#10 – Emergency Management for Education Facilities with Cheryl Galloway

10 emergency management for education facilities with Cheryl Galloway

Intro:

Welcome to another episode of the Modern Facilities Management Podcast brought to you by Stratum. I'm your host, Griffin Hamilton. This is the show where I interview industry experts who share their stories, strategies and insights into modern day facilities management. From hospitality to commercial real estate and everything in between, we'll learn what it really takes to succeed as a facilities manager.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Thanks for joining another episode of the modern facilities management podcast. Today, I've got Cheryl Galloway with Facilitron. Cheryl, how're you doing?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

I'm doing very well. Thanks.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I've been looking forward to this conversation for quite some time. And thank you for making the time.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Well, thank you for having me. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Well, to kick us off, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself, who you are and what you do for Facilitron.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

So my role at Facilitron, I'm the Director of Education and Community Engagement. And Facilitron is a facilities management platform, everything from, you know, facilities use kind of like Airbnb for, you know, people's houses and things except it's for schools and municipality. So if you want to rent a gym or a soccer field, you would go through our platform. But my unique story is I worked at Gilroy Unified School District in California for 11 years and I was one of the facilities managers. And I also worked with the community as a liaison. And our district ended up being Facilitron’s third client. And so for six years, I used Facilitron in my district, and was very, you know, I was able to help them grow the platform into something that really worked for my school district and then I decided to move to Newport Beach because I wanted to be closer to the ocean. And when I told them I was leaving the district, they hired me. So I was able to take six years of real life experience, boots on the ground and now I'm with the company. So it's pretty nice.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Very cool. And how did you get into facilities management?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Well, that's interesting too. I was an English teacher and they had massive layoffs because of the 2008, 10 recession. And so I was pink slipped along with 40 other teachers. And the board decided that they wanted an energy conservation position to try to save money so they wouldn't have to have future layoffs. And I applied for that job, came on as an energy conservation person with the whole goal of reducing the utility costs at the school district in order to save teaching positions. And so if you've ever worked at a school district, you know that it's you have your position and then oh, somebody is out sick, somebody is retired, we have a budget cuts o can you do this now? Can you do this now? And so that position went from energy conservation to what we called SMACE; Sustainability mitigation, and community engagement, which meant I dealt with emergency management, I dealt with outside rentals, I would help with the maintenance management side of things, I'd also help with the facility side which was all new construction or rehabbing sites and things like that. And then the community engagement side, I worked on bond measures and trying to get money for the school district. And so kind of grew into a lot of different things which a lot of these positions end up coming to light that way.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, sounds like you just described the traditional facilities management position and then some.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

There's that bottom line that says and other duties as assigned.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And that it turned out to be a larger list of duties.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

But I will say it's a great job, because I not only worked with staff and students at all the different schools, but then I worked with the community and then also with the city. And it was awesome.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Very cool. And was there ever any… I guess did you miss being a teacher or was there ever any interest or intention to go back into teaching after you got into facilities management?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

You know, I did enjoy teaching for, I only did it for a couple of years but you're tied to one classroom and I preferred being out there and being able to help all these different groups of people and the interaction and not being stuck at a desk and that kind of thing, I prefer that. And actually now with Facilitron, I'm doing the same thing, but with districts all across the country so you know, I've expanded that even more and I do like that more than being tied to a classroom.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And so going back to when you first got into the industry, tell me about that because that seems like as an outsider, a pretty crazy transition going from leaving a classroom to then managing, you know, an entire facility, and then some. How did you make that transition?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Yeah, there's definitely the learning curve and I think you have to be very open to, I knew that I wasn't the subject matter expert. If I had somebody who was, you know, they had the plumbing background or you know, they were a roofing expert, I relied on a lot of other people to be able to give me information and things like that. And then I got very good at running the numbers, keeping the data, making sure that I had the stats right to be able to then go to the school board or the city council and present, you know, this is where we are, this is where we need to be and you know, these kinds of things. So I think I built a lot of relationships, the whole job became about relationships and really working with people on one common goal and bringing everybody together. So there's a lot of that involved as well.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Was there one piece of that role that really stuck out to you or surprised you that you weren't expecting?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Yes. So I don't know how long you have. So in 2013, there was the shooting, the act of shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, and everybody remembers that horrific day when so many elementary school kids lost their lives to an active shooter. And I was doing energy conservation at the time which meant I had a key to every facility and it was over a holiday so I was like one of the few people who was on site. The superintendent came to me and said, we need you to go with the police department to every single site, make sure that we're as safe as we can be, put together a list of things that we can do to be safer. And so police departments have something called septet, which is a Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design Department. And that group will take the layout of a school or layout of a building and they'll look at it, you know, environmentally, and you know how it's laid out, what needs to happen to make it the safest place possible. So I did all these rounds with all these police officers for a few days. And I had been an English teacher, right so I know how to write a report. So I had pictures, and I had all these examples and everything. And I went to the meeting with the police chief and the fire chief and the superintendent and all these, you know, high level people and I handed over my little report, and I said, you know, here you go, hope it helps, going back to turn off lights and [inaudible 07:51]. An hour later, my boss came in and said, the superintendence put you in charge of safety and security. And I was like what?! I don't… you know, I'm not a you know, I'm a kindergarten classroom kind of gal and, you know, safety and security guns, you know, drama, danger, I'm not interested, no, thank you. And she said, no, she thinks you'd be really good at it. Turned out I enjoyed that part of it so much that I went and got a master's in Public Administration with a focus on emergency management. I ended up setting up an emergency operation center in the school district, and then I was an agency rep on the City Emergency Operation Center, and then became very instrumental in how to make the schools as safe as possible, how to make sure that not only were the facility set up in such a way that kids were safer and staff was safer, but actually planning and acting out and role playing drills, and creating communication plans and all these other things that went with it. And I think when you think facilities management, you know, you think of brick and mortar and that kind of thing. But there's there can be so much more to a job like this. And the emergency management side of it actually became my passion. And the district appreciated that everything I did also had that safety component attached to it.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Do you find that to be pretty common for facilities management in that in the education space?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

I think more and more, you're finding that. Unfortunately, the active shooter scenario is far too frequent. I mean, it should never happen. And now we do regular drills twice a year where we're actually training students on run, hide, defend. But I was in Gilroy and in July of 2019, we have the big garlic festival, 1000s of people come to town and you know, Gilroy is the garlic capital of the world and there was an active shooter on the last day of the festival and he cut through a fence, it was in a city park and shot 17 people and three died and then he was he was killed in the event. But that festival, a lot of our high school kids work that festival. And we had been doing run, hide, defend active shooter training with them, you know, for years in the schools. And when that happened, the incredible thing is they all knew what to do. And adults who didn't have that when they were going to school have no idea what to do. They haven't been trained for it. So these kids are suddenly these experts and they got people out of the park, people who couldn't get away, they showed them where to hide. They did all these things based on what we had done the training in the schools and everything. And so it was incredibly scary and you know, that town will never be the same again, after going through something like that. So that was the event. The aftermath of the event, what people may not realize is you suddenly have the FBI is there, and you have all these different agencies coming in. And we had to set up Red Cross shelters. So while we had these schools with gymnasiums that you know, are usually just for basketball, or you know, whatever kids are doing, they suddenly became Red Cross shelters. And so as far as that goes, I had to work with the Red Cross, I had to work with the city agencies, I had to work with the Emergency Operations Center, we had to set up busing to move people who were displaced, you can't go back where an active shooter was, it took two weeks before people could even go back to get their cars out of the parking lot. And so if they didn't live in the area, we had to put them up in the school facilities, in these red cross shelters. They slept there, they ate there, we had to make all of those arrangements. And then we had to do things like the FBI and the DA’s office needed to use an entire elementary school to be a family counseling center and to provide services for people who had been traumatized, who had been through it, or who were basically stuck in town because they couldn't get their things back. And it was a huge ordeal that I mean, we even provided staff to do counseling, to direct traffic. I mean, there were a million things that the school district suddenly had to do that, that you wouldn't traditionally, you know, think that schools are for. And so all of that came into play as well.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

I mean, there's a lot to unpack there. And I mean, first of all, I mean that you hate hearing those stories, you know, to your point, one way too many. And, you know, it's sad that we now have to train kids in that type of scenario because that's a realistic possibility of that happening. But on the flip side of that, that training made a huge difference. And that is just something that, you know, you're thankful that they were prepared and they were able to act quickly and were, you know, wide eyed, and frozen and not having a single idea what to do.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

And I think one of the things that we did as a Facility Manager, whenever the police department of the fire department did any kind of training of their staff, I would invite them to do the training in the schools. And by doing that, they knew the layout of all of our schools, a lot of the students had met them and knew them. And so I felt like if I ever had an issue on a school site, you know, our local officers, our local firemen, they had already been on the campuses, they knew where doors were, they knew where the cafeteria was, and things like that. And so part of that facilities management was also bringing in these other agencies and working with them, you know, these drills we would do, we didn't just do active shooter, we did fire drills, we did earthquake drills. And so we did all these other things as well, which again, just made the whole community safer because everybody had practiced, everybody knew what the other agencies were going to do or who played what role. And then, you know, the community members themselves had had a lot of this training is what to do in certain scenarios. So it's pretty comprehensive and when it all comes together, you're just like, wow, really made a big difference.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, no kidding. And I mean, even in the current situation, speak to that because where we've been in a global panic that you know, no one could have ever foreseen, and you can't run a drill for a pandemic. So what role does a facilities manager play in what we're going through right now?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Yeah, so with the pandemic, there are a lot of things that, you know, everybody is facing that they never had to deal with before. And the fact that it is happening everywhere all at once is a big deal because it's not like you can go to your neighbor and say, hey, you know, we had to shut down, can we borrow this, can we use that, you know, cuz everybody's in the same boat. And then the other thing is and for a Facility Manager, this is not a, you know, a six to three, you got your list, you do it every day, you go home, you don't think about things anymore. I mean, this becomes an all encompassing like, and you've got to be ready to turn on a dime and that kind of thing. So when COVID first hit, about March 13, they started shutting down in mass all the schools. And so your teachers and everybody were like, suddenly, they had to learn how to work remotely, you know, kids are getting on Zoom, parents are becoming kind of the paraprofessionals of the house, trying to figure all this out. But while that's happening, you still have facilities, you still have schedules, you still have things that, you know, where people are going to be back in a minute so we have to do this or that, or we're things not going to happen. And so as a Facility Manager in this, you're having to figure out, can you afford to have your staff come on? Can you afford it with them, you know, at risk getting the pandemic? Can you afford it financially? Was the district still going to have money or because kids weren't coming was everything expected to be shut down? And because it was happening to the whole world at once, there wasn't a consistent this is how everybody needs to do it. And so you're at the mercy in a public agency of board members and councilmen and all these people that make decisions on behalf of everybody. But at the same vein, you have the backup of the government and of governmental agencies. So you know, it's twofold there, and you kind of need to know how to work with these different groups to figure out what's best for your site. So, you know, as the pandemic went on, you would have, you know, normally you would have all your fields would be used, but then you couldn't use your fields so you had to maintain them enough that they didn't, you know, end up being dangerous, but at the same time, you didn't want to spend too much time on them. As far as classrooms and things go, we had districts that were literally mothballing and, you know, cleaning for, you know, hibernation, shutting everything down, and just getting ready for whenever people were going to come back. When other school districts that they expected the teachers to come in and teach from their classroom, they're like, you're going to be alone in the classroom. So you know, we're not endangering you there. But as a district, we've provided you all the equipment; the Wi Fi, everything you need, we can't expect you to have that setup at home so we want you to come in. So some facility managers had to, you know, enable people to be on the site. Other facilities managers had to shut everything down. Some of them said that they were put in the position where they would have to provide security, you know, for sites because people would try to sneak on and use the track or the swimming pool, or whatever it was. And so there was this huge mix. And now as a lot of schools are starting to reopen, and they're starting to have people come back, it's that switch again, you know. Now there are new requirements, there are new state and federal requirements on you know, how much air you have going through a room and what kind of cleaning you have to do because of the pandemic and all of these new things. So as a Facility Manager, you not only have to be able to manage the new schedules, and who is or isn't allowed on the site but how does it have to be cleaned? You know, does the county regulate now the number of people who can be in a space? It used to all be by the fire code. You know, if you had this much square feet, then you'd have this many people would be allowed and now it's this much square feet, this number of people. Oh but the county says right now you're gonna have 10 for this or you’re gonna have no more than 50 and it changes all the time. So you have to be able to stay on top of that as well.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and you hit on the head earlier as far as the lack of playbook and how you have to be able to just think on your feet, rely on other people in your network and because like you said it's there's really nothing that could have prepared us for this. But that isn't an excuse as a facilities manager, you still have to stay on top of it, you still have to make sure the grounds are maintained and now with return, we're doing it safely.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

And then the other thing that's interesting, because we're talking about planning a lot is, you know, after 911 happened, there was a big fear across the country that there could be an anthrax attack. And so in order to prepare for that, emergency operation centers put in plans for something called pods. And that's a point of dispensing. And a point of dispensing is basically, FEMA would give money, Department of Public Health would come into a city, they'd work with the Emergency Operation Center, and they would set up different areas in a community. And schools are truly the epicenter of communities, because they tend to be in neighborhoods so people can get to them easily. But they'd set up a school as a point of dispensing or a pod, so that if they had to give an entire community, you know, a vaccination against anthrax, they could have everybody file through, get their medication, you know, head home, or what have you. So a lot of those plans you're seeing are now coming into play as cities are getting the vaccine, they're needing to use a school or a municipality for vaccination sites. And so all across the country, we'll see these mass vac sites being set up in a high school gym, or using high school parking lots. And for a facilities manager, you know, you have in the back of your head that this is the school, this is at some point going to be used for education again, children are going to be back on campus and all of that, at the same time your community is in desperate need of getting these vaccines done. And until there are a lot of vaccinations, you're not going to have the stability of being back in school regularly. So you have to be able to agree to turn something into a vaccination site, which means having sterile areas, having bathrooms having places where ambulances and first responders can be, you know, there all these things, but also to be able to turn on a dime if you have students and people coming back on campus. And so a lot of facility managers are working now on, you know, is there a part of the campus that can be sort of segmented out so it can be used for six to 12 months for this vaccination stuff? And if kids come back, we can have them on, you know, so there's a lot of management as far as things like that go. And then there the question of, like, some school districts are saying, Yeah, you know, hospital group, Department of Public Health come use this site but let us do the cleaning, let us use our security for this, because that's what's enabling those custodians and those security people to continue working, even though there's no school. In other cases, school districts are saying, we're going to lease you this area, so that you can have your vaccination site, but we don't want to have anything to do with it because we don't want the responsibility. We're not medical professionals. And, you know, the school districts that are helping, they're certainly not helping with the medical side of things. You know, they're just helping with cleaning and security and things. But and then the other part of that is, and you may not know this, but all if you work for a public agency, and there's an emergency, you are automatically a disaster service worker. And so if you're a school teacher, or you work in the cafeteria, if you you know, if you work for the city, and you're a librarian, or you're the city administrator, you are all disaster survivors workers in an emergency. And so, in some cases, you know, they're saying, Alright, we're setting up this vaccination site at the school, we're doing a closed point of dispensing, which means a community can't come in. But we're going to vaccinate all of our disaster service workers and then we're going to open to the community and everybody who is a disaster service worker is then required to stay and help you know, direct traffic, get people where they're supposed to be, check people in, you know, this kind of thing. And again, the facility manager, then you're suddenly had nobody in your sights or maybe a few teachers here, there too. Now you have six different agencies coming in, you have community coming in and out, you may have you know, you really have to watch if it is medical, that nobody's parked in the fire lanes, and you know that people aren't just sending their kids willy nilly onto the, you know, basketball court while such and such is happening and so it becomes a lot of a lot of planning, a lot of, you know, working with different groups and, and all of those things, but it really does benefit everybody. And at the end of the day, I think if your school can help in an emergency, then you are showing the community that you're there for them, then later when you go for a bond measure, they remember how you helped them. You know, everybody has to work together on these things. So it's an exciting field. I mean, it definitely is, I never would have thought it was anything that I would get into. But it can be a very, very good job.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And on that, I mean, everything that you've mentioned today is just, it's all over the place and it's something that, as you know, so I'm looking at the field from the outside, you just never think of these items or responsibilities that fall under you. And it could sound overwhelming, but to the person that's going to be successful in this role, it you know, it's more exciting than anything, right, something new every day, and you know, you are, it's almost guaranteed you're gonna come across a scenario that isn't in a textbook. You're gonna have to add the ability to think on your, on your feet. And what I personally love to do is wing it in a very professional manner. But how could someone or what can someone do to best prepare for these unknown scenarios?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Well, I think, you know, first of all, you have to know yourself, you truly have to know yourself. And so if you're the kind of person that you like things to be just so and things have to happen a certain order, then this is probably not the best choice for you. But if you're a person that gets bored easily, and you need things to bring some excitement to your day, and that kind of thing, then this is a great job for that. I think that the nice thing about this kind of role, especially in a school district or a city is, you know, you have the benefits of you know, there's a pension, there are health benefits, and all those things that go and you know there's always going to be school, right; this is not something, it’s not an industry that's going to come and go. It may change in different ways but, you know, there, there are more reasons for school than just education. You know, that's the only way parents can go to work is because kids are at the school. And so there's all kinds of different reasons that schools are going to be schools brick and mortar forever. So you have that stability. But I think in the position of if you're somebody who likes to manage people, then you have people who are working under you and who you can help grow into other positions and everything. If you like kids, even like I had my own kids in the same district, so every day I went to work, I felt like I was making their lives better and their experience better. So you have that whole thing as well, if you go on the education side. And then you have that that whole community that you can work with as well. And, you know, schools get money in different ways. Unfortunately, a lot of times schools have to try to get bond measures, which is the community paying more on a property tax or this or that to be able to support, you know, new construction or what have you. So, you know, I would say if you want to be a Facility Manager, maybe your background is construction, that's always great, because then you're not like me relying so much on some of these other people. But then work on that public speaking side of things, you know, take a class on public speaking practice. At some point, you're going to have to be in a suit and tie or in a dress in front of a board or a city council and you know, basically saying, this is where we are, this is where we want to go and this is what we need to get there and that kind of thing. But you know, it's a nice mix. There are days that you're in tennis shoes and in your jeans, and you're crawling under buildings, and you're looking at all this stuff, and they're those days. And then like I said, you can be, you know, at a very formal board meeting, giving a presentation. And so it is a great job if you like to be a problem solver, if you like to talk to people and work with a lot of different groups. And if it's something that you want to do, you know, long term is not a bad thing at all.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, it certainly takes a very well rounded individual to excel as a facilities manager and specifically in this industry. Well, one last question I've got for you and I asked everybody. Who or what has made the biggest impact on your career?

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Well, I hate to bring up that active shooter again but it definitely was the biggest impact because for years, I had been making plans, doing trainings, you know. And you do these things, and I would start everything with, I do not believe this is going to happen here. But just like you put your seatbelt on every time you get in your car, just in case, you know, we're going to do this again, just in case. When it actually happened and I got floods of emails and phone calls from parents saying, my child knew what to do; my child did this because of what you've taught my kid, you know, for the last four years, or what have you. It just really struck a chord that these little things that you do each day that you don't even think twice about, because it's just on your list of things to do, actually, truly can change lives. So I think that that would definitely be… that was that check the box, yes, what you're doing is worth doing.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, without a doubt. And I mean, everyone likes to think their job has purpose and to actually receive the result of all of your hard work from parents who I mean, like you just mentioned their children and loved ones knew exactly what to do because of your work and staying diligent to that process, I mean, I can only imagine the feeling of that and the obvious impact that it had on you and your career there.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Yep, it really makes you, it drives you to do more for sure.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. Well, anything any lasting tidbits of information or bits of advice that you'd have for our listeners.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Yeah, I would just say if you want to get into facilities management, absolutely look at schools and cities, municipalities, counties, because they're good careers. They really are. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Cheryl, I certainly appreciate the time once again, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for telling your story. And as always, you're welcome to come back anytime. And once again, thank you.

Speaker: Cheryl Galloway  

Thank you, Griffin.

Outro:

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