Greg Owens 22:56
Right, right. That’s a good segue into how you guys got into this, like, what’s your origin story for becoming into getting into facilities getting into this sort of this whole world? Dave, why don’t you give a little bit of talk and how you found this career path?
Dave Scroggins 23:14
Well, like we we said earlier, but it kind of just most people kind of just fall into facilities. You know, for I used to do, I kind of started my facilities operations career, I would say, in the fitness industry was opening up new gyms, doing all the maintenance and operations there. And I ended up moving back to the Bay Area, worked at a school in Palo Alto with him for a few years. He moved on and I ended up moving up to Marin to work at a private school up there. About a year ago, next week, a year ago, I ended up changing over taking a position with Cushman and shifted into the corporate facility worlds which are
Greg Owens 23:55
going to the dark side of facilities back to corporate,
Dave Scroggins 24:00
there’s it’s very different. I’d say that, that’s very different. But it’s great. There’s no There’s transferrable skills, like Nic and I can still have a we can have a conversation, even though we’re in different aspects and in different spaces in the facilities world. There’s still
Greg Owens 24:17
heating and air conditioning needs is needed involve, literally.
Dave Scroggins 24:22
Exactly. And it’s really, you know, I, I found that it’s really, what is my responsibility as the facilities manager for this, you know, in the past, at most education, buildings, like schools, they’re owned, like that. You own that top to bottom here. We’re in leased buildings. So there’s property managers. So if you know things break, a lot of times, that’s on them to fix, not me. So it’s very different skills that I’m using here in corporate versus in
Greg Owens 24:51
Yeah, because you’re in a skyscraper and you’ve guys have six or eight floors or whatever it is, and this massive skyscraper and and you have that That facilities department that you’re also talking to all the time.
Dave Scroggins 25:03
Yeah, I work with the property management office very closely. Also my location,
Greg Owens 25:08
right. People don’t always realize that right. And even my own painters sometimes don’t realize it like, hey, no, we’re like we because we get stopped by security. Yeah. And it might be building security. Or it might be, it might be the company security. Right. And we’ve got to navigate through that paperwork and technicalities, right, to allow us to work in the building.
Dave Scroggins 25:28
Yeah, well, even the vendor, the vendor aspect of it is so different. You know, in the past, I would just hate, I need my buildings painted. Now, there’s process, I have to go through a lot of a lot more steps.
Greg Owens 25:40
Something just came to mind too, is it’s surprising to me, you know, after the shooting at the California office building back a long time ago, Barbara, no, the one incident in San Francisco here on California Street, it was a law as somebody came up and shot a bunch of the lawyers right and horrible thing. And that moment in time, all buildings went to this, it’s much more insane sort of security, right? Where you have to, we have to be approved, like 24 hours before we’re going into a building like you can’t, we can’t just go for a lot of buildings in San Francisco, we can’t just start today and go in, we’ve got to get approvals through both the building and the company. And then there’s all the key fobs and all that kind of stuff. We’re not seeing that in schools yet, at all, that I’ve seen, as I’ve walked on YouTube, we’ve been walking onto a few campuses here recently, and just walking in and walking around and walking into classrooms. And
Nic Guedenet 26:37
it is it is a hot topic. I’ll tell you that in that. I mean, schools have their own cultures, right. And they’re very protective of that culture and the sense schools want to be opening and welcoming
Greg Owens 26:50
to its community. That’s true, because it’s so funny. As I was walking through these buildings yesterday, the school building, the teachers were like, should I get there? Like, we’re just doing an estimate, right? And I told them that a couple of times, and they’re like, Well, should I start getting everything ready for you to paint like they were so accommodating? I’m like, no, no, no, you’re good. This is this is just the talk face. But it’s so different environment than like, nobody talks to me when I walked through a office building.
Nic Guedenet 27:20
Yeah, I mean, it’s some wonderful viewpoint in the educational environment. And it’s, it’s a hot topic, you know, especially with everything that’s going on in the country right now about, you know, do we start adding this security in San Francisco, I think you’re starting to see it quite a bit more. Yeah, I think once once you get out of there, it’s kind of sporadic about whether they’re ready to really kind of almost close off, you know, would they feel was closing off to the community? So I mean, it’s something that comes up every year, and it’s a constant conversation.
Greg Owens 27:54
Right? Right. Because the technology’s there, right? I mean, it’s proven in the office world. So so much, right? Like, it’s it’s crazy levels of like, we can’t, if we don’t have clearance for a floor, or a door or room, although I figured out ways to get through some of those doors, the different story. It’s been funny, because you know, we’re trying to get work done. And it’s nighttime, we can’t get a hold of anybody. And I’m like, oh, there’s a way to like, the sensors so that the door opens the Black Ops of painting. And Nic, like, what anything you’re seeing, like in the future for schools, and we talked touched on it a little bit around that space, but there’s I do see a trend of schools. What is it? Like I’ve been into a few schools where it was used to be a public school, and now and it’s like to charter schools or renting in buildings, like cut in half, and we’re going to do work for just one of the charter schools within this facility. Have you come across that kind of stuff? Yeah,
Nic Guedenet 28:57
yeah, you’re starting to see a lot more charter schools pop up. I think school, especially private school in general, you’re really starting to see it, you starting to see heavy growth. Sorry, I just had somebody pop into the room real quick.
Greg Owens 29:11
They want to use that board behind you. And yeah, exactly. Sorry about the rest of the planning there.
Nic Guedenet 29:18
But I think we’re just seeing a lot of growth, a need for more physical space. And that’s the biggest trend that we’re seeing, especially in the Bay Area. I mean, not only is learning space at a premium, but storage space is at a premium. So we’re just seeing a either a lot of growth or heavy renovation. There’s a lot of modernization that needs to happen because the infrastructure, I think locally is starting to get a bit older. Everything’s from the 50s 70s. So in terms of facilities, transitioning is the biggest thing we’ve seen in the last decade.
Greg Owens 29:52
And then and then Dave. Are you guys looking at expanding office spaces condensing for the future? You’re here,
Dave Scroggins 29:52
um, there’s definitely talk of condensing. But at the same time, you know, we’re also expanding as well. So currently, our client has four main locations, two on the East Coast and two on the West Coast. And the only building they still own is in Pennsylvania. They’re there, getting, they’re selling that and they’re going to leased space. And so, you know, they’re gonna have to build out that whole space over 10 years. So there’s still, there’s still growth, I think there’s reshaping a little bit. As you know, one difference between schools and corporate is, when you’re in school, you’re paying to have your kids their private school, you’re paying to, like, have used those facilities here. I found that they’re trying to entice their employees back, you know, because we have this space, and everybody’s capable of working remotely. So for what I’m seeing is it’s a lot of employee experience, like, what do we need to do to get people back in the office?
Greg Owens 31:03
The open bar, I don’t think is working. Nic, we didn’t get your origin story there. How did you get to this place in time in your career path? I guess
Nic Guedenet 31:15
for facility maintenance, it’s the classic facility maintenance story, I started doing the work in summer, you know, just to kind of to fill in when I was in high school. And then I went to college to be a music producer. Because that was ultimately the goal was to be a rock star. Yeah, then I picked up a maintenance job, Justin. Now my main is my, my music career just launched to the stars. Of course, that never happened. But I found out, I was pretty good with my hands. And I liked the work I liked, it never, never been the same, kind of to what you were saying about having ADHD. And there was no repetitiveness to it, it was constant problem solving. And I really found a passion for it. And still five years in, became a maintenance manager than a Facility Manager from there worked in both public and private. Finally, I’ve been working with with Heinz building maintenance for in and out for 20 years, had a good relationship with Trey Heinz, he’s the president of the company. And I finally came over as the senior facility director three years ago, was just doing site based work. And the company’s kind of just continued to grow. And we finally needed that, you know, a VP to oversee all of the operations, and so got a chance to do that. So it’s, it’s been a series of opportunities that have kind of presented themselves that are really never planned for, like, I was doing maintenance work, and I was happy doing maintenance work, like I like to get on roofs, I like to, you know, go and do wall repairs. And then there was a need for a manager and it was like, Hey, I think I can do that. And, you know, each time I know, I’m not qualified, I know, I’m not prepared to do it, we should just kind of go in there and fake it till you make it. And that’s, that’s been the progression. So it’s somewhat, I don’t know, I mean, I always am partial to, especially with my team members, you know, making sure they have those opportunities. Because I, throughout my career been given those opportunities, had mentors or bosses that, you know, showed me the ropes or gave me insight into what they were doing. So, again, I guess, just kind of going through the ropes and getting opportunities,
Greg Owens 33:31
right. And there’s a big aspect of like, knowing who to ask when you need help, I find it you might run into things. It might be a vendor, or it might be a mentor. That’s Indian sphere. You might call Dave. Hey, have you run into this problem before?
Nic Guedenet 33:47
Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, in vendors, I’ve learned so much through my relationships with good vendors that I you know, continue the relationship without the years, I mean, HVAC and roofing. I just went up with him every time just because I wanted to learn. And sometimes you get those relationships, and you can just give them a call, and hey, I’m having a trouble with this. And they’ll let you know. Yeah,
Greg Owens 34:11
you know, I’m a painting contractor and in general contractor, and it would say curiosity, just constantly want to have a better understanding of how these things all fit together. Right? And it sounds like you have that you guys have that same kind of curiosity you want to, you want to know you want to know a bit more you don’t want to be like the knowledge super knowledgeable person, but you want to be able to ask the right questions and have a better understanding to help facility.
Nic Guedenet 34:35
Absolutely.
Dave Scroggins 34:36
As a manager, you have you know, it’s part of our job to like know how everything works in your in your building.
Greg Owens 34:44
And it’s like it’s this broad knowledge, right? Not not the individual expertise, although you might have some right you might know how to pick picks a wall just as good as one of my painters. But, but having that that broad sort of knowledge of which contractor To call who’s the expert who’s the best expert, what the pricing should sort of land at right in these in these regards. So that, you know, you’re not being taken advantage of all those kinds of things on a regular basis.
Nic Guedenet 35:12
And it’s such a broad spectrum of things, especially as buildings are getting smarter. And we’re seeing I mean, technologies is in every material and every building system now, it kind of changes like you almost as soon as you become comfortable having that little bit of knowledge about a lot of things. Half of it changes, you’ve had to relearn it. But that’s kind of fun about the facility management process.
Greg Owens 35:35
Yeah, I was just reading about some paint specs, where there’s new technology in it that knows when it’s raining and sheds the water off faster. No way. It’s it’s marketing way before reality, right? It’s still just paint. They came out with paint a few years ago that that would kill bugs, too. And this is, you know, like, if bugs crawled on it would kill them. Nobody was going to use it, right? Because if you can imagine us, the painters are like, wait a minute, it could kill rugs, what’s it doing to us? Like, we find that we’re gonna be putting lead back on my building like that used to kill bugs too. Right. Dave, anything you’re seeing in the future here, opportunities that you’re excited about? Or changes? Um,
Dave Scroggins 36:26
you know, the last couple of years have been really transformative for facilities, regardless of what what area you’re in. You know, as Nic and I are both contractors, you know, for facility services, like both our companies, that’s what they do. And I’ve noticed that a lot of companies are outsourcing their facilities, you know, over the last two years, the growth has been tremendous, because they’re realizing, hey, our in house facilities department is just not adequate. Let’s get somebody who actually knows what they’re doing. Like, this is what they do for a living is that if I want my my building painted, I call a painter.
Greg Owens 37:00
Yeah. Yeah. So you can, you can see that trend continuing, right? Like we’re it becomes more and more consolidated into these companies that specialize in specialized facility services to to organizations. And it’s interesting, because I’ve had a lot of people on these podcasts that are the niches are interesting, right? What we like, like yours there, Nic is all is, is a lot of schools right to have that, because that’s a totally different, totally, completely different than, say, retail, like, retail malls. And then different than restaurants. We’ve had a few restaurant ones. And if you can imagine, like, you’ve got 1000 restaurant locations, right, like the maintenance of facilities that has to happen on those is completely different. Right. So specialized and so true.
Nic Guedenet 37:50
Yeah, it kind of piggyback off what Dave was saying. I mean, he’s absolutely right. In kind of circles back everything we’ve been talking about. You need facility managers that are experts in those type of buildings. It’s in WWE as well. I mean, we’ve seen a tremendous uptake and people that are looking to outsource just because it is becoming an area of expertise. It’s a pretty cool trend. Actually, Dave has a really good point.
Greg Owens 38:16
And then, and then you Nic, anything you’re excited about in the next next year or so here. I mean, you got this crunch time, you’re excited to get through this, I’m sure.
Nic Guedenet 38:26
I’m excited for us to get to schools and get them off to a good start. And then being able to really dive into our preventative maintenance programs. It’s we it’s our bread and butter we live in breed that stuff in summer sometimes pushes us away from all of those, but that’s when we get a little bit of a reprieve once it starts and then we get to heavy hit with with preventative maintenance.
Greg Owens 38:49
Right. Right. And then I would I would imagine that’s more like walkthroughs and and making sure things are are running smoothly. Like it’s a well oiled machine.
Nic Guedenet 38:59
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Inspections getting on top roofs prepping for summer or winter. You know, kind of excetera it’s, it’s almost the time that we start planning for next summer.
Greg Owens 39:11
No, yeah, yeah.
Nic Guedenet 39:13
We playing a little bit for the Christmas break, because we got to get you know, there’s just an opportunity there. But really, is it as soon as it stops? Okay, preventative maintenance. What can we do again, in another small window a year from now?
Greg Owens 39:26
Yeah, definitely remind them to call their painters like January, February. Well, it’s also like, you know, January, February, we don’t have we’re not booked out, right. Like ever really, right. Like, you know, that’s a great time. Well, I would love to have like, Oh, we’ve got a bunch of schools that we’re going to do in August. And know that in the back of my mind that this is we do some we do some work for some museums and things like that, and they have like a couple of weeks where they shut down. And you know, we know that every year we’re going to do come in and do that work. And it’s a nice it’s Nice contract No, as a general as a contractor, that we have this reoccurring sort of business, right? Yeah. And then, you know, one of the things I’d like to touch on in this podcast is how you would encourage somebody that’s interested in this field of facilities management to get started. And we’ll, we’ll go to you, Dave, how would you what would you do to mentor somebody if they were interested in
Dave Scroggins 40:26
joining a local chapter, if my chapter BOMA chapter is always always good, a lot of good resources there. You know, for me, I just really stemmed from that conversation, like having that conversation, whether it’s with my team, whether it’s with with colleagues, you know, like, you can see that excitement for facilities when you talk to people that that, like facility, like Nic and I will talk for hours about facilities and, and just like, like that. So, you know, I would get in, there’s lots of positions right now. And, you know, they can, there’s definitely growth opportunities for anybody that’s interested,
Greg Owens 41:03
right, that’s a good point, there’s lots of positions, you can just get in and get started and see if it’s something that you’re more and more interested in. Yeah. And then once you’re in, then you can also see what the other positions are like, and then you can be like, Hey, I like I’d like to move into that or open to that direction. Right, Nic? For you, what would you would what would you recommend as people,
Nic Guedenet 41:23
I’m gonna go the old school way, and you know, sweeping floors, custodial job, get a maintenance job and, and learn learn the ins and outs of those jobs, because I really feel you need that experience. Because there are some things in facil a lot of what we have as a knowledge as a Facility Manager after a little bit of time, it’s from those experience, they’re just the things that kind of come up randomly, that then you see it five years later, and you have seen this, and you get a real good taste of what facility management is all about. By doing those, those jobs by cleaning the buildings by by changing a filter, by getting up on the roof, you know, you get to see the buildings inside now. And there’s, there’s no other career that gets you in the crawlspace is like that of one particular building or a series of buildings. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s almost an intimate relationship. And when you’re working on it that much, it’s kind of like your home, you know, if you if you’re a DIY er, and, you know, you really have pride in those projects, as Dec projects that you’re doing, it’s the same way being a maintenance DACA custodian. And so I think, you know, you’ll find out pretty quickly, you know, hey, I have a lot of pride in this, I really enjoy making, you know, the best learning environment or the best meeting environment, like, you’ll figure it out pretty quick, whether you like it or not,
Greg Owens 42:45
yeah, that is so true. It’s interesting to me, because we live in a world where, like, my nephew was just visiting with me, he’s 12 years old. And I understand that he doesn’t know certain things, right, like how to how to clean up properly, like how to sweep and not make a bigger mess. But if I hire like a 28 year old, and they don’t know how to sweep I have a lot of concerns and a lot of doubts around like their ability to sort of pick some things up, right, the I take it for granted, because I started really, really young, I’m working all the time. And I don’t realize like, like that knowledge of like how of how a building goes together and stuff, you know, since I was like nine or 10, or something like that, you know, being working working with tools, right. My dad had me on a roof, but like 10, you know, in those reroofing with him, and I made a major mistake, right. And guess what, I’ve never made that mistake again, where I had to reroute the whole section.
Dave Scroggins 43:45
From it, that’s how you learn man.
Greg Owens 43:46
But you know, a 10 year old can take a shingle and slide it up and bang a couple of nails into it and put it up, but then I went off, you know, in the wrong direction.
Dave Scroggins 43:55
You know, if I can piggyback off of what, you know, Nic’s last point there. So it’s so valuable, like, you know, if you’re gonna be in a leadership position, you know, I can’t I can’t teach someone how to turn a wrench if I don’t know how to do it myself. I can’t teach someone how to, you know, properly sweep if I don’t know how to do it myself. So having this knowledge of all these little aspects of facility management is is really important.
Greg Owens 44:23
Yeah, you guys are touching on something that I’m realizing more and more to is because I’ve hired some project managers that don’t have as much knowledge as me. And there’s a lot of respect because I painted for 10 years and I’m real, I’m actually really good at it and know, a note and can like paint not get paint on me and that kind of stuff, right? Like, you know, like, I can cut in and I can still cut it in a straight line. Even though I haven’t really done it as much. It’s it’s in my system. And there’s a lot of automatic respect with me. It’s not just because I’m the owner of the company and I’m the you know, this tall white male But it’s it is much more of like competence. Like, they know that I know what I’m talking about. They know that if I if they’re if they tell me like, No, you can’t do it like that, and I pick up the brush and I show them, then they’re like, oh, okay, you can do right now, which is which is so different than if you don’t have that sort of depth and background and that kind of stuff.
Dave Scroggins 45:23
Credibility, you guys are gonna be like that this guy doesn’t always talking about.
Greg Owens 45:27
Yeah, yeah. So so important,
Nic Guedenet 45:30
in that’s not to say that you can’t get into this industry. Without that. I mean, I think there are definitely styles of facility. And that’s one of the things I love about facility management, there are so many different styles and methodologies and approaches. I just think for particularly kind of where we fall. I mean, it’s, you know, it’s one of the best routes.
Greg Owens 45:49
Yeah, there’s pluses and minuses to both right, because I’ve hired project managers, salespeople that had no experience within the pain, but they’re really good at talking to people and find out why they want to get something done. Right? And that why is so important, the technical side, we can figure out, right? If they know where to get the answers, then they can go get the answers and you know, figure out what primer fits DTM or whatever it is, but finding out what the what the reasons what their goal is of the client. That’s a skill in itself. Right? What do you guys have to do on a regular basis to? Go ahead, Nic, good.
Nic Guedenet 46:28
I was gonna say the technical stuff is the easy part nowadays. That other part, man, that’s hard to learn
Greg Owens 46:35
figuring out the motivation of what, what a client or in your case is? What the facility, you know, the the occupants want, what they want to see, right. Yeah, that’s cool. Dave looks like you were gonna say something there, too. No,
Dave Scroggins 46:53
not in an agreement. Yeah.
Greg Owens 46:55
Um, so we’ll come to an end here with the podcast, but I wanted to get any, any last thoughts around where you see, or exciting things you guys might be doing this summer before, I mean, you make your gear in it. So I don’t know, you’re gonna get to take a vacation after this two months is
Nic Guedenet 47:16
unfortunate, I don’t see a vacation in my near future. Just I think we’re gonna, we’re rolling out, you know, some standard level of services, we’re getting heavy into asset management, and in that kind of a nerd out with facilities, and this is the stuff I actually really enjoy. So I’m really excited to get in and starting to put together some of these asset inventories and stronger plans for all of our clients. It’s, it’s weird, but I really do enjoy this aspect of facility management that we’re about to roll into. So just the upcoming events.
Greg Owens 47:52
And like I said, I don’t watch the news much. I mean, any concerns about the COVID? At this point? I’m different than what we’ve been used to, or is it? Is it? Are you seeing a rise in it? Are you seeing anything on your end?
Nic Guedenet 48:06
Yeah, we’re we’re we’re absolutely seeing a rise in I think just the world we’re in is going to be a continual fear or concern that we’re going to have to constantly playing for in schools, especially because of the amount of people that are in and out of the campus every day. You know, am I seeing any changes as of right now? No, but you know, the conversations are starting to come up again, most of our facilities, if not all of them have taken a lot in on a lot of really good work with with ventilation and having these disinfecting procedures. And so you know, pretty confident that we’ll remain where we are, but yet it is scary. I mean, that was that was a tough period, and especially for the kids. So hopefully we continue to do everything that we can to make sure those doors do stay open.
Greg Owens 48:55
Yeah, you should check out there’s a podcast. I can’t remember his name, but he’s the he’s the facilities manager for San Jose district schools, high schools. I think it was over 20,000 kids going through the schools. But he’s he’s he’s done a tremendous amount of research on co2 levels in classrooms. And making sure that that’s an incident you name had low infection rates. And because he was he got into it, because teachers were complaining of headaches and fatigue and that kind of stuff. And then he started figuring out putting these pieces together and figuring out that well, the co2 levels are too high in the classrooms.
Nic Guedenet 49:35
Yeah, yeah. I don’t know if it was the same same guy, but I have actually heard that that went into the union contracts that in certain certain school districts that they can’t have co2 higher than 900 ppm or some thresholds. I’ve heard a little bit about definitely,
Greg Owens 49:53
he’s probably behind that. Yeah, he was. He’s a fascinating guy, because he he got the budget money by saving enter. See, right? Bye bye bye saying, hey, if we can do a better job of monitoring co2 levels, we can actually save energy on the air conditioning. Right costs. That’s awesome. Yeah. Dave for you corporate world. Yeah. And or, like anything like any last thoughts around moving forward here and this this new new era that we’re in.
Dave Scroggins 50:23
Now, like, like you said, you’re doing a lot of work, and repainting offices, we’re hoping to get them filled up again. You know, we’ve got these beautiful spaces, and they’re, they’re being underutilized. Right. And as facilities people we, like, we want people in here. We want people using this space. And yeah, keeping us busy.
Greg Owens 50:41
I do see a trend call coinciding with schools actually, where people do start going back to work. And we’ll see if that happens again, where they go back to they want to be back in the office, like Come September when their kids are in school, right? Because right now it’s, it’s we’re coming into August, the end of July, August, and they don’t want to go back because they’re home with their kids.
Dave Scroggins 51:02
I actually have more people in the office during summer because you’re like, I can’t work at home. My kids are home.
Greg Owens 51:07
Right, right. Yeah. It’s an interesting world for painting because we were having to work around where we never used to have to like the mom is working from home, the kids are home and and the dad is actually home like CEO major company is in the garage in the garage, you know, on Zoom calls, and we’re having to be quiet around him has been his business. Different different environment. Well, hey, guys, this has been wonderful. Thank you so much for being open and so fun to talk to on this podcast for Watching Paint Dry.
Nic Guedenet 51:44
Thank you. I really appreciate it.
Dave Scroggins 51:46
Yeah, it’s great. Thanks.
Outro 51:52
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.