Where are you from and how did you end up at Georgia Tech?

I'm from the Atlanta area. I went to Berry College up in Rome, Georgia. I've been at Tech a little over nine years. I started in the student center as an assistant operations manager, then operations manager. I've been over here in ISyE for almost a year now- it will be a year on the 10th of April. 

I worked as a Tech temp when I got out of school and then left for a job in the private sector. After a couple of years I was looking for an opportunity to come back to Atlanta. I was in Birmingham, and the opportunity at the student center came open. That's how I found my way back to Tech.
 

What is your current role?

I'm the facilities manager. Day-to-day it means being the first point of contact for any facilities-related needs for the faculty, staff, and students in the building. That entails anything from emergency preparedness to being the liaison for Area 1 facilities and overseeing small renovations. I also act as the point of contact for design and construction and any larger projects. I handle key requests and space requests. My predecessor told me it was going to be a little bit like a hotel, and he was right about that. We have a lot of guests who can come in for a couple day,s or even a couple of months. We have a couple of Ph.D. students who are here for a number fo years, but a new batch comes in every year and one leaves every year, so there is always space turning over. Maximizing square footage is important. We have about 70,000 assignable square feet of space in our two buildings- Main and Groseclose. We have a few people in lab space elsewhere on campus, like a lab we share with mechanical, but I'm rarely over there aside from inventory. Our lab needs are different from other schools. We don't need wet labs and all of that stuff. It's mostly data crunching.

What have you enjoyed about working at Georgia Tech?

As most people say here, it's all about the people. There's a lot of investment in education, so there are opportunities to learn so many things. You can formally go back to school, but HR has done a great job with their professional development opportunities too. I've always been a big believer in acquiring knowledge and growing, and what better place for that than here? Coming to this position specifically, it was a big shift going from an auxiliary to an academic situation. I knew a lot of people on campus through my work in the student center, so there were familiar faces when I came over here. That was really nice.

What are some of the challenges you face in your job?

Space and space allocation is always a challenge. We're growing as an institution and as a school, so we have to maximize the space we have and use it efficiently. Even from a storage standpoint, are we keeping stuff we don't need? Could we be using that storage space more effectively? Could it be used as an office? Making use of space is a constant challenge. 

Beyond that we have a lot of interaction with visitors, and how we treat them is very important. We want to be prepared when they arrive so their experience at Tech starts off on the right foot. We try to have a customer service mindset. They may have had previous exposure to Tech but this could be the first time they've stepped foot on campus. We're often the first people they meet, so we want to make a good impression.
 

Have you had a facilities crisis in your time at Tech, and how did that play out?

In my time in ISyE we've been fortunate. It's been pretty quiet. Back when I was in the student center there was a good one though. Back around the time of Atlanta's snowpocalypse we were getting a ton of cold weather, and we had a 2-3 inch pipe break in a closet in the student center. It wasn't insulated properly for winter, and someone came to us and said they had a leak in their room. Water was flowing out the door. It was a mess. It was an all hands on deck situaton. We were funneling water out the door to get it outside. We got it turned off after a little while, but it was a river flowing through the student center. Once it was turned off it was just a matter of drying out the room, but it must have been on for about 20 minutes. That's a lot of water. 
 

What is one of your favorite parts of your job?

Like I said before, the people are great, but aside from that I was interested in this job because at the time I wanted to develop more project management skills. With a space that was built in 1983, and this being a growing school, I knew there would be a lot of renovations so I'd be able to develop that skill set. If I pursue more education that's an area where I'd like to grow and learn- construction and design project management. So I love that I'm being given that opportunity to pursue new skills. 

When it comes to space management, what advice do you have for people who want to do some spring cleaning?

As facilities managers, we always want to keep things by nature. It might be a dry erase board, a door frame, or anything from a project. We always think we might be able to re-purpose it. We're a cost center, so we try to maximize our resources. You have to put some kind of limit on it though. If you're not using it after a year or 18 months it needs to find a better home, and I think that applies to everyone. you probably have stuff in your work area that you don't need or haven't looked at in years.  Yearly I think it's a good idea to reach out to faculty and staff and ask if there are items they aren't using or don't need. We get them to surplus or find another home for them. It's all about being proactive. If you have stuff taking up space that you don't need, reach out to your facilities manager and they'll help you figure out what to do with it.
 

When you're not at work what do you like to do for fun?

I have two young children who keep me pretty busy. I love the outdoors. My son is in Cub Scouts now so we're doing some family camping and outdoor stuff like that. I love to read, and my wife is looking to pursue a library science degree at some point in time. She's a huge reader, tearing through 70 books per year. She's encouraging me to do more reading, so I'm trying. It's almost all non-fiction. I love history and specifically biographies. I ride the express bus in from Newnan, which gives me an hour or an hour and 15 minutes each way to read or listen to podcasts. 
 

What are you reading and/or listening to?

I didn't realize the Marines had a required reading list, so I'm working through that. It's a really interesting list, with a lot of non-fiction. I also have a couple podcasts I listen to regularly- Freakanomics, Dave Ramsey, since I'm into personal finance, and there's once called Today in Perspective that talks about headlines in the news.