, the house. The houses and buildings are so eclectic, right. There’s no straightforward structured designs or anything like that. It’s usually you know, if it’s a house in Sausalito, it’s it’s multi, multiple remodels that never quite fit. Yeah, yeah. And so you guys
Jeffrey Holton 31:37
have a lot of heritage homes out there. I know Sonoma County, we have quite a few. And those are always fun to work on.
Greg Owens 31:43
Yeah, we we do especially in sort of the downtown areas. Right. But when you get into the hillsides and stuff, it’s not as it’s not as not as crucial. It’s a right. But for sure, like the you know, downtown Sausalito, right along Bridgeway, their downtown valley here, downtown San or Felder definitely is, when we’re going through design review, we’re just talking you and I talking about, I try to stay away from planning departments as best I can. Because I don’t like getting I don’t like all that bureaucracy. Right. And so we do things up to where we need to pull permits. And, you know, we tried to just do remove and replace some things in that trigger permits, right.
Jeffrey Holton 32:25
I’ve done tear downs where I’ve left the doorframe. Yep. Where it is not a complete remodel. We’re good. Yeah,
Greg Owens 32:32
right. Right. Right. Yeah, let’s come in here to let’s come in. So and tell me more about The Doctors Company. I mean, what is it that they do and what’s their, their, their main
Jeffrey Holton 32:42
purpose. So The Doctors Company is a medical malpractice insurance company. So the demographic of the majority of my customers are lawyers and doctors. So it’s also very, very nice, because they’re very, very conscious of liability. And that, for me has always been a big deal. People don’t realize this, but as a Facility Manager, we’re directly responsible in the event that somebody gets hurt due to unlicensed or unregulated work. So I mean, I was at a place at one point in time, and I told them, here’s the guidelines, like I have no problem, you know, replacing outlets replacing this replacing that ballasts, you know, light fixtures, cans, all that stuff, no problem. But the second that I’ve got to open up the panel, we’re hiring an electrician, like, and I get it, electricians are really expensive. And good ones are few and far between. But I got a host of good ones. So hey, you know, let’s go ahead and do this work. Oh, no, well, we don’t have that in the budget, well, then it’s not getting done. Because you know, people live here or they sleep here. And there is no way that I’m about to go do some work that 10 years down the road, there’s a fire, and then who do they come knock on the door? The guy who replaced the panel, you know, so I’m just really big on liability. And, and that’s one thing that I absolutely love about here. But also at the same time. It’s a learning curve for me too, because I’ve had a lot of things that I just Oh, yeah, I’ll make the executive decision on that. Whereas now I’ve got to run it by legal I mean, even doing this podcast, it was like, Oh, really talk to legal make sure that you know that they’re good. And, and everybody’s, you know, like I said, and any my boss was like, yeah, it’s no problem. You know, just be mindful about what we talked about. And, you know, be sure that it’s nothing that’s not public knowledge. And I’m like, Yeah, of course, you know, so though, it’s great. And we do have locations all across the country. So I’m actually you know, I manage our I oversee, and I helped to manage a lot of other of our build outs. We’ve got an office down in Sherman Oaks. We have an office down in East Lansing, Michigan. We’ve got offices in Jacksonville, we’ve got you know, and here this is, this is only the offices that we have that have made it through the pandemic. You know, prior to my tenure here, you know, there were 1520 offices, so You know, it’s it’s just really amazing the work that they do here. And, you know, it’s just, I’m really, really happy to be a part of the team. And again, I’ve never been at a place where they take such good care of their employees, you know, it’s even just through all of these, you know, supply chain disruptions, and all have this, you know, problems with inflation, you know, they were mindful of that our CEO was like, hey, look, we need to take care of our people. And, you know, they issued out compensation to make sure that people were taking care of with the high gas prices. And, you know, it was just really, really nice and really refreshing to be at a place that truly values and truly honors the work that their employees do. That’s
Greg Owens 35:43
great. Yeah, I mean, they did touted the so for you guys, and you having these facilities and all these buildings. Are you seeing what are you seeing sort of the future of work from your side? Randy, interesting
Jeffrey Holton 35:57
that you asked that question because I really, really do see us going a lot more towards a remote. So one thing that’s really, really great about this new hybrid slash remote workplace environment is that it really, really does show an individual’s inadequacies, it really does show an individual’s ability to not do their job, where as before you can have everyone knows that guy in their office that’s hanging out at the watercooler 70% of the time, walking from desk to desk, distracting other people that are doing their jobs. And, and because they are so you know, jovial and so conversational, and they’re everybody’s best friend, nobody ever looks at them as like, wow, well, this guy doesn’t really do any work. Like, he’s a great cheerleader for the for the, for the team, but they’re not actually getting anything done, you’re starting to see a lot more people now that are just, you know, they’re not cutting the mustard. And, you know, staff is being told immediately, like, Look, if you’re not contributing, you know, then you should probably not expect to be sticking around for too long. And, and it’s great, you know, because it’s letting people that do a lot more work and are a lot less of the talkative folks. It’s letting them be able to really shine and really show their worth and their value. And so I think that going forward, we’re going to see more push more for in certain industries. But I think certain industries are still hey, look, you got to have boots on the ground. And we’re going to see that transition more and more. I’ve even seen positions where people are hiring for remote facility managers, and I’m like, wow, like, how does that work? You know, like, like, I could see it, you know, but like we were talking about earlier, I have to have people walk around with the phone, on FaceTime, showing me all of their equipment, you know, and it’s like, it’s, it’s really tough to do your job when you’re in a position where like that where you can’t really physically put eyes on things. Because one thing we all know, and we’re Facilities and Operations, we walk into a place and we notice things that other people don’t notice. So they might not know to show us, oh, the ceiling tiles here every winter, they’ve always got these little brown spots. Why is that? Oh, you’ve got a leak. Or, and it’s little things a little esoteric things that you can never really, you know, put your finger on. And those are the things that you know, we really have to be here in person, though. So,
Greg Owens 38:33
I mean, I mean, I wonder about that myself, because I wonder if it’s like, well, am I just becoming an old dog that wants to keep doing it the way I’ve always done it, right, I did do some walkthroughs quite a few walkthroughs with Zoom or with you know, FaceTime, who give bids and that kind of stuff in the early days of the pandemic. And as soon as I can get back into the offices I was back in. And even I just did it the other day to even a building that I somewhat know that it was a new part of the building. I wanted to go physically walk the space before my painters got there. So I can give them sort of like these. I know from the standpoint of the vendors like just sometimes just getting into a building is tricky, right? People don’t realize that like, like, which, which elevator do we use? Where do we park? Where do we how do we unload our equipment? So we don’t disturb tenants? Right? Is there adequate? Is there an adequate ventilation that we can do the project during the week and we’re not going to have people those are, those are tough things for me. I can I could walk through and get that figured out in an hour. But on a phone or on a video. I can’t really think of all those things. As we’re as we’re moving through it, right? Like it’s just not it’s just not the same for me at all.
Jeffrey Holton 39:48
And it’s really tough as a business owner because sometimes you put yourself in a position where you underbid a project and you don’t want to come back and go oh, sorry, I didn’t know you had fabric wallpaper that we’re gonna have To strip. And you know, like, sorry, when you showed it to me in the video, I didn’t notice how textured the wall was or, you know, whatever. It’s those little things that people don’t think about. And as a business owner, and as a project manager, you don’t want to look like, Hey, I hate to have told you that it was only going to be 10 grand, but now we’re looking at 1617 Jump for people to justify or validate to their, you know, to their higher ups, right. So I feel I empathize with you, that’s a tough situation to be in. And that’s where you kind of as the as the business owner, I have to just put your foot down and just say, You know what, I really need to be there. Like, if you don’t even have a property manager that can get me access to the building, like how are we going to coordinate my crew of guys showing up and setting up? You know, a bunch of scaffolding inside of your building? Like, I don’t know, can we even get it up the stairwell?
Greg Owens 40:55
Does it fit? Right, yeah, yeah. I mean, it was only early on in this in the pandemic, that, that that was the request. Now. It’s, it’s great, um, back to like, yeah, just full walkthroughs. And that kind of stuff.
Jeffrey Holton 41:09
Are they requesting that you’re always masked? And you’re always you know, or do you take it upon yourself to kind of like, hey, look, I just rather my guys be safe. And sorry.
Greg Owens 41:17
And I’ve been leaving personally, I’ve been leaving it up to individuals to make those choices as a company owner. Of course, early on, I was we had everybody masked, but now it’s gotten to the point, like some companies we work for, they’re requiring everybody to be masked, right? And that’s, that’s fine. You know, I, I always carry a mask with me, because I don’t know each company, I can’t remember each company’s. Right. And then, and then for a while there, they were changing, right, like, so it couldn’t keep track. And you know, and it’s totally fine. And then I’ve got employees, some of my employees just are feeling more like they need to wear their masks all the time, and they just feel more comfortable that way. And that’s, that’s fine. Because, you know, I feel like each individual person has a risk factor that is unknown to me. And so it’s totally because maybe they’re worried about their mom, that’s seven years old and diabetic, right? Like, you know, and I don’t I worry about my mom, but she’s in North Carolina, so I’m not seeing her all the time. Right. It’s a much better you know, for me, I’m not I don’t have that kind of risk factor. So I’m and I’m just higher risk in nature anyway, right? Yeah, I go skiing I ski trees, right. It’s, yeah, it’s, there’s some of us that are like,
Jeffrey Holton 42:33
I’m, I’m with you. And believe me, when Sonny Bono died, it didn’t deter me at all from going and doing off trail skiing, you know, I mean, that was my favorite thing to just go hit the backside of a mountain, carve off to the right and lean back and have fun going through all that powder. You know,
Greg Owens 42:49
I did start wearing a helmet after he died.
Jeffrey Holton 42:52
That actually
Greg Owens 42:55
I was sort of late to the helmets until I started seeing everybody on the slope wearing a helmet practically. And I was like, like, those are like torpedoes, right? If I get hit by one of those helmets, I’m gonna get hurt. Exactly. And it’s now it’s just sort of. So second nature. Same with seatbelts, right? Like I grew up in in time and era, we didn’t have seatbelts. Right when we had lap belts. That was yeah, that’s silly. But we will be playing we sometimes we’d be playing the back of the station wagon is turn looking
Jeffrey Holton 43:23
backward. That was my view for my entire childhood was looking backwards, either through the back cab. Parents truck, or looking through the back of a window from a station wagon.
Greg Owens 43:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, tell my kids
Jeffrey Holton 43:39
about that. And actually, so it’s really interesting. You say that about the you don’t know about another person’s situation in COVID? Well, I think that’s the one thing that’s really, really kind of a shining light, is it showing me when I do actually get people’s backstory, and they’re like, oh, I don’t wear this because I’m worried about me, I wear this because I’m worried about you, you know, like, you don’t know, they might have been exposed to somebody in coat with COVID in their family, and they’re wearing a mask because they actually genuinely care about, you know, and that’s the thing. You know, it’s just, it’s this amazing time in our society where we are being forced to kind of create much smaller social circles, but while at the same time showing that we are conscious and mindful about our decisions and how they impact others.
Greg Owens 44:31
Yeah, and I think that’s what that’s what in some of the communities I’m involved in, that’s probably been one of the major dividing factors, right? Like, where some people are just more tuned into, like, wanting to take care of others and other people are like, no, they’re on their own. Right. Yeah. And, you know, it’s two completely different diversified personality types in a lot of ways. Right. You know, it’s, it’s interesting that now here we are in June, and in the last few months I’ve noticed a new trend with COVID is like, I’ll go and I’ll show up at a at a residence or, and the they’ll they’re open a door, they’re wearing a mask and they’ll say, Oh, you probably don’t want to come in all my kids have COVID. Yeah. Right. And I’m like, wow, you know, we’ve changed a lot. Because before you would have called and cancelled the appointment. Now, it’s like, you’re, you’re you’re opening the door. You’re talking to me, you’re like, Yeah, you don’t want to come in. And we got COVID here at the house. Oh, yeah. So it’s, it’s changed. It’s changed. And this has happened quite a bit now. Right? Like, my, for me and my project managers, we both have joked about it. And, you know, it’s just more relaxed around it, right? Not as uptight. And I was just playing with me, I’m in I also already had COVID. I am vaccinated. So I’m not quite worried. Although I do have friends that have had it three times now. Right. But all pretty mild. Nothing really. But it’s kind of I don’t think you get the flu three times. Yeah. Like, a year. Right. I don’t remember that happening. Maybe to get like one bad case of the flu. And then that was it for the year, like you got your seasonal flu, right? Not, not like,
Jeffrey Holton 46:12
yeah, it wasn’t, you know, hey, one, you’re getting the same cold three times, same cold, different variant three times throughout the year? Yeah, no, totally, you know, it really wasn’t until so I had an ex subordinate of mine who worked with me at Center for domestic peace. His name was Claudia dia. And he was one of the most amazing individuals that I’ve ever met my whole life. You know, he was the kind of guy so we worked with a lot of a lot of the abused individuals in not only just Myrin, but we would get a lot of folks from out of town as well. And they would show up, and they would have car problems. And he would be like, on his off time, on the weekends, he would come and replace somebody’s alternator. And he would even help pay for the alternator for some of these young ladies that literally just left the house with what they had on their back. And that was it, you know, and they came to our shelter looking for some support. And he went out of his way to help all these people. It wasn’t until he died from COVID I really truly hit me where I really truly realized that, you know, this is a this is a real thing. You know, it’s not. I mean, I also was, I got swept up in a lot of the hoopla at first like, Oh, my God, everybody’s got it, we got to, you know, just isolate ourselves. And, and it really actually that mindset that I had that anxiety that I was operating from, it really was detrimental to my personal life, but also really detrimental to my perception of society in general. And I got to a point where I had to realize that look, this is not, you know, this is not a joke. But this is also it has two different extremes for each person, you know, whereas I’ve had, I got it one time, and I got it on new years after my roommate went to a New Year’s party, where I stayed home, and didn’t do anything. I sat by myself this last New Year’s, he came home, he works in the VA, or he work or I don’t know, if he still does, I don’t have a roommate anymore, then gosh, I after that experience, I was like, Look, I went two and a half years without getting it. And then I get it because somebody else goes to a party and brings it home to me, you know, so I was like, Okay, forget this. But after getting it I was like, wow, not a huge deal. Lie. Yeah, I felt like horrible for about three days, but not a big deal for me. But, you know, my mom, on the other hand, she’s on dialysis. You know, I know if she gets it, that it’s going to be a whole different deal. And so it was just this whole thing where I had to reevaluate was I doing the world a service by being uppity and being filled with shoulds and shouldn’t and telling everybody you shouldn’t be wearing a mask, you shouldn’t be this, you shouldn’t be that, and then realizing that nobody’s gonna, it’s like, I can say people shouldn’t be on their phones when they drive. We all know this. But what’s the reality? The reality is, is that you’re going to encounter of the 500 cars you pass in the morning, 380 of them are on there. And there really is no interest from our auto manufacturers to change things or from our governments to change things yet. We’ll give people a $10,000 fine for a DUI. But they’ve proven that distracted driving is actually just as dangerous if not more dangerous, because of its prevalence. And yet it’s $180 ticket or $200 ticket, you know,
Greg Owens 49:45
right? It’s not not quite on the radar being socially bad yet,
Jeffrey Holton 49:49
right? Yeah, exactly. And it’s not until it turns that corner that we’re going to be dealing with the same scenario that we’re dealing with with this pandemic. I wouldn’t even say it’s not even a pandemic anymore. And we are just going to have to live with this. And we’re going to have to figure out how to all play nice together and how to all treat each other with love, admiration, respect, it’s something it’s a valuable lesson that I’ve really only learned, you know, or that I’ve learned a lot more deeply. And this last, you know, two years, right, really, really, you know, beneficial to me personally, in my personal development growth.
Greg Owens 50:26
That’s great. Yeah, yeah, I think I think for me, too, and a lot of ways of being much more empathetic to people’s situations, being curious around what, why, why they’re making the decisions or me making without having, trying not to have judgment, right, like, good or bad of it. Right. I definitely have my path. And I, you know, I run into other people that are very similar to me, but then it’s, it’s, but it’s not the same path. I understand. Right. And so as we get closer to the end of this broadcast here, wow. What are you excited about for like in this summary here, with with work or personal, whatever you’d like, we’ve got
Jeffrey Holton 51:06
a huge H back replacement that’s taking place
Greg Owens 51:09
and air conditioning is good. Yeah. Well, you know, this
Jeffrey Holton 51:13
is the first place I’ve ever been, where our air conditioning is all working really, really well. We just know that we can get better efficiency, do a better service to the environment and to produce a to have units which produce a much, much better volume of delivery. And it’s just a huge, and it’s I got to say one I’m really excited about as this is my first time ever doing an H back replacement that’s going to involve helicopters.
Greg Owens 51:41
Oh, fine. We are
Jeffrey Holton 51:45
actually we’ve had to talk and we are directly adjacent to the Napa airport. So we’ve had to go ahead and get FfA clearance, we’ve had to, you know, well, not me personally, the project manager working with our organization, our company
Greg Owens 52:02
is this because you can’t get a crane on the lawn into the lawn area. It’s not
Jeffrey Holton 52:07
only on to the lawn, but we can’t and the tiles are old clay tiles there. It’s not a composition roof. And it’s not a shingle roof. So we’re we’re basically dealing with everything that you could possibly imagine working against us on this one. But it’s really, really cool that we have the property that we have, so we can actually plan this project out properly. You know, really what’s tying us up right now is the supply chain disruption, you know, thing, it’s not just a moniker or a catchphrase,
Greg Owens 52:38
you know, I called I called for paint the other day from Kelly Moore. And I’m like, hey, I need some text here. Someone gloss exterior semi gloss. They’re like, let me see if we have any. No, we don’t have any. I was like, What do you suggest? I do? And he the guy said, Well, I’m gonna call around some stores and see if I can find some from another store and get it. He was like, Okay, great.
Jeffrey Holton 53:01
Oh, wow. Like we got some in Carson City. You want to pay $300 for shipping your life?
Greg Owens 53:06
Well, luckily, he realized to me because we buy a significant amount of volume. He realized, like he’ll do more. I wasn’t just like some one off person calling for pain. Right. And so he they found me some somewhere. But yeah, it’s I was like, and we’re still running out of pain. Right? Which puts but then when it comes to mechanical things, it’s there’s so many moving pieces. There’s you could be waiting for one small part that needs to come from Japan. And that’s held up for months,
Jeffrey Holton 53:39
right? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I’ve experienced that’s
Greg Owens 53:43
exciting that the helicopters I know I was involved once after the visit at 96. There’s quake here. Just go bear the big one, right. Yeah. Um, we used to paint flagpoles on top of
Jeffrey Holton 53:56
time quick or that there was an 8090 or
Greg Owens 53:59
9089 Quit. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So the we used to we used to specialize in painting flagpoles and and things on top of skyscrapers. Right and that’s when I was painting and I did the work myself. But they called us right after the earthquake that the very building flagpole gotten bent in like three places like the the building whipped so hard and if the steel poles so the pole bend, right and, and so we went up and climbed up in there and looked at it and we were like, Whoa, this is this is way over our heads to cut this thing down and do it safely. Right. We recommended a helicopter company that would come in and pull the flagpole off right. And somehow they ended up dropping the flagpole right through the top. Very building. Nobody got hurt. But you know, there’s there’s got to be a person that has to climb up and rig the tying to it and if you think about a flagpole, tying that kind of thing off. It wasn’t the helicopter company. It was the glue. They hired the tie. I would Yeah. But it’s not easy to, you know, to figure out how much weight that is and to get it so secure that it’s not going to fall right? Yeah. Luckily they had the whole building empty when they were doing it and all of that, right. That’s good. At
Jeffrey Holton 55:15
least they emptied the building. But you know, they mounted that flagpole back in like the late 1800s. It’s no one even though it’s made out of cold rolled steel and aluminum and yeah, right.
Greg Owens 55:27
Oh, yeah, it was not a light, light flag at all. Right? Well, that’s great. And then, um, are anything around? Are you guys hiring? How does people get more involved in facilities management? From your perspective? You know, I
Jeffrey Holton 55:42
think especially for you know, younger folks that are really thinking about a role in the facilities management industry, I think the best experience that you can get is on the job, you know, there’s, there’s gonna be a lot of times where you, you know, you feel that you have a strong discipline in a certain area. And that’s going to really help you out a lot, you know, even people who, if you want to think about right now, the trades industry is huge, you know, you Hey, Dr. Greg, go get yourself a job with Greg, because I’ll tell you, you know, the trades are really where it’s at, you know, and you decide that I just happen to have been in a position where I was able to make that transition seamlessly at a midpoint in my life and my 30s, where as a lot of folks don’t get into facility, a lot of the really good facilities managers, unless they knew when they were younger, that’s what they wanted to do, or had a family member that did it. And it basically brought them under their wing. Well, it sounds
Greg Owens 56:41
like you were mechanically inclined. It seemed you you said that your boss, your old boss, said, Hey, you’re fixing things around, you’re anyway, you went into the Army, and you went into specifically into building things and fixing things and working on things, right. And so that’s, that’s
Jeffrey Holton 56:58
a big thing. Anybody who really loves to tinker and take things apart and put them back together. Yeah, you got a role in facilities management someday, I think I always tell people, especially most good facility managers, you’re a jack of all trades and a Master of None, you can’t really, because if you’re if you’re really that good, working with high voltage and low voltage, become an electrician, I tell you, right off for you, in the end, if you’re really, really take a lot of pride and doing great texturing great paint jobs, you know, yeah, get into painting. But if there’s not a discipline that you feel is that discipline that you’re really passionate about, the key is the passion, you know, you really do need to be passionate about what you’re doing. And if you’re not, then you’re in the wrong career and in the wrong industry, and you’ll find your niche, it just might take a little bit more time. So I always just tell people that you know, with, with facilities management, we are a customer service role. So you’ve got to like people, right? You got to be able to be cordial. Even in those times, when you get asked the dumbest question in the world, you’ve got to be able to have a decent poker face. That’s one thing that’s actually killed me a lot and a lot of places is that my poker faces is horrible. Somebody says something that I’m like, You have no idea what you’re talking about. Very often, I wear it on my face. And I’ve been working on that. I think a lot of it just has to do with my duration of experience in the industry. And you know, I’m not a professional on any particular thing. And I’m going to tell people that but you know, I’ve really good at jeopardy. So it’s, it’s basically just building Engineering and Mechanics, Jeopardy is what you’re doing as a facilities manager, you’ve got to know a little bit about everything,
Greg Owens 58:45
a little bit about everything and then and enjoy learning new things, right on a regular basis, it seems right. Like it’s constantly like, you know, even this, this, this, you know, what you’re learning about this HV AC install with the helicopters and all that you’re gonna learn so much that you’ll think about, you know, and you can apply it to something else that you end up doing, right. Yeah,
Jeffrey Holton 59:06
exactly, exactly. It’s a great industry and the IFEMA is also a really good resource to look into. I think I learned a tremendous amount from the IFEMA just going through the certification. You know, and also learn a lot about the latest office equipment. And the most important thing is when you’re getting started, just establish great relations with your vendors. And you know, and remember, you always get more bees with honey,
Greg Owens 59:32
right? Yeah, I I preached that all the time. It’s definitely you know, I, I do think there’s a there’s something to being a squeaky wheel, but doing it nicely. Yes.
Jeffrey Holton 59:44
To be persistent and persistent,
Greg Owens 59:45
checking in, hey, just circling back, want to see where we’re at with this. Like, there’s always pull out ways to do it. Once you
Jeffrey Holton 59:53
gotta throw somebody under the bus and be like, Hey, this guy is not replying back to me and I’ve emailed him 20 times you know, it’s You’re going to get people like that. And that’s another thing. Knowing your audience is key and finding the best method of communication with every individual vendor. I’ve got vendors that if you call them they’re answering the phone, that first ring right away every time. I’ve got vendors that I’ll call them, they’ll never answer their phone, but I text them and all of a sudden I get a reply if in five minutes, or I send an email, and I don’t hear anything, it’s crickets for two weeks. Yeah, you know, you just got to identify your vendors. And
Greg Owens 1:00:31
I’m definitely I’m not definitely not great on email, but calls and texts, man, it’s the best, fastest way. I’ll tell you, I’ll tell my vent. I’ll tell my my facilities managers and people is like, you want me right away like call or text? Yeah, I’m right there. But then I get so many emails and I get very, it takes me a little bit to get back. Right. Because I might have to think things through. It’s to the Yeah, it’s my ADD really like it’s there’s too many things that can distract me as I’m trying to get through email. Right.
Jeffrey Holton 1:01:04
Exactly. Yeah, I get those squirrel moments all the time.
Greg Owens 1:01:07
Right. Right. Right. Well, this has been a pleasure talking to you a little over time. But I’m really watches a lot of fun really great learning more about you, The Doctors Company and and the things you’ve been up to with wonderful conversation. Thanks for being on the Watching Paint Dry podcast.
Jeffrey Holton 1:01:24
I’ve really enjoyed it. And again, the pleasure is all mine. Thank you so much. And thank you for what you do for our our industry. I appreciate it.
Greg Owens 1:01:31
It’s been a wonderful, unbelievable amount of people that I’ve connected with from all over the world by doing this podcast and having these kinds of conversations in a subject matter I somewhat knows of, but I keep learning new things all the time, which is just great. Right? I’ll do good. It’s about Alright, well have a good rest of your day
Outro 1:01:58
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.