Gretchen Martin

Sometimes, the path to facility management begins with a marketing degree, a dream of being an artist, and a mom who didn’t sugarcoat the risks.

When Gretchen Martin graduated from the University of Pittsburgh in 2008 with that marketing degree, she was staring straight into an uncertain job market and trying to imagine herself as a working artist. Her mom quickly brought her back to earth. “She said I’d be poor or homeless,” Gretchen laughed.

So, like a lot of folks trying to figure out what’s next, she took jobs in retail and banking. Spoiler alert: not a fit.

For Gretchen, being tied to a desk in a corporate banking environment was torture.

But life had other plans. She picked up an operations coordinator job that evolved—thanks to her sharp instincts and zero fear of stepping up—into a director of facilities role. That led her into facilities work at law firms and radio stations. She had a knack for fixing things, solving problems, making chaos look manageable.

It didn’t stop there. Gretchen doubled down on her education—first with a master’s in human resources, and then a second master’s in Facility Management.

“Getting a degree in facility management was interesting because Purdue is one of the few schools offering a degree in the field, and they have a great program,” Gretchen said. “My academic advisor, Matt Ray, was fantastic. I was only one of two females in the program, which was part of the engineering school.”

Still, she didn’t cruise to the top. Along the way, there were detours—including a rough stint at a nonprofit where stuff would break but there were no funds for improvements.

Eventually, she made her way to CBRE as a property manager, taking on 1.7 million square feet across four buildings— which were in receivership and came with all the baggage: buildings from the ’50s and ’60s with creaky infrastructure, failing fire life safety systems, and general mayhem.

Gretchen had her eye on the long game, once targeting a retiring team member’s job and ready to make her move when the opportunity opened. But she also stayed open to where the work was taking her—learning to troubleshoot, roll up her sleeves, and tackle problems head-on.

“I’ve developed a reputation for being able to take messes and whip things into shape quickly. I’m good at fixing dysfunction,” she said.

Her secret? Patience, grit, and the ability to juggle.

“There’s an order to fixing messy situations,” she said. “It takes a special person with certain qualities to succeed in FM including the ability to work under pressure, with multiple projects while rearranging workloads.

It’s not always easy. As a woman in the facilities world, Gretchen knows the extra layer of scrutiny that comes with the territory.

“I realized I’d have to have a different level of patience to prove myself to co-workers and vendors,” she said. She doesn’t whine—she just gets it done.

And as the field changes, she’s not afraid of tech. In fact, she welcomes it.

“We always need a human component and main point of contact to be effective in this industry. I see AI as a tool, not a threat,” she said.

Back home in Pittsburgh, she’s seeing people slowly return to office buildings, many of which are still in rough shape or in transition.

When she’s off the clock, Gretchen’s life is full—five rescue dogs (each with their own health quirks), a boyfriend, his kids, a cabin in the woods, and baseball whenever she can catch a game. She travels, too.

As a mentor and active BOMA Pittsburgh member, she’s always encouraging the next generation to give FM a serious look.

Her advice? Don’t expect order. Expect the opposite—and be the calm in the storm.

“Textbooks are great. But it’s not realistic to expect that you’re going to solve one problem at a time, more like 17 things all at the same time,” she said. “You’ve got to be able to think on your feet and make decisions, because a lot will come at you quickly. But I was born with these tendencies. I rarely get frazzled.”

She remembers one brutally cold winter in 2021, when Pittsburgh hit -15 degrees. Pipes burst. Windows shattered. Basements flooded. “That was overwhelming,” she admitted. But she handled it. Because that’s what Gretchen Martin does—she fixes things. Not always pretty. Not always easy. But always with purpose.