Blogs

A frozen pipe. Water pouring into a busy shopping mall. A maintenance technician sent to the wrong riser room.

Buildings don't recognize holidays. Mechanical equipment doesn't know it's Christmas, and water lines don't care that it's Thanksgiving. When buildings sit empty for an extended break, small problems can turn into major property damage simply because nobody is around to spot them.

A “Super El Niño” is an unusually strong phase of the El Niño climate pattern when sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific become much warmer than normal. Weather experts pay close attention because strong events can shift rainfall, drought, heat, and storm patterns around the world.

Buildings easily outlive generations of facilities professionals. They’re frequently renovated, remodeled, repurposed and outfitted with entirely new equipment several times over.

Brooke Laing originally went to college intending to become a diabetes nurse, but quickly realized nursing wasn’t for her and left after about three weeks.

Emergency preparedness shouldn’t be something we only talk about after a major snowstorm, flood, or wildfire makes headlines.

Unpredictable and constantly changing weather conditions mean that facilities teams must always be poised, prepared and positioned to anticipate, respond and recover from what’s in the forecast.

Facilities and risk management may have different responsibilities, but they share a common concern: protecting people, buildings and organizations.

Dave Pettit, Director of Facilities at Joplin Schools, spoke about his 32-year career with the district, disaster preparedness, long-range planning and the role facilities teams play in serving their communities, overseeing 1.8 million square feet across 21 buildings serving 7,800 students.

Skip Vaughn, Assistant Vice President of Facilities Management at American University, brings experience from construction, the Coast Guard, federal facilities and higher education, with roles as a contractor, construction manager, owner’s representative, federal facilities leader and FM shaping how he approaches problems from multiple perspectives.

Frank Rudilosso, Senior Director of Maintenance Operations Programs at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, shared how his career in fire protection, life safety, facilities operations and compliance shaped his approach to managing complex healthcare facilities.

Even Superman might not be able to predict what’s going to pop out of your facility’s ceiling tile, so we asked our friends in the facilities community to share their most unexpected stories about one of the most mysterious zones in buildings.

Risk managers and facilities teams may sit in different departments, work from different priorities and speak different languages.

Ask an administrative assistant what they know about facility management and you might get a polite smile. Ask what they need from facility management

For a school facilities director, Heather Krebs seems pretty relaxed on a July morning, but behind the scenes, it’s no summer vacation for her and her team.  Big things are coming in the fall, like a brand-new multi-sport outdoor stadium complex for Snider High School, 3-time state champions in football (1992, 2015 and 2023) and well-known for their marching band program.

Creating and maintaining an accurate equipment inventory has traditionally been one of the most time-consuming tasks in facility management.