Katie Mitchell is the Senior Property Manager at Matrix Group, Inc., a commercial real estate company that services the Denver Metropolitan area. At Matrix Group, Inc., Katie trains and supports her team, implements processes to maximize productivity and streamline customer service, and collaborates closely with multiple departments.
Katie is a credentialed real estate professional with over five years of commercial property management experience. She has obtained LEED GA and BOMA RPA certifications and is a licensed broker in California and Colorado.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Katie Mitchell discusses her background and the effects COVID-19 has had on her traveling lifestyle
- How Matrix Group, Inc. has evolved over the years
- What are the common challenges and available opportunities for smaller businesses coming out of the pandemic?
- Katie shares what she’s learned from her recent travels and her advice for other adventurers
- How Katie got into property management — and her recommendations for those looking to start a career in the industry
- What is Katie looking forward to this summer?
In this episode…
Is your career heading in the direction you want it to? Have you ever wanted to take some time off, travel, and gain a new outlook on your professional life?
Before settling down in Colorado, Katie took an 11-month sabbatical with her husband to cycle across Europe, backpack in India, and live in a camper van in South America. Traveling allowed her to adjust to the challenges of the pandemic, see a new perspective, and bring value back to her team in the real estate industry. According to Katie, you can travel, too — as long as you map out your priorities and plan accordingly.
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens talks with Katie Mitchell, Senior Property Manager at Matrix Group, Inc., about her career, her travels, and the effects of COVID-19 on the facilities management industry. Katie shares how small businesses are making a comeback following the pandemic, the value that travel can bring to your personal and professional life, and the best ways you can get a career started in the property management industry. Stay tuned.
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
- Katie Mitchell on LinkedIn
- Katie & Billy on Instagram
- Matrix Group, Inc.
- Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA)
- The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich by Timothy Ferriss
- Andrew Gardner on Watching Paint Dry
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 Transcript
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 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:31
Hello, everyone. This is Greg Owens here with the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we’re continuing our conversations with facilities, managers, property owners, building owners and all the support services in that entire industry, which is unbelievably vast. It is May 18. Now or May 19, I think, and unbelievably going by fast I hope everybody’s spring is full. Ours is where my painting business, which sponsors this podcast is going gangbusters right now, there’s so much work happening out there tremendous amounts of tenant improvement work, as people are getting their spaces ready for us coming back to work, which is great. We’re down in San Jose doing work right now in inside old Google offices and painting them and getting them ready for new tenants and then doing a bunch of other work in Dublin. So if you need any type of painting work both interior exterior or residential or commercial, you can look us up at McCarthyPainting.com and email McCarthy info@McCarthyPainting.com, and I’m really excited to have Katie Mitchell here from coming in from Denver. And Katie works for the Matrix Corporation. It’s a property management building owner, and they get into leasing and tenant improvements. And we’ll find out more what Matrix does and what Katie has been up to now. How are you doing, Katie?
Katie Mitchell 2:08
I’m good, Greg. Yeah. Thanks for having me. Looking forward to our conversation.
Greg Owens 2:12
Yeah, I’m excited. So this we were talking a little bit before we got on here. And just I love the fact that you’ve been traveling and working and continuing your career and learning what what is that? Like, give us a little bit of backstory to that?
Katie Mitchell 2:26
Yeah. So I grew up in the Bay Area, went to school in California, and then came back to San Francisco after a short kind of traveling stint started working for a group called Jamestown on most notably on on Ghirardelli Square goes on the property management team.
Greg Owens 2:44
For those that don’t know, Ghirardelli Square is like super San Francisco historical famous chocolate, you know, factory basically, right?
Katie Mitchell 2:53
Yeah, yeah. All those things.
Greg Owens 2:56
Actually, I actually painted the flagpole on top of that building.
Katie Mitchell 3:00
Oh, did you really?
Greg Owens 3:01
Yeah, we personally, we personally, we used to do a lot of steeplejack work painting of things in high places. And that that was a project that we had done a few times.
Katie Mitchell 3:11
Oh, cool. Okay. Probably was there at that point? That’s awesome. Yeah, it’s, it was a great property. It’s kind of located, you know, towards the end of Fisherman’s Wharf, which is also just a really fun kind of quintessential San Francisco area. And yeah, it was the former site of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Factory. It’s actually one of the older buildings in San Francisco. So just yeah, great history had been kind of, you know, neglected. It was Ario and, you know, put on the backburner for a number of years until Jamestown bought it and really has kind of revitalised. Ghirardelli Square and did a tonne of leasing, put a bunch of money into, you know, just even like the backbone and, you know, signage and, you know, really kind of trying to increase activity and, and change the public perception because I think it was, you know, seen as being a little bit rundown for a little while. So, yeah, Jameson’s done a great, great job there. So anyways, I worked for them for about five years in San Francisco. And then in June of 2019, my husband and I had this dream for a long time ever since we met really, to go travel together. And so we spent about 11 months cycling in Europe and backpacking in India and camper van in South America. And, you know, March 2020 rolls around, we’re living in kind of deep Patagonia and a camper van and COVID really, I mean, it was just, it was a wild experience being down there. And you know, I’d been doing some kind of consulting work and kind of remote stuff at that point. We stayed in and she lived for about five months and kind of tried to wait out COVID and then came back in June and then recently relocated to Denver. So that’s kind of the the short version of the last years
Greg Owens 5:02
of a whirlwind of even just the one year is a whirlwind of a time, right? Yeah,
Katie Mitchell 5:06
yeah, it was pretty crazy, a lot of changes, but just, you know, exhilarating, and, and really fun. And we’re fortunate that, you know, a lot of our loved ones and kind of at risk, and our family and friend groups weren’t, you know, affected by COVID. And we were able to make it back safely. And you know, now that the world is kind of opening back up. So you know, it’s, it’s, it was kind of wild, but I think, you know, the worst is behind us.
Greg Owens 5:34
Tell me a little bit more about that, like the sort of the nomadic lifestyle a little bit before COVID. You were doing independent work, right? And what were your challenges then? And then, as COVID came on, and you realise you’re going to be like, for all and you’re basically stuck in Chile, right? And of course, you’re like, wow, okay, this is going to be two weeks, I guess it’s not going to be two weeks, it’s going to be four weeks. Yeah. Tell us a little bit more about like, what that that moment in time was? Because it’s such an interesting history, right?
Katie Mitchell 6:08
Yeah, yeah. Well, we, my husband has a Hawaiian t shirt company that he’s had is kind of a side hustle. He was in investment banking, San Francisco. And so he kind of continued with that. And I thought it was, you know, would be really fun to see what I could do. Because there’s all these stories of people with blogs, that fun, basically, they’re traveling for an indefinite amount of time or influencers, or, you know, what have you. I mean, the possibilities are endless. I was inspired by, you know, the four hour workweek, you know, and, and so all that. So that, you know, kind of got me on to Upwork, which is kind of a freelancing platform, and got a few jobs just through that kind of worked with a range of people I was working with, you know, a few tech companies, I was working with small, you know, real estate owners just kind of getting their house in order. So it was a it was, you know, just a gamut. And luckily, it worked out. Well, we, I think our biggest challenge was just getting internet, you had a little Wi Fi Puck that we brought everywhere with us. And, you know, we we had our kind of laptops and all the equipment that we needed. And you know, it worked out really well, we would take a day off from cycling or whatever, and work that day. And then you know, cycle the rest of the time. And yeah, I would say that that Wi Fi really was the biggest challenge. But even that was you can still find Wi Fi in remote parts of Patagonia, we found so Wow. Yeah, that was, you know, really cool, just to kind of live that out. And, you know, understand that it was actually possible to live a lifestyle where you can kind of fund your travels through, you know, freelance or remote work.
Greg Owens 7:49
Yeah, that’s great. I mean, I’ve also been a big fan of Tim Ferriss the Four Hour Workweek. I’ve met him a couple of times. Wow. Yeah. He’s an interesting fellow. And, you know, it’s just really brilliant thinker and nice things, right, and how to take like a mini retirement, and allies, right, or a mini vacation, like extended periods of time. And it sounds like, like, you did exactly that, which is so great to hear.
Katie Mitchell 8:15
Yeah, yeah, no, it’s fantastic. And, you know, the, even with COVID, I think it actually was not a blessing in disguise. But it was a really interesting period for us, because we’ve kind of been like, go go go through, you know, the next destination. next destination, when we’re traveling. And COVID, we were pretty much like immobile, we, you know, we wanted to keep a low profile, we didn’t want to, you know, have the locals feel threatened by having someone outside, we just, we weren’t quite sure how people were going to react. And so luckily, our camper van we had, you know, solar panel panels and a water filter, so we could get water from the lakes and rivers, and we’re pretty self sufficient. So we were, I mean,
Greg Owens 8:55
so you’re living, you’re living not only not only you’re in a foreign country, or in Chile, and you’re, you’re living off grid there. Right, right. Maybe not 100%, but a lot in a lot of ways. You’re sort of that’s, that’s amazing. That’s so great, right?
Katie Mitchell 9:09
Yeah, yeah. So that was, I mean, that was a really cool dance. And the locals that we did meet are just fabulous. I mean, they, they were so supportive and helpful. And it was that piece of it was was great. But, you know, with COVID, we really were forced to, like, slow down and stop almost completely. And you know, we’d find a cell tower every once in a while that we could go get Wi Fi from, like, deep in the forest. I mean, it was crazy where these things were located. But otherwise, you know, we we just we dedicated some time to working I think that was helpful as well, we really were able to kind of bear down and work remotely, but you know, at the same point, like our life was just so simple. I mean, we didn’t have TV, our phones barely worked like we didn’t have a lot of sunlight even at that point. So like there was only a couple hours of sunlight each day. And
Greg Owens 10:01
you were there. You were there through the whole Winter. Forget that whole piece. Yeah, exactly.
Katie Mitchell 10:07
The seasons are reversed down there.
Greg Owens 10:12
Right at the start of March, you get you’re now you’re bending the basically Winter into Spring.
Katie Mitchell 10:18
Yeah, exactly. So that that was pretty chill. I mean, it was it was cold down there. But yeah, no, that was a really unique experience. And luckily, when we decided that we wanted to come home, because the the cases and she lay were pretty low for a long period time, especially where we were, they were trying to be, and she lived in the US at at points during, you know, from March to like, May until things really just kind of got out of hand And fortunately, and Chile and that, at that point, were like we, you know, we need to go home. But
Greg Owens 10:51
yeah, I was messing with going to a few places in South America, and was watching the numbers, I was surprised the beginning of the whole thing, you’re like, wow, they’re not getting impacted by this hardly at all, comparatively. But then but then it seemingly all caught up, if not surpassed some of the places in the US, right?
Katie Mitchell 11:09
Yeah, yeah, it only took a few months for them to really the case is to start accelerating. But even in, you know, some of the more remote areas, it’s still pretty low. It’s just with the denser populated areas just tough and they, you know, they don’t have the access to resources like we do in the US and they weren’t able to react, you know, like, like we were, but I think it’s starting to get, you know, a little bit more under control, essentially. So hopefully, you know, parts of those South America will be able to open back up at some point soon. Right, right. Um, it’s, uh, now and now your turn was about four months ago that you moved to Denver, then get moved here in January, we as always
Greg Owens 11:51
is like straight from Chile to Denver did you like a stop somewhere in but a few stops in between.
Katie Mitchell 11:57
Now we came back to the Bay Area, we hadn’t really spent much time with family. And so we just lived with our family. Both my husband and I are from the bear originally. So they’re able to spend a bunch of time with family and saw a few friends. So that was great. And you know, we’d always wonder you know about other places to live. I mean, the barrier is incredible. And San Francisco was so fun, but we wanted to kind of use this break. It was kind of a natural break for us coming back from traveling to reassess and see if there were other places we want to live and Colorado it always kind of been on the radar. And when we came out to Denver to visit we’re like Alright, we got it. We got to do it. So yeah, we moved out here in January and found jobs relatively quickly and are kind of settling in and got some skiing in and are really excited to do some backpacking and get out onto the Rockies this summer.
Greg Owens 12:51
Yeah, that’s it’s such a Colorado is such a great outdoors enthusiast place to be for sure. In California is too but Colorado is even more so I think a lot of Yeah,
Katie Mitchell 13:01
you almost have to like budget with your move to like to like buy, you know, all the different activities, stuff like rock climbing gear, and mountain bikes and gear. Like it’s crazy. There’s just there is such an abundance of outdoor activities out here.
Greg Owens 13:16
Yeah, and I mean, I’m I’m so I was so fortunate to be able to ski a tremendous amount of time this last year, that means, like, I was just up in Tahoe, a tremendous amount. And it was great to be able to get away and do that, you know, and have this time to be because of COVID in a lot of ways, because there was like a basic break and our work schedule. Right. And it’s so happy that the ski resorts were open was
Katie Mitchell 13:43
great. Yeah.
Greg Owens 13:44
And so you’re now you’re working. Yeah. Tell me about Matrix and the company you’re working for now and what what you guys are doing? Yeah, so
Katie Mitchell 13:51
Matrix, we’ve got about a million square feet, mostly in like kind of the Denver Metro area. It was started in the 90s by the current president, it was just him and a high net worth individual and started investing in real estate and, you know, continued to, like roll that into other assets and grow the portfolio. And at one point, they were in a few other cities, but I think they’ve really just, you know, doubled down on Denver over the last, you know, few decades and you know, have about 300 tenants, 17 buildings, and they’re in kind of the class B market of industrial retail and office.
Greg Owens 14:31
Yeah, and what kind of mix is given the example of what kind of tenants those would be?
Katie Mitchell 14:37
Yeah, and that’s that’s been a really interesting part. You know, this job going from San Francisco where we had mostly tech tenants and you know, kind of larger retailers to you know, more kind of suburban retail suburban office, which are definitely more kind of mom and pop are like average square footage for office is about Like 1000 1500 square feet, so pretty small. And on the industrial side, it’s, you know, a lot of just small business owners office industrial. And it’s been really cool to see. I mean, that’s, that’s what the most of the US is run on, right? Is these kind of small to midsize businesses. And you really have to get in the weeds and see how people live. And you know, this is kind of their, their total livelihood is wrapped up in these businesses. And it’s just, it’s great to have so much contact with that part of kind of the the US market.
Greg Owens 15:34
Yeah, there’s so many budding entrepreneurs, right, like in a lot of even budding, like they could be legacy old families in a 2000 square foot warehouse. I mean, we see that here. And I mean, that’s basically what my businesses, right, we’re a painting company, and we have, I own my own building, but it’s a warehouse and I have tenants, and but those guys are also like, small entrepreneurial companies, auto body or repair companies and that kind of thing, right?
Katie Mitchell 16:01
Yeah, yeah, no, and it’s fun to see there are a lot of like legacy businesses where it’s just been passed down from generation to generation.
Greg Owens 16:09
Yeah. And I mentioned it earlier, that you have like 300 tenants. And there’s pluses and minuses to that, because I see it within the painting business. Now, I think it’s similar is that if we’re doing just a bathroom, we have to do all the same level of paperwork for for some painter to come in for a day and do that as if we’re doing like, 10,000 square foot building, right? It’s the same level of office work for one of those projects, right? But one, yeah, but if they’re if What if we have lots of little ones, that means the office is constantly moving and constantly running? And there’s so because there’s so many, what, you have so many clients that you’re having to attend to? Right. And it sounds like something very similar when it comes to real estate and real estate management.
Katie Mitchell 16:57
Right. Yeah. Now, from an administrative perspective, it’s incredibly inefficient. But, you know, I think the philosophy has been and you know, I think they saw that with weathering COVID pretty well is that you’re not putting all your eggs in, you know, a few baskets, where you have a few tenants that are, you know, 50% of the building or 30% of the building even and, you know, you’re kind of beholden to them when the lease negotiations come around. And so by having so many small tenants, you know, it’s it’s just not as impactful when you have one that doesn’t renew or what have you. So,
Greg Owens 17:35
oh, yeah, I’m seeing that right now with like Google vache, vacated man 111, property owner had like 15 properties, a bunch of them were released to Google, and Google’s given them all up, right. And so and these are, these are properties that were sitting goes in for, like probably 10, or 15 or more years, and they haven’t been updated, right. And so now to release all all of these all at once now need to be, you know, they don’t look as appealing as some of the newer style of buildings that are out there. Right. And so their property owner is definitely having to do a bunch of like, improvements right away to a lot of properties.