Beyond Buildings: Exploring Facilities Management

Brian Gregory [00:00:00]:

You. Hi, everybody. This is your host, Brian for the Beyond Buildings podcast, where we meet innovative and inspiring facilities leaders from across the country. In this episode, I chat with Matt Pace, who is the former Director of Maintenance and Operations at Queen Creek Unified School District. He currently serves as an evangelist at FMX, helping K Twelve school districts optimize their operations around the country. During this episode, we cover the importance of making data driven decisions not only to improve the efficiency of the team, but more importantly, improve the culture and morale. We also dive into the importance of avoiding Grandma's pot roast. And if you have no idea what that means, you're probably not alone. Let's dive in. Hey, Matt, thank you for joining me on our podcast today. I really appreciate you taking the time for our guests. Just wanted to kick it off to you just to give a little bit of background on what you've done throughout your career and kind of what you're doing now.

Matthew Pace [00:00:47]:

Yeah, Brian, thanks for having me on today. A little bit about me know, I'm a farm boy from Southern Arizona, so I grew up farming and ranching, and just being an outside working kid went to school to become a teacher, and teaching was not the job for me. I got into my last semester of school, and I was in the classroom, and I wanted to be outside. It just wasn't working for me. So I ended up becoming a landscaper and had a landscape business for almost seven, eight years and was landscaping, actually, the superintendent's house for the school district that I was living in. And he approached me and, you know, Matt, what are you know, would you ever be interested in doing something like this? He actually was one of my teachers in college for education. He's like, I just see you'd be a good administrator, but kind of in a different way. And so we started talking, and he actually gave me a trial run where I could still run my business for a year and work with the school district, and it turned out really well. I loved the idea of helping students. I love the idea of working with the students, but just in a different way, in a way that kind of fit my comfort zone. And so after that, I worked in that school district for a little while and then I went up to one of the larger school districts in Arizona, about a 50,000 student school district, and enjoyed my time there. And then moved back. My family had moved in back into a school district where my kids were into a smaller school district queen Creek, Arizona, which was the fastest growing school district in Arizona. And being a director of maintenance and operations fit me really well. And so now I'm working for FMX, helping kind of translate and helping directors in a different way across the country.

Brian Gregory [00:02:29]:

Yeah, thanks for Matt, I was going to ask you, like, going from your own private business as a landscaper and joining public education, were there any surprises for you as you made that transition?

Matthew Pace [00:02:39]:

Yeah, there was a lot of, know, being owning my own business and being able to kind of do things my way. And if I needed a part, I would just go buy a part. If I needed to direct my business different, I would just go direct it in that way. And with the school. Some of my struggle in the beginning was there was definitely a lot of procedures and processes in place that I saw as a slowdown in the beginning and frustrated me quite a bit when I first started. I just felt like my jobs and my work were going so much slower than they should because there was a lot of added procedures to them. But once I found out how to navigate those procedures and put it into play, I was able to effectively start running things. And I still did keep some of those things that I learned as a businessman when I did put into place those procedures in the school district.

Brian Gregory [00:03:33]:

That's great. Matt, I've had the chance to know you now for a few years, and one of the things that kind of struck me when I first met you is kind of your data driven approach, definitely near and dear to my heart, making data driven decisions and is clear that you're doing the same thing. Can you provide just an overview of some of the challenges you faced implementing data driven approaches, like what it was like before and then after?

Matthew Pace [00:03:55]:

So especially in my last district, I moved into a district that was growing. It's actually the fastest growing in the country school district. And when I moved into the district, it would been run kind of like a small district. I call it how I Grew up on the Farm, kind of running. By your gut, you'd make decisions based on what your gut was telling you was right. And when I first started school district, it felt very comfortable just because I'd grown up doing that. But I started hearing a lot of stuff from my guys. Like when I asked questions about why we were doing things, they would say things like, oh, we did it that way last year, or that's how we've always done it. And so for me, I can never get real answers from my guys about why we were doing things that were so inefficient and ineffective. And it was hard for them to accept change because that's what they had always done. I don't know if, you know, maintenance guys hate change. They hate the idea of changing or doing something different. And so for me, coming in, I had no data to back up why I wanted to do anything different. And I had nothing but my gut. And so my gut was telling me they were wrong. Their gut was telling me I was wrong, so I had no way to really drive those decisions when I was coming in into the district.

Brian Gregory [00:05:13]:

Yeah, that reminds me of a story we used to tell here. Matt, have you heard the grandma's pot roast story before?

Matthew Pace [00:05:19]:

Oh, I haven't, actually.

Brian Gregory [00:05:20]:

Yeah, so basically it goes, like know, there's a newlywed couple and the wife wants to make a fancy dinner for her husband, and she wants to make her grandma's pot roast recipe because it was, like, passed down through the family and she loved it. So anyway, she called her mom and kind of asked how to do it. And the mom told her, you get this pot roast, and then you cut off four inches of it and then add all this seasoning and put it in the oven and all those things. And the daughter's like, okay, that sounds interesting, but why do I have to cut off four inches of it? Like, this meat is not cheap, and I really want to use all of it. And mom said well, I'm not really sure. Let me call my mom and we'll see why she does that. So they called the grandma, and they start going through and asking her the question, and she basically says, well, honey, I'm not sure why you're cutting the four inches off. The reason I did is my pan is only eight inches long, so I had to do it to make it fit. But basically it's this kind of adage, right, of like, that's the way we've always done it. But if you don't stop and ask why or be open to change, you end up with a lot of waste.

Matthew Pace [00:06:19]:

Yeah, that's funny. That's hilarious.

Brian Gregory [00:06:21]:

All right, well, we'll keep on moving down this data driven approach a little bit more. Do you have any specific examples of how you utilize data and reports to transform decision making within your department?

Matthew Pace [00:06:32]:

Yeah, there was a few different things that I did. One of them, when I first got there, I had a rooftop unit that was just giving me problems. And actually, my technicians, I knew that they were working on it, because every time they worked on it, they let me know they worked on it because they hated this rooftop unit, and they would come in and just complain every time they worked on it. And we had some pretty big repairs on it. And I kept thinking every time, well, this is going to take care of the problem. And it just wasn't. And so I went to the CFO and I asked, like, hey, I want to replace this unit, and I want to put a new unit up there. It's causing us problems. My guys hate it. We just need to replace it. So CFO asked the good questions, like, yeah, well, how much does it cost to repair it? And I said, well, about $2,000. They said, well, how much is it to replace it? And I said, well, about $10,000. CFO did quick math and said, well, repair it. 2000 less than ten. Let's just repair that. And so I actually started tracking all of our repairs and all of our expenses on that unit for the next year. And after a year, I'd found that we'd spent over $6,000 working on that unit. And my guys had spent over 70 man hours doing repairs to that unit. And so I was able to go back in to the CFO, say the same thing, hey, we need to replace this unit. It's a piece of junk. But let me just tell you, we spent this much money on it and this many man hours, and the CFO actually said to me, why haven't we replaced it yet? For me, that just helped me know how important that data was, especially when I was justifying what my guys were telling me and what was going on. And if I didn't have that data, then there was nothing to back me up.

Brian Gregory [00:08:14]:

Speaking of kind of backing you up and propping up your department, we've seen kind of across the country that sometimes the facilities group doesn't have the same pool that instructional staff do as far as reputation goes in fighting for budget and that sort of thing. In what ways? This is certainly one example where you kind of proved the need and then we're able to replace this piece of equipment. Have you had other situations like that where you were able to advocate for more budget or just enhance the reputation of your team based on data?

Matthew Pace [00:08:40]:

Yeah, 100%. And I think there's kind of this idea that maintenance guys kind of sit in this little shed and they wait for something to break, and then as soon as it breaks, they grab their tools and they jump in a car and they run over and they repair it. And at least that's the perception it was in our district, if something broke, a lot of times they would be like, I don't know what maintenance is doing. I don't know why this takes them so long. And part of the reason was my own maintenance team. I'll be honest with you. There's always like, that secretary at a school site or somebody that communicates with your maintenance staff when they come in. And the maintenance guys, they enjoy going up and talking to these people and finding out what's going. And so I found out that my landscapers would come in and check in on a project, and they'd hear about an air conditioning problem, and they'd tell the secretary, oh yeah, the HVAC guys are lazy. It'll take you forever to get that fixed. And then the HVAC guys come and they're working on it, and they hear about a problem. Oh yeah, the maintenance guys, they just ride around their trucks. It'll take you forever to get that done. And then the maintenance guys are staying, the plumbers are lazy. So my staff was telling all of our sites that pretty much my entire team was lazy because they had no clue what the other guys were working on or what they were doing. And so they just assumed, just like our staff assumed, that those guys weren't doing anything. And so I was able to take that information, and I just start kind of repairing that with the sites. So as soon as I started having data based on what my guys were doing, every chance I would get, I would brag about my guys. When I went and had a meeting with the principal, every single meeting, whether it was just like something really quick that they wanted to talk to me about, I'd pull up my data and say, hey, I just wanted to let you know what my guys are doing on your site, and they're killing it. I'd show them the reports, and I'd show them the information and be like, oh, dang, I didn't realize they were on our site that much. That's awesome. And so I just made a habit of every time I was talking to them, every time I'd come talk to all the school sites at their kind of back to school meetings, and I would give them data and show like, hey, my guys killed it this summer. This is what they did across your buildings. This is what they do, on average in your building. And so I started using that data just to kind of brag and show what goes into maintaining a building. Because a lot of people, they walk into a building and the lights turn on and the toilets flush and it's clean, and it's all kind of like magic. It just magically happens. They don't realize how much work it goes into keeping that building going. And so for me, I started bragging. My first step was bragging to the sides, but then I saw that problem with my technicians thinking that they were the only ones doing anything. And so I started into my monthly meetings with all of my team in my department. I started bringing up that data to brag on my employees, again, to my employees. And there's going to be different metrics that you track on a painter than you do on a landscape guy. But when you're able to show kind of these things that different departments are excelling at, they start looking at each other, being like, okay, when I go on site and the landscaper is on site, and he knows, oh, man, our HVAC team's in this, this, and this, and these are the big projects they're working on. When they're talking to that secretary. Now, they started saying, yeah, I was in a meeting and I heard those guys are killing it. And they're actually ahead of schedule, so it might take a little bit, but they've got a ton going on. These guys are working hard. And it was crazy that I didn't have to tell my guys to do that. They just started seeing the data, they started seeing the information, and they started bragging on each other just naturally. And I don't know if it's just because I bragged every chance that I could. I probably over exaggerated in the beginning, just kind of out of frustration. Every board meeting, every anywhere I went, I'm sharing the things that my technicians are doing and it kind of just caught fire. And it wasn't just me having that gut feeling like, hey, I'm just going to go in and tell them, hey, my guys are good. I'd have something to kind of back that up, some kind of information and data to back up what I was saying.

Brian Gregory [00:12:46]:

Right.

Matthew Pace [00:12:46]:

That's huge.

Brian Gregory [00:12:47]:

And I know, Matt, I had the chance to hear you speak out in Seattle earlier this year. I think we were on the topic of staffing shortages and the impact that it has for a lot of K Twelve facilities teams. And you had kind of mentioned there at Queen Creek you guys actually didn't have any problem with staffing. And I have to imagine that morale is a huge part of that. You've already kind of explained a little bit around how you increase the morale just by bragging on your team, but maybe speak a little bit more to what was the team dynamic, what was your culture and how did data impact that and really what impact did that culture have on your team?

Matthew Pace [00:13:20]:

So the culture I did a lot of things to have that culture. There one of them. Sometimes as maintenance guys, we think it's dumb to have like mission statements or things to that matter, and the school district has theirs and it's all student driven and we as maintenance kind of feel like we're not a part of that. It's just like, hey, we're going to have the best test scores and we're going to have this, or we're going to educate kids in this way. And facilities kind of doesn't think they fit into that. And so I created a mission statement for my guys and I would tell everyone that worked in my department that they were educators, you are contributing to the education of these students. So they felt part of the big picture. And the culture just kind of came from as construction, as maintenance guys, we all want to jump in and show how good we are. And in the beginning, I just wanted to prove to my guys that I knew what I was doing and I was there. And so I jump in on every project and I try to prove how much I was working. But I think the culture really began when they started seeing that could use that data to fight for what they were saying. And when I did, they started buying into me like, oh, this guy's not just going to be all talk. He's not coming in just to say that he's there. He's actually able to make some change. And they'd had a lot of leaders in the past that would fight for them, but they never had that data to back up what they were saying. So now that I have that data to back up what I was saying, my technicians were saying, hey, we can't work because we don't have the tools that we need to get the jobs done, or, hey, we can't get to this project. We're too busy. So if we had a contractor come in, or if we had somebody else come in, that would help us free up time so we could get all this done. And so having data, when I was able to go into those meetings and justify that, that got my guys to buy in to what I was trying to do. And so I treated them. I understood that they were coming to work to support their families, not to make me happy or not, because they loved their job. And so I wanted to make that job as good and as stress free for them as I could. And you mentioned my problem with I didn't have that problem getting employees. And that's because probably, I'd say over 90% of my employees came from referrals, not only from my technicians, but also from my school staff. Once they found out that I was hiring, they were telling their friends, hey, you want to work in this department? Because guys enjoy working there. Their technicians are happy. My guys were recruiting their friends, and I felt bad for some of the surrounding school districts, but their maintenance guys were applying at our department because my maintenance guys were telling them, like, hey, we're flexible. He wants to make sure you're happy. You get the tools that you need, and he makes sure that you can be successful in your job. So having that culture and having them tell others just made that hiring process a lot easier.

Brian Gregory [00:16:09]:

That's huge. It really is huge. One other thing I wanted to kind of touch on, Matt had previous discussions around this, but conflict is often part of any job, and facilities isn't exempt from that. But how have you utilized data to help work through challenging situations? Whether it's conflict or other challenging situations.

Matthew Pace [00:16:30]:

I mean, you have conflict anywhere you go, and maintenance guys are big personalities. But for me, having that data either, I had to know everything about everything. And I tried that. I'll be honest. When I first started working there, I tried to know everything that was going on in the entire district. If they worked on something, I wanted to know. I wanted to know why they did what they did. I wanted to know how it was repaired. And so I tried to know everything. So then if conflicts did arise or come up, I knew what was going on I knew everything about it, and I could quickly resolve it and make a decision and feel confident, but it wasn't sustainable. And I'll be honest, I think my wife didn't like me during that period because I worked so much trying to prove myself and trying to understand everything, that anytime the phone ring, I'm answering, hey, I'll be back, I'm running out the door. And I just did everything I could. So when I started having the data, it just made it to where I didn't have to know everything anymore. I could be able to see KPIs, I could be able to pull that up. But my conflict I felt was once I had data, was very minimal. And I tell my staff that I never had to fire anybody, they fire themselves. And so I had the expectations, I let them know the expectations, and I communicated when they were failing in those expectations. And so I gave them opportunities, I talked to them about what they were doing wrong, and I always had that data to back it up, so they couldn't say, oh, but this was happening, or oh, this was going on. I always use data to back up those conversations. And so when somebody wasn't working out or wasn't a good fit for my department, I would let them know, like, hey, I've done everything that I can to do this. You're choosing now not to work here. And so by having that data though, that's the only way I could do that. If not, it's just, hey, he doesn't like me, he's picking on me. But when you have data, you can actually give direct feedback and there's nothing you can kind of dispute on that side.

Brian Gregory [00:18:28]:

Yeah, that's huge. I mean, those conflicts, like you said, they're always there, and a lot of times they're filled with emotion. But when you've got hard data and facts, it's easier to work through that. One thing I was hoping is for our listeners, what advice would you give to somebody looking to start a career in facilities management in K Twelve?

Matthew Pace [00:18:46]:

I would just tell them, you don't have to know everything. That was one of the things that I felt at in the beginning, and made my job really hard, and made it to where for a little while, I didn't know if I wanted to do it anymore just because it was consuming everything that I had. And so in facilities, being a leader, more than knowing how every chiller works, how the VAS system works, how everything goes into a building, more than knowing how your locks work and all those things, it's understanding how to communicate with people and then understanding how to read data. And so that for me, I stress the data just because that's what changed my career for me, was being able to look for data and just find differences in it. Early in my career, I was challenged by my superintendent to find that low hanging fruit on energy. And so I started just making all these changes, and I had no clue. I didn't even know if I was saving money making these changes. I just started making a bunch of changes. And we did see some cost savings, but it wasn't until I started finding trends and looking for data and having a way to track that data, arizona gets really hot. We took our AC units in the hallway, and we adjusted those two degrees throughout our entire district. I was able to quickly take that data and see the savings very quickly on that data and be able to justify what I was doing to the superintendent. And I thought I'd get a lot of kickback. But actually, the teachers thought because the hallways were warmer, they thought I made their classrooms cooler. It worked out for me. But just making those small, little changes, I was able to go back and show, like, hey, this is what this small change does for the district. And so, for me, it's just more than knowing how everything works, how to find and look for those trends and those changes that you should be working on. And the other thing I'd say is just don't get complacent in the we did it last year. Look for opportunities to improve, continually improve, because there's a lot of ways to do that.

Brian Gregory [00:20:49]:

Grandma's pot roast.

Matthew Pace [00:20:51]:

That's right.

Brian Gregory [00:20:51]:

Well, Matt, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today and look forward to working with you in the future.

Matthew Pace [00:20:58]:

Thanks, Brian.