Greg Owens 21:55
Yeah, for sure. We were constantly feeling that pressure you know and there’s it’s interesting to me because you can go work for like you know, Starbucks or McDonald’s or something and and maybe they pay you like $14 an hour or things like that for starting and painting with no experience. It’s it’s the people are wanting 18 19 $20 an hour no expert like we’re going to train them how to be a craftsperson. And they’re coming in and are like, you know, well, I could work over here at Starbucks for 14 and be in air conditioning.
Katrina Stephenson 22:27
buttons and
Greg Owens 22:29
right? Why do I want to climb up and down a ladder? Yeah, it’s crazy.
It is. It is such a different world we’re living in in so many ways and who knows what the future brings? because like you said like this is unprecedented the amount of people that moved around in this last year where
Greg Owens 22:50
remind me how many home Do you know how many homes were burnt down in the Tubbs fire and the Nuns fire? It was 1000s right?
William Wells 22:58
It was I think it was in? I think it was about 3000 homes and I’m not sure if that was I’m not sure if that number was structures or homes but I believe that that was the how many 5000 Wow Yeah, and at that time it was it was scary. We the company I worked for had I think about 30 multifamily properties and there was a stretch of about three or four days after that fire hit where we had we had a few properties where for that three or four days we didn’t know if they were standing now we kind of got lucky and once we were able to get into those areas and found that we did not lose any there was a lot of smoke damage that had to be that had you know we had to have some some smoke damage remediation and stuff done but we the company I work for did not lose any and you know fires I’m even here now working for Napa Valley Community Housing we have we have properties that because we just had a fire last year here and again we got lucky and we didn’t lose any structures we didn’t have any damages but some some minor smoke but that’s become that has become people say the new normal that really has the wildfires and having to deal with that as a facilities manager and property management company keeping equipment on hand we are looking you know i’m i’m looking at keeping like air air movers and air handlers on usually you know usually you would you bring in a company that has those and what was happening is after in 2020 when we had the fire here in Napa County I was having a hard time getting getting guys that could you know could come over and drop those those filters for us. So we’re looking at you know the possibility of keeping those on hand just to have those for those kinds of situations you have to adjust to COVID as we justify there’s there’s always going to be something new that you have to think about what do I need? What am I not going to be able to get now what is the supply chain gonna run out of before before I did it?
Greg Owens 24:51
Right right stuck up on that toilet paper for sure.
Katrina Stephenson 24:55
And water
Greg Owens 24:58
and I would think generators too. Like I have seen complexes like yours get their own they have solar I think yours had solar yeah yeah and but I’ve also seen them get generators to have have backup you know energy because once once fire season comes now pg&e turns off our power if it gets windy you know and and also the fires start affecting our power grid and stuff i mean you know California is basically like the disaster state
Katrina Stephenson 25:27
Nevada is sounding better and better you know
Greg Owens 25:31
why do we love it here
William Wells 25:34
views are nice foggy morning in Marin Yeah, and you know where I live I get a lot of flooding too. It’s It’s It’s kooky. Like like the the area where I live is not far from from the ocean. And there’s usually I can count on like three days a year that I’m not getting out of my house because it’s a little teeny tiny town that I live in there’s one road in and out and I get sad gets flooded or what will happen is a power line will come down and just kind of get the canoe ready and the Coast Guard can make it Hey,
Greg Owens 26:17
man is your is your where you’re living is it at sea level to or close to? Yeah, yeah my where my our offices in San O’Fallon we’re at sea level and it hasn’t happened in the last couple of years but I know we get the right rain with the right wind direction at the right high tide get those three those those three things you get the super high tide Right. Which is only a higher than a normal tide. Yeah. Which that is the okay certain areas will flood but it’s totally fine. But if it’s also raining really hard and the wind blows in a certain direction like inland towards the canals and stuff, man water’s coming right it’s the weirdest thing you’ll start seeing the water coming out of the sewer you know the drainage like pouring out you’re like oh man, that is not a pretty sight
William Wells 27:07
an inlet
Greg Owens 27:09
right? Yeah. That’s not supposed to be pumping water back in here right? And I know that Knoxville there you that’s that
William Wells 27:16
flooded during like the last time the air there is a creek now since I have worked for Napa Valley Community Housing, we have not dealt with that. But there is a creek that runs behind one of our properties that I’ve been on that during yet. Yeah. During big rainstorms, we will we will get some some some high water up there, right and St. Helena to one of our properties has it has kind of some runoff. It sits at the at the foot of a of a hill. And yeah, that’s something we’ve all
Greg Owens 27:47
heard. So Marin County just announced like stricter water rationing just this week. Right. And I’m wondering, for you guys up there, Napa. Sonoma County is that?
William Wells 28:00
Yeah, Sonoma just announced that and I’ve got to get on the county website for Napa. I’m not sure. But I know, as of May 1, Sonoma County has has announced some restrictions, as I understood it right now, primarily for homeowners. I don’t know, I haven’t even looked at it, because I just heard about it yesterday. But that is, you know, we’re we’re going to be back into the drought cycle again. And that’s going to be something that we’re all going to be dealing with and thinking of ways to overcome and and what we can do to, you know, to, to work with that.
Greg Owens 28:29
Yeah, no kidding. It’s another I’ve done through. I’ve gotten through a few of those cycles, where we had to limit the amount of power washing and things like that new company that’s got me lately at times, right, where we have to wash things by hand and go back to sort of old old ways before we had power washers and scissors. Right? Yeah. The knuckle busters. Yeah.
Katrina Stephenson 28:54
Like 80s or 90s, early 90s.
Greg Owens 28:57
Well, in 76, I was in Marin County had the pipe water in over the Richmond San Rafael bridge in order to get extra extra supplies of water. Unfortunately, at that same time, they also had plans for a desalinization plant in Marine Corps that got shut down because you know, that’s, you know, it would be nobody wants it in their backyard, right? Not nice here. This
William Wells 29:19
is a beautiful
Greg Owens 29:22
facility, hey, because there’s all this saltwater water right outside, right there in the bay. And, you know, it is interesting that we don’t get it as a community we don’t prepare better because then we’ll then we’ll have years then we’ll have like seven years of unbelievable amounts of rain and flooding. And we’re like, we don’t need to do self petition.
William Wells 29:43
You’re talking about and 7 and 6th grade, you’re not that much older than me and you’re dealing with these problems. I was minus two years old, in 76.
Greg Owens 29:53
I was six years old, but I wasn’t living near I was living in. I was living in New York at nighttime. So when I moved here, I moved here in 86. And then I dealt with there was a drought then too, so that that not as severe but pretty bad. Right? And we didn’t have this. What the same? I don’t think the same restrictions but the whole new. What was it last year or two?
Katrina Stephenson 30:15
It was 2016. I think when it was a really bad drought.
Greg Owens 30:19
Yeah.
Katrina Stephenson 30:20
Everyone’s cars were dirty. There was no lawns being watered.
Greg Owens 30:24
Right? And it feels like we’re heading in that direction. Although, yeah, is there singing rain on Sunday. So that’s
William Wells 30:30
down in, down in the like, down in Phoenix and over Arizona, in southern Arizona, there are companies, there are companies that paint your lawn green. I have a lot of family that lives down there. And yeah, during the during the hottest and driest parts of the year, there are companies that come out and they’ll use some environmentally friendly dyes and paints.
Greg Owens 30:57
Sounds like a dye, you should check into that, Katrina. And I know we’re getting we’re also getting like people asking us about fire retardant paints, which they’re right there,
Greg Owens 31:06
right? spray on that, that expand when they get heated up, right and kind of kind of put out a fire. The only I haven’t seen the best, like literature on these things. And they’re really really thick paints because in order to stop fires, like in elastomeric or something, almost like yeah, it’s like an elastomer. There’s two kinds ones in the elastomeric and then when it’s one fire, touch it, it expands right and so it gets takes longer to burn through eventually it’ll burn through the other is a ceramic paints where it’s like the three of those right? And that kind of thing. Yeah, when we keep watching it, it’s an interesting area. And I’ve used some of it, I’ve used some of it on my own my own office space, because I was concerned about buyers inside our house. Right? What so one of the things I like to touch on in these podcasts is like you’re now you’re at sort of this high level of being a facilities manager, multiple different types of properties that you’re that are under you lots of different things in your day, every day of problem solving and figuring out and you know, no days, what I find really interesting about your job and career is that every day is a different day in a lot of ways, right? Like you have these ongoing projects, improvements, things like that. All the tenant complaints and things that you got to take care of around the facility and that kind of stuff. And then future planning. And I find it to be a really robust and fun atmosphere in so many ways to be working in right. For somebody that doesn’t want to sit in front of a computer and work for Google and, you know, punch code in all day long. What do you say to like young people, or people transitioning into a career like yours to get how to get started, because I know you went in a different direction to get into this. And again, yeah.
William Wells 32:53
And so there’s, there’s two ways to get into this. There’s education, and then there’s experience. Now those two things can blend. But I am a huge proponent of the experience. And and even before, you know what I would tell a young person even before they are in the job market, is tell their parents, man, expose them to some trades, 14 years, I’ve got a 14 year old son exposed, expose those kids to the trades. Get these kids used to seeing these systems, get them get. Don’t worry about giving I give my 14 year old son a circular saw Don’t worry about a teach him how to use it showing how it works. Let him go let him before you get into the job market. Because I see so many people come into the job market with with all of the education in the world with all of the certifications and before they’ve stepped foot on a job site, man, expose yourself Don’t be worried. Don’t be worried about being a painter, do it, do it. Don’t be worried about working a few hours an afternoon with a carpenter for no money or for a couple of bucks do it. That’s the main thing start learning these things before you hit the job market. Because it’s going to get more and more competitive as the world changes in the way businesses change. The candidate pool is going to grow give yourself that edge. You know there are I’ve heard of organizations nonprofits that that that help place that help place job seekers who might otherwise get overlooked. I don’t want to mention names of the you know the organizations and plug other things on your podcast again. Okay, you can there are organizations that will take a person who might not have the education and is at a point in their life where they’re they’re not going to get the education and let me tell you there there are people that that kind of education doesn’t work who and I happen to be one of those one of those people experience is is much more much much It just it works for me a lot better. So I have my you know my 14 year old son, he’s got a friend who is a farrier. He puts shoes on horses and my 14 year old sons and now I want to get I want to get a little what they call like a little furnace for melting, you know, a little Foundry and he’s out in the garage all night banging on horseshoes and you know melting metal in his he’s got like this little he hooks couple bernzomatic stuff to it like a mad scientist and say, you know, safety glasses.
Greg Owens 35:28
Like that fire extinguisher is that up to date?
William Wells 35:31
Yeah, but but exposing young people to the trades at as early an age as possible. I work with my dad, my dad’s a painter, my dad is almost 80 years old, and my dad is up and down ladders painting everyday. And until I took that job at Standard Pacific Homes, I was up and down ladders with my dad every day from the time I was about eight years old. Luckily, luckily, self employed OSHA doesn’t oversee the self employed. They didn’t see an eight year old running up and down ladders, but just the exposure to the trades. And then I agree that’s so wise, once you hit once you, if I can’t take a day off, I can’t take a day off of looking for what I need to know next. You know, you get to be a facilities manager that that’s that’s great. You get to be the Vice President of property management. That’s great. If I stopped today, looking for what I need to know tomorrow, I will be completely useless to this organization tomorrow. Once you get that title, so many young people I think want, they’re looking for that title. They’re looking for that salary, they’re looking for that position. And once they get it they think this is you know, great. Yeah, you know, feet up on the desk. Oh, man, if I stop looking today at what I need to know, tomorrow, I’m useless. And this this organization, no organisation will will have anything to do with me. Now the cool part is you find yourself a good company. And most companies will recognize this, that they understand that too. And so they’re willing to invest a lot in me they’re willing to invest in what do I need? What certification do I need? And you know, they’re asking me, what do you need? What is it next year, you’re going to need? What do you need? What you know, what kind of training what kind of knowledge Do you not have that you need? So those are the kinds of things be ready to hit the ground before you get there. And once you hit the ground, keep running. Don’t stop, don’t stop, don’t stop.
Greg Owens 37:16
Yeah, that’s so good. I mean, I knew early on when I was like 14 years old, I knew that I was not going to go to college and I was, you know, probably wasn’t even gonna graduate from high school. It was just too I was struggling too hard and was so bored. It was too hard. But they did expose me they had a bogeys program they sent me to, you know, where they send bad kids to it basically like the kid, the juvenile delinquents or possible juvenile delinquents. But what was great, it was exposure to a lot of different trades, like electric, electrical, and plumbing and things like that. And I picked up things that I still use to this very day, right? And I’m not a plumber and an electrician, but man, I know, I know, the whole well realm of it. All right, as a general contractor, I had to learn all of it. But but at a very early age, I knew how to do these things with my own hands, right that I still remember to this day of how to like set up a light switch or replace a toilet with that that’s useful. Right. And, and that exposure was really, really such a key. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I think Well, I think there’s so many young people that want to like jump right to that presidential and they get a hard work and sweat there they get like whoa, too much.
William Wells 38:29
You know, I was the same way I didn’t I didn’t I didn’t quite make it to college. And now there there are some there are some folks that if I go to see and they they I’m looking for their I’m looking for their diploma on the wall you know, if somebody somebody is gonna perform some kind of surgery on me you know, I don’t necessarily want an H back train school for certification on their wall
Greg Owens 38:55
surgery.
William Wells 38:57
But you know, there there are so many programs so many trade schools so many ways to seek there are so many ways to seek training even after you even after you’ve gotten your job. You know, we we have a maintenance department here with about 10 or 12 guys, and these some of these guys have been maintenance guys for for 25 years, some of our employees and these guys can fix anything anytime a third
Greg Owens 39:22
thing they’re so good at being a mechanic which is a whole skill set, right?
William Wells 39:26
Yeah, they’re I have employees that there there is there is nothing they can diagnose and little that they can’t fix. And those guys are still we are still getting them training through and you know, there’s always there’s so many different avenues for facilities managers. Everybody in this industry deals with HD supply HD supplies like the Amazon for facilities management. What a lot of people don’t realize is they have an entire training program where they will come out and do you know do trainings with your employees and so our guys several times a year will get these trainings through HD spire, different different areas, different country. We’ll offer these and we still have them doing that. And I’m talking about even our guys that have been here 25 years that that are great, they’re still at times, we’re still doing basic keeping their show skills sharp with just basic wiring a three way light switch, HD supply will send their trainers out, go through an eight hour simple electrical program with and things like that. So each back guys will come, you know, give training. So once you hit it, keep running, and look for the opportunities for for training and further education within your field. My sister, this is something that blew my mom and my sister is an education nut. And you know, she’s one of those people that at nearly 50 years old is Is she will be a perpetual student. I mean, she has she has a career, but she will always be in school of some kind. And I remember she went she was going to school she wanted to she became a like a medical imaging, like, you know, oh, yeah, grammes and stuff like that. I’ll never forget when she was going to school to get that one of the classes that she had to take was like, literature appreciation. That’s, that’s great. All right.
William Wells 41:08
I say let’s, let’s, let’s focus on let’s focus on our lane. You know, as a facilities manager, I’m sure I could go get that, you know, some education in that. But, but there’s so many avenues to explore that I, I see people wasting, I don’t want to say wasting their time. But that did nothing for my sister’s career as as a medical imaging professional. And that’s kind of that’s kind of my thoughts on that is, is that if you’re going to take the experience route, and not the education route, pursue it hard and pursue it every day. And look, look for look for those opportunities for training.
Greg Owens 41:44
Yeah, yeah, I just thought I was listening to the Jocko Willink’s podcast, he’s a navy seal. And he was talking about like, when he got an opportunity to go back to college, and he focused on on literature and writing. And so you wanted to learn about like, past battles, invest history, right, and really sort of get a better understanding of history. So he doesn’t make the same mistakes as a Navy SEAL leader. Yeah. But then he also wanted to improve his writing skills, because it turns out in a bureaucracy, that’s really, really important. If you want to, like, you know, if you get a mission sent down from above, and you don’t like that mission, you know, you can do you can just go Okay, it’s my job, I got to do it. But you know, now I’m putting my soldiers at risk and lives at risk. Or I could be a better writer, and write out like, Hey, this is why I think this is not the best Avenue and this is why we do this, this and this, send it back up the chain of command. And if it’s well done, and they send it back and say, yeah, your plan sounds good.
William Wells 42:51
There was a trend a few a few years ago, and maybe maybe it still, maybe it’s still going where folks in middle management and upper management. They were, they were reading the, you know, they were reading literature, like The Art of War by Sun Tzu and the and the, and The Prince, you know, by, you know, Machiavelli’s The Prince and stuff and trying to apply these principles to modern day middle management. And if you’ve got a brain that works like that, that’s great. and pass it on in a way that, you know, simple guy like me can understand. Because I am very much, you know, I am very much kind of tunnel vision. And maybe that’s to my detriment, sometimes, maybe I do need to open up the blinders a little bit and say, How do I apply these other things to, to what I’m doing? Maybe that would serve me? Well, you know, so maybe that’s something that I need to broaden my horizons a bit. Because that’s how I sometimes tend to, I think, look, within my own realm, what am I going to do? And maybe if I open those blinders up a little bit and say, okay, maybe there’s something to this, these guys are getting ahead. They’re doing great. They have successful careers, you know, they’re great supervisors. But yeah, there’s, there’s a lot of a lot of different ways to skin a cat. I yes.
Greg Owens 44:00
Well, and I don’t know, there’s some times there, you watch these trends come through business, you know, and, and they’re, they proved not to actually work out like so there’s been a been a trend, like within the, in San Francisco with the tech companies of, of having all these group working spaces, right. And I, and I actually was, and I was like, I walked through because we’re painting these facilities was like, get work done in this environment, right? This is way too chaotic. I can’t How would they focus, right? And then there’s been studies being done on it when they’re like, you know, this has not been the best trends for everybody here. Some people work really good in that environment, others just fall apart. It’s not as productive for them.
William Wells 44:41
When I worked for the private contractor that did mostly capital work and we got a contract to take care of some. I’m not gonna mention the tech company, but it’s, it’s it’s one of the huge, you know, the huge heavy hitters in Bay Area tech and we got a contract just to do basic. We would go in after hours. And we would just do basic painting, maybe move desk, say, you know, maybe some some cubicle setup, just just really minor stuff, but that I had never experienced anything like that in my life and construction and facilities management. As you walked in the only thing you saw was an enormous and when I say enormous I mean 10s of 1000s of square foot cafeteria and, and not a cafeteria, but like restaurants. It was like, set up like a restaurant, there’s a guy going down these corridors. And you know, in the rats maze, there was like an arcade on every floor. And this is I think, a seven floor a seven storey building, there’s arcades on every floor. And there were there were bicycle repair shops on every forum, this is all free for the, for the employees to use. And there were yoga studios in there. You guys were the software engineers, I see the guy playing air hockey. But what is I think what you know, what I’ve heard has been happening is in the long run, yeah, in the short term, people love that. Yeah, that’s great. in the, in the long term, people are burning out like that, because they find themselves willing to stay for 12 and 14 and 16 hours at a stretch in that facility. And even though that facility is set up, like you know, like, like, like Disneyland or something, it’s still work at the end of the day, and people are realizing that now, a decade later, wait a minute. This is you know, I’ve been in this building now for two days straight. I don’t know which way is north? Is the sun up or down. And it’s leading to a lot of burnout. Among that crowd is what I’ve heard reported sometimes,
Greg Owens 46:29
yeah, and you know, I think that works great. If you’re number 10, or number 20, at Facebook, you know, 10/10 employee or 20 employees or like payday at the end of this. But for hundreds of 1000s of others, that may not be the case, right? know for sure. Well, this has been a wonderful conversation. And I love some of your ideas around bringing, especially around like, I fully agree with like young people getting exposed early to trades, having some knowledge about how it works, if not for anything better like to make them work harder in school and say, I don’t want to be a carpenter.
William Wells 47:09
That is the way it works out. Sometimes it does, right? Like they’re like, Whoa, that
Greg Owens 47:14
summer working as a carpenter or apprentice. I’m going to myself and become a lawyer.
Greg Owens 47:20
Right. And I’ve heard that story from customers of mine where they like painted for a summer with their, you know, make some money in there like that was a tough summer really focused. Where can people find out more about you and Napa Valley Community Housing?
William Wells 47:37
They can find out about Napa Valley Community Housing at NVCH.org orgy they can go there they can they can find out information about our properties about our mission. They can see I think there’s pictures. I’m looking at the website now. I think there’s pictures of some of our developments. They can learn about upcoming developments. So NVCH.org right?
Greg Owens 47:58
And what’s what’s new and exciting for you coming up in the future here is as we roll through spring into summer, really? Yeah, what’s it like for you what your guys are up to
William Wells 48:09
just earlier this week, we we closed on six units, which isn’t huge, but for us, it is it’s a big deal that keeps and those are those were six occupied units. So we we bought an existing an existing multifamily property. And that is huge, because those are six families that are going to stay housed in this community that are working in this community that had we not pick that up, that probably would have went to a developer who changed that into market rate homes, and those six families would would, would be outlook. So that’s huge. For us, that is absolutely huge. We’re also
Greg Owens 48:40
equals that six people’s lives that you guys get to, they don’t have to move, they don’t have to, they don’t have to move.
William Wells 48:48
Yeah, they don’t have to try to find a new job in this environment. They don’t, you know, that’s it, they, they, they get to keep that stability. And so we’re really proud that super proud. And in the in the coming months, we will be starting another development here in Napa that I think is 70 some units, so that’ll be 7070 new units. So I’m looking at 70 families or individuals who will have affordable housing here in the Napa Valley. And we’re hoping to keep that trend going.
Greg Owens 49:17
That’s great. That’s so impressive. It’s wonderful. Well, thank you so much, Bill, Bill Wells with Napa Valley Community Housing. This has been a wonderful to have this conversation. Katrina looks like you were going to jump in with some last thoughts here.
Katrina Stephenson 49:32
Oh, oh, yeah. Well,
thank you so much for your time Bill. I learned about low income and affordable and I really was just going to comment on that, that if I take I take a lot of things from this, but that was the one where I was like, Okay, that makes total sense.
William Wells 49:47
Yeah. All right.
Greg Owens 49:49
And then we’ll, would it be okay, if we put your LinkedIn profile on the when we put the podcast up if you absolutely,
William Wells 49:54
yes. Yeah. And we would like to be able to share this article. I’m also on Facebook, you can find Napa Valley Community Housing on Facebook and we would like to be able to share this once it’s uploaded on that.
Greg Owens 50:07
Yeah, absolutely. We’ll send you the links. Sounds good. This has been the Watching Paint Dry podcast. Thank you everyone for listening.
Outro 50:25
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.