#19: Wayne Beamish Founder of Powerhouse Management Services

#19- Wayne Beamish

Introduction:

Welcome to another episode of the modern facilities management podcast brought to you by strap. 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  

Welcome to another episode of the modern facilities management Podcast. Today I've got Wayne Beamish with me. Wayne, thanks for joining the show. 

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, thanks for having us.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Well, let's start out and just jump right into it. Tell us a little bit more about who you are, personally and what you do for a living.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, for sure. Personally, I guess first thing is I’m married 31 years. Actually, our anniversary is coming up in a couple weeks. As originally, after university, I went down to the US and I was skiing, I was ski bum in Lake Tahoe. So that's where I met my wife and dragged her kicking and screaming back to Canada, eventually. She actually came voluntarily and everybody asked her why she did that. Because the first winter we came back, it was just freezing cold and she wasn't used to it at all. So, we have one son, he works in the business, my wife works in the business. Basically, our business started out as a utility data management. And we were getting clients bills, utility bills, gas, water, electricity, managing the data, reporting back to them, sort of identifying bad apples, where they should target their investments for retrofits and stuff like that. Couple of original clients liked what we're doing on that side, and the process we were following. So, they came to us with other avenues as far as increasing our business. And one of them was the FM side as well, the facility maintenance. So that's what got us into the facility side with two major clients, they were both national clients at the time. So that really helped on our growth and our expansion of our company.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And how long ago did you guys expand and getting into FM?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

We would have started the FM in 2008. So, it's been about 12, 13 years now.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Got it. And it has that grown to be one of the larger portions of your business. 

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah. I think when we talk to a lot of clients, new clients anyways, we're sort of presenting, you know, our whole package and saying, you know, if you're going to do energy, it is related to FM in different avenues as well, sort of role in the whole package. But there are some that just say, you know, they're doing the energy a certain way in house or they're doing the FM a certain way. So, they want to stay status quo for a while. So, some of the initial clients, when we bring them on board, they're choosing one service or the other. But then the eventual goal with our system is to sort of roll them into the complete package. Because, you know what, I think it's easier. You know, there's a lot of trust factor, I guess, when you get one vendor doing more options for you, more operational processes. But I think once they realize there's a trust factor on one side of the business, they have no real hesitancy about going to more services within your company.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And what's the balance? Whenever you go in and for your client base, you're juggling and you're managing multiple aspects of their operations. Are you one hundred percent taking on those responsibilities, that portion of their business, or is it a split model where they have some in house and you guys are taking care of majority of it? Typically, how does that look for you guys?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah. I think once they do it, again, when the trust factor is there, but they relinquish everything. And, you know, as a vendor for us, that's a great thing, we've become more or less a division of their company almost right. I'm thinking of one of our larger clients, Staples here in Canada, and we've been working with them on the energy side since 2004. And really, we take all the calls from the stores, we take all the calls from utilities, receiving all the bills so that the only real part that anybody at head office at Staples is doing is getting reports from us and looking it over for budget purposes, reconciliation of bank accounts, stuff like that. So, it really takes a load off of their side, and same on the facility side. We basically are receiving and directing all aspects from the vendors to the stores, reporting back with the client on different reports that they've requested. But they're basically just reviewing those reports and doing more of the accounting and functionality side of the management of the data on bookkeeping more or less, but all the other aspects we basically take over. So, we're really working within different divisions of that company too, you know. We're working with the real estate guys, the property management guys, right through to accounting. So, we really get involved within the company on all levels.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And I mean that relationship is critical with you guys having that much of the business, you know, that you're taking care of for them. And talk to me about that relationship from both your side, working with vendors that you're working with. Because I presume you guys have vendors helping you guys out from maybe a specialty standpoint, maybe roofers, electricians, need be. Would that be correct?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah. I don't know if we're a little bit different than some other companies that are third party vendors. I know in the industry, there's different ways, different models that companies work. When we started out, like I said, we sort of were on the energy side with our clients. And we're hands on basically with that aspect. And when they asked us to look at the facility side, we basically asked them, well, what are you doing right now? You know, where's it at? Where do you want it to be, sort of thing? And the first two companies that we dealt with had a software that they were using in house, we basically said, Okay, we'll take over that software, we'll use it, that's what everybody's familiar with. It's a software that's customizable. So, as we think of better ideas, we can customize that and make the program better. And I think with those first two clients too, we basically took their vendor list that was already in the software. And we said, look, we'll continue using your vendors, we’ll go forward. A lot of other third party, FM facilitators, they actually are using vendors that they've chosen. And that's one of the hesitancies, I'd say to some clients is, that's where the trust factor comes in. Because you don't know why they're choosing those vendors. We've had instances where we've run into different companies where the facility maintenance provider, is actually using a general contractor that they're part owners of. You know, so where's that money flow sort of going and coming from? So, what we say to our clients is, look, you give us your vendor list, we'll continue using them. If you tell us you know, through the system, you're not happy with a plumber in a certain area, because of complaints from stores, we now do have other vendors that we can recommend. So, we'll go back to the client and give them a choice of two or three, give them our recommendations, but in the end, it's still their choice as to the vendors they utilize. So, the onus to the vendors is still with the client, you know, we're sort of the police officer in the whole system. But the vendors sign a contract directly with the clients, and, you know, they have to look out for the client just like we do.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And you're not essentially creating a layer between the vendor and the client. It sounds like encouraging that relationship to be for accountability purposes, as well as, you know, making sure that they've got skin in the game, right, where they have that relationship, and they want to make sure that the quality is there.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, exactly. You know, they're not the vendor. And the other instance where, you know, if we were sort of on the vendor side, more than the client side, you know, at that point, sometimes you're protecting the vendor, you know. You're not reporting different issues that a certain technician had at a store, because it doesn't look good sort of thing, right. So, we like to say we've always been independent, on everything we do, and we're there for the client’s interest, and nothing else really.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and you mentioned that, a big piece of what you guys are doing from their perspective, they're just receiving, you know, the reporting and the end result. With any type of reporting, the more data that you gather, you know, the stronger the reports are going to be, where you could make these different tweaks into the overall strategy. How do you work alongside your customers with the strategic plan, they're taking those reports, seeing that data and tweaking that to make improvements there?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

I think there's a couple of different areas on it for sure. One area would be probably preventive maintenance. When we get in with a new client, you know, we're looking at the history of what they've done at certain locations, certain stores. A lot of the times companies are overlooking preventive maintenance. So, one of the things we usually set up with them on key aspects like your HVAC, for example. You should have preventive maintenance regularly scheduled. So, then we'll look at it, the client will say, you know, what cost are you comfortable with? Do you want to do a quarterly preventative maintenance? Do you want to do a semi-annual, you know, and rationalize to them what the difference is as far as the longevity of the program too. You know, if you're looking at your preventive maintenance on each back every quarter, great, if you're doing it once a year, is that enough. So sometimes they look at it and say well, that's an additional cost we haven't had before. But then you got to look at the rationale as far as the savings long term down the road by maintaining that equipment properly. We've had some clients where, you know, our vendors have gone in with a new client of ours, and they do the first stage back maintenance, and filters have been changed in 2, 3, 4 years, right. So then yeah, then they wonder, well, you know, why is the store complaining about temperature issues, or whatever it is, air quality, right. So, there's different factors. So, I'd say one of the big ones is the preventive maintenance, the lifespan of the equipment, you're extending the lifespan. So, when you look at the long term, your capital costs are going down, your short-term costs are increasing, for sure. But I think the increase on your short-term costs are, you know, 300, 400 dollars, for preventative maintenance. They're also looking at it then when they're on site to say, you know, as far as the asset piece of the program, you know, you should consider replacing motors, belts, whatever, and giving us a quote for that. That sort of led into another area where we found with clients where the quote processing that they had in place, wasn't really working. So, the example would be, tech goes on site, and he notices something that he wasn't really there for, but there's something else that needs to be done. There's a limit on the dollar amount, usually what any tech can do on any one work order. So, if it exceeds that they have to put in a quote. So, we found a couple different areas where the vendor submits a quote, and the third-party processor puts it through to the client, for different reasons, whether it's budgeting, whatever, the code sits there, and nobody ever goes back and looks at it. So, you know, within the system, you've got something that needs to be repaired, there's been a code submitted, but no work has ever been done on it. And so that's where we look at with the clients, a lot of times, and we say, you know, we got to get those quotes, either approved or disapproved. And if they're not approved, what's the rationale, but get it done in a timelier fashion. So, things aren't sitting there in the system waiting the action on.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Why are they waiting? Is that just, there's no notification there? Is there [inaudible 12:09]

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Well, that's the thing. Within our system, we send them a report basically weekly saying outstanding work orders in the system and what status they're at. So, you know, on their side, we know they're getting the information. What we found with a lot of clients is, you know, unbeknownst to us, because you know, you don't get all the details back from a VP of FM, right. He's reporting to somebody higher than him. That's not always getting passed down the line as well, right. So, somebody higher than a VP may have said, look, you got to cut your budget by 20% for the next six months. Well, how's he do that? A lot of them just say, Okay, I'm not approving any quotes right now. But it's never told to anybody lower down the chain, it's just basically he doesn't approve any quotes for six months. Well, okay, great. But it would have been nice if somebody had to pass that information along, right. So, you know, there's that. They know as well, one good example is their lease might be expiring in a year, two years, whatever it is, right. We don't have all that information necessarily on the real estate side. So, a VP would know, we're moving out of there in 18 months, for example, why are we going to spend $4,000 on a control board or a motor for an HVAC unit. So, they don't do anything with the quote, they just sort of slough it off. But not knowing it sits in our system waiting for action and sort of thing. So, there is two different reasons on that.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's interesting. And I guess that's a good point, if you are moving into a new building to check in on what PMs have been performed over the years. It’s like taking over someone's lease.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Well, a funny one. We had a Canadian client; I won’t mention anybody's. Canadian client, they had expanded in the US just slightly and they had a location in Hawaii. So, they were here for about six years, I guess, and then decided yeah, it's not working, we're pulling back. So, they turned the location back over to the landlord. Well, we had already been dealing with landlord on different issues through the FM system. So, he was familiar with you know, calling us. So, they had moved out, the lease still had about a month left on and prior to the lease expiring, the client hadn't got any documents back from the landlord. So, we followed up with landlord and said, you know, they need a release from their lease, it's coming up in the next 30 days, whatever it was. And he said, I'm not letting them out their lease until they fix the H-back units. So, when we get into discussion, and they hadn't done any maintenance on the HVAC units in the six years they were there, and they're in Hawaii. So, he said these things are encrusted with salt and everything else. He says if I let them out of their lease now, I'm going to be stuck with a you know, a $40,000 HVAC bill to replace these units. So, they negotiated an agreement and they had to pay out some money and he replaced most of the units in the building. But you know, and that's the thing too. I mean, you can't just side with the client sometimes, too. You know, there's key issues where you got to think yeah, I mean, that's logical that should have been done, right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. What's interesting is the resistance to PM still. To me, there's just so much data out there showing you the importance of a PM plan, staying on top of it. And it's surprising how common it is for people to be reluctant, to go ahead and make that small investment where, I mean, you just alluded to, you know, organization, for six years not doing PMS, and that could have cost 40 some odd $1,000. And it sounded like it did cost tens of thousands of dollars. It could have been prevented?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Well, I think some of the details into that. I think they had four units servicing the area they were in, and two of the units weren't even operational, that the client had decided, you know, they weren’t going to spend money on it. Because again, like I said, they knew they were probably going to be moving out in a year or two at that point. So, they just had the contractor at that time shut off the two units. So, their space was being controlled by two units when it should have been four, right. So those other two units are just running constantly, just to maintain temperatures, right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And it's funny, because you think about the direct costs immediately of, you know, what this machine is going to cost from a PM standpoint, but what we don't typically think of are the indirect costs. And to your point there, you know, the other two HVAC units just running constantly. They're not running efficiently; the energy bill is probably through the roof compared to what it should be. What are the biggest challenges that you're coming across, whenever you're talking about PMS? When people are reluctant to go through that. I mean, what is that challenge there? And how do you overcome that challenge? Talking to the point there.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah. I think it’s; you know, I said a little bit earlier about sort of the logic of explaining to them what the long-term costs could be, right. So, sort of giving them that balance of saying, look, short term costs are this for a quarterly PM. So annually, you're going to spend 1600 bucks, for example, you know. Long term costs, you're not doing these PMS, the only time a text going to go out, is when the store has an issue that they're calling you about. So, you know, some stores again, you're relying on human nature at that point, right. So, one manager of a store may say that, you know, it's a man, for example, I'm not trying to stereotype or anything. But you know, he'll just throw on a sweater or something, right, and tell the staff to do the same thing. And so, for two, three years, you never get a call about HVAC. And then when the guy finally goes, because somebody is complaining, or the customer start complaining, that's when they realize for three years, nothing has been touched. Well now, it’s your cost. You know, it's going to be in the thousands of dollars, basically at that point, right. So, you know, when you put it in logical terms, and you put the human, you give examples of what we found in the past with other clients, other staff within the stores, I think it’s, I wouldn't say it's easy to convince them that it's worthwhile. But I think if they're, and again, the client, and it depends who you're talking to. If you're talking to somebody that's on the accounting side, that is a numbers guy, he's going to sort of realize that fairly quickly that it is better to invest short term to save a long-term cost. If you're talking to somebody else in another department, you got to use a little bit different strategy with them as well, right. So, I think knowing that and being in the business for a while you sort of, you feel out who you're talking to, and what point of view they're going to listen to, that's going to be the best for everybody.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And with the PMs, I imagine there's warranty issues that can be brought up there as well, if you're not following PMs on specific assets.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yes, for sure. Yeah. And we found there's actually a couple points on that. You know, you brought up a great point there. If there is a warranty, any issues that you should be tracking the warranty period as well in your system, because why pay for tech to roll on a unit that's under warranty. A lot of times too, with some of our clients, after the equipment's installed, the vendor that they normally use on a daily basis might be a different vendor. So, for example, on lighting rage pack, they may get on lighting, they may get re-lamping done in their store. Well for that, that's a major project. So, they probably tendered out and chose a vendor to do their re-lamping project. But their day-to-day service is done by another vendor. So, when a call comes in from the store and they identify it as a lighting issue, if you're not tracking that in your software, you're going to roll the guy that does the normal daily stuff, but he doesn't care that there's a warranty on the equipment or doesn't even know about it. So, he's going to go in, do a repair, charge you for it. And now that he's touched the equipment that's negated your warranty. So, you're sort of out of luck with the original vendor that did the re-lamping. Because they're not going to honor the warranty anymore, right. So, I think that's one big issue, identifying warranty issues, making sure that if the client shouldn't be paying for something, then they're not, and you're rolling the right vendor out at the appropriate time.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. It's funny, you mentioned that because that almost exact scenario was played out. And I was informed that with a local restaurant group here where they had a new refrigeration system, and they had no idea. I mean, it's a Friday night, pre-COVID with a line out the door, and GM just called somebody to have the issue resolved, not knowing it was under warranty, not knowing what the new would be approved. And to your point, they just spent thousands of dollars on having someone fix it where it should have been free. And then the kicker, they now no longer have a warranty. So, adding insult to injury there.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

So, from an inventory standpoint, are you guys helping your clients with inventory management?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

As far as equipment or? 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Just in general, as far as various inventory items around the facilities, right. Not necessarily the asset management, but more or less, like storage facility or storage closet, having, you know, your lightbulbs, toilet paper, paper towels, whatever it may be. Those add up over time having to track that, there's a significant amount of capital wrapped up there. Are you guys helping out there?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

None of our current clients has really asked us about that. It's an interesting point actually, I've never really thought too much about that. But that could be easily tracked in any FM system as well. They have the capability in most software's to track inventory. My assumption is, most of our clients are doing that through another department, but they could roll that into the FM software that they're currently using probably as well.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

So, if you roll that out, I get royalties on that right? 

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

So, looking ahead at just your organization in general, and kind of the direction of Facilities Management, what do you see changing in short term? And what should FMs be preparing for here over the next three to five years?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

I'd say probably the biggest and some of it is being done now. But the biggest thing I see in the future is probably asset management through tagging equipment. You know, and you can choose the level of equipment that you want to start with, you don't have to do everything all at once, right. And it's surprising, we've looked into asset tagging for a couple of our clients, and the initial process isn't that costly. The technology's very simplified right now, where it's basically a barcode on a piece of equipment. You know, the techs going on site, for example, and each bag tax would have a bar wand or even his phone now, scan the barcode. So, it identifies exactly what piece of equipment he's working on, the history of equipment, everything else, right. So then on our end, we can track all that as well to see how many times that piece of equipment has been serviced. What the total cost is, what the capital investment has been to date, and whether it's worthwhile investing more money, or replacing it. You can identify certain pieces of equipment, continuous issues with them. You know, whether it's a manufacturer issue with a certain manufacturing type. You know, the belts been replaced every three months when it should be every year on a certain piece of equipment or whatever it might be. So, I think that the big thing is, you know, the number of times it's been repaired, the cost that you've spent on it, the age of the equipment, everything else, right, and rolling into that your warranty piece as well. Because all of that can be flagged when you know, we get a request from a store location here. As soon as you put in the location and the type of repair that's required. You can track it right down to the level of which piece of equipment. I really find a lot of times, you know, a big box store, for example, might have 680 rooftop units. Sometimes they're numbered physically on the unit itself. So, when the techs up on the roof, and he's calling in, he might be saying, you know, RTU one. Well, who originally labeled it, how were they physically standing? Like we always say, if you're looking at the front of the store, what's left, right, what's back front, what center? Well, that doesn't mean the guy that originally labeled everything was using the same logic sort of thing, right. So, it's good to know what equipment they're actually working on and identify it going forward, that same equipment nine months later that you're talking about the same piece of equipment. So, I think that's the biggest thing going forward, I think is the asset tagging would be the big issue.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Do you feel as if the strategy for facilities managers would be or that department in organizations, do you think that is going to continue to be pushed more outsourced going through that model, as opposed to bringing it in house? Or do you see a hybrid model being more common as we move forward?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah. I probably think it's a bit of the both. I think it depends on the size of the company as well, right. Number of locations is a big factor, obviously. I think most people in their minds, you know, they've been hired to be the facility manager at a certain company, and there's 30, 40, 50 locations, logically, that person thinks, well, I should be able to manage that, or my boss thinks I should be able to manage that, right. There comes a point in time where either you're bringing in staff internally to do that, and what's their capabilities. What's the cost of having systems expert on each back sitting at a desk in your head office? Or is it better to outsource that to a company that has that expertise sort of thing, right? You know, we find a lot of times, even on the invoicing side, for example, from the vendors, you got to be looking at the invoices, comparing it to the work order, and the time the guy spent on site, to say, you know, I use the example and not the stereotype on each bag tax or whatever. But, you know, he goes up on your roof in the middle of summer, and he's there for six hours. Well, did he bring a lawn chair with him, and he was suntanning for two hours? Who knows, right? You don't go up and check on him. Right. So, there's a trust in that vendor, too. So, somebody's got to be looking at it to say, look, here's the repairs he did. Here's the time it normally should have taken, is that a legitimate cost? And going back and sort of not arguing but debating now with the vendor. Because long term the vendor, he wants to be honest too, because he wants to say, look, okay, that guy was a journeyman technician. He had an apprentice with him, and he was letting the apprentice do a lot of the work. So yeah, it took a little bit longer. But that's all part of the training process for our client to make sure they always have experienced technicians. So, I mean, once you drill into it, and you find out the answer, it's a logical answer. But if it was a journeyman, and he was on his own, he was there for six hours doing a three-hour job, well, there's something wrong there, right. So, I think a lot of that, and I don't think honestly, clients are probably drilling into that level of analytics on some of this stuff. You know, making sure what they pay is legitimate money out their door, right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And that goes back to the vendor relationship, right. Of having that type of trust in the people that are working on your facilities with, I mean, that being such a huge investment in any business. You mentioned that number of locations decided that being an important factor on outsourcing or not, is there a threshold? Or a rule of thumb that you follow for a number of locations?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Well, I would say personally, anything over 50 locations, I think you should be looking at outsourcing. You know, I think that's at the level where you don't have enough expertise in house, or if you bring it in house, like I said, it's going to cost more than it's probably worth having somebody sitting at a desk, right. And even within a company, we found a lot of times too, people aren’t looking to just stay in that one position for the rest of their lives either, right. So, they're looking to move up the ladder. So, Jean in facilities had a client sitting at a desk might do that job for two years, but then she's moving on. Well, now you're dealing with somebody else, and what's their expertise. So, within the company, if you're trying to do that internally, you're constantly retraining staff, everything else. If it becomes, like I said, at the beginning, where they're just reviewing reports, while that's more of a clerical issue, that probably anybody if they're told, here's the five things you're looking for, in this report, Jane can do it, or Julie or Sam can do it, you know, whoever is going to be in there at that position over the years, has the capability to look at that and analyze that report. But to constantly retrain these people on the FM side, I think that's where you got to look at saying, now it's time to sort of outsource it to a company that knows what they're doing. You know, we're the same. We have to retrain people all the time. But that's our business. That's all we're doing, right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And that brings up a good point of change management. And in the very, very near future, we're going to have a real problem, where I've seen out there that anywhere from 40 to 60% of facilities managers are going to be retiring or at retirement age at the very least within the next five to seven years. And so, there's going to be pretty significant turnover over the next decade, that not many people are necessarily thinking about. And I guess to your point, having a company that is responsible for that whereas, you know, the brand, the company, not necessarily a single individual allows for that transition to be a little bit smoother.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, exactly. Yep.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. Well, wrapping up here a couple of quick hitters, for getting out of the business in an effin mindset here. And I know I didn't prep you for this, so apologies there. But who or what? And I love asking this question, Who or what has had the biggest impact on you professionally starting out there?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Whew. That's a good question actually. I would say, our biggest client, probably staples. The person we deal with there has been with that company, I wouldn't say the same position, but she started as facility manager. So that's who we initially started dealing with. She's moved up, she's a VP of the facilities now that we've constantly still dealt with her for the last 14 years, 15 years now. So, you know, I think her knowledge base on everything is grown. But what she's learned within her job description has helped us grow our company as well. They are one of the companies that came to us for an additional service, and we're able to facilitate. So, I think growth wise for our company, she's helped a lot and knowledge base as far as what's needed within the FM sector, on a client of that level. They have probably over, I think they're close to about 400 locations in Canada now. So, it really gave us the opportunity to say, look, we can do it for a company with 400 locations, we're pretty well in there. We know what we're doing. They're happy with the service, and we've learned from them as well. So, I think that's probably been the biggest factor growth wise for the business.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

What about personally? What had the biggest impact on you personally?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

You better say your wife. I think that's a one of two things right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

[inaudible 32:01] for you.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah. Like I said, we've been married 31 years, so I better throw her in there, right. A buddy of mine actually, in Ottawa here is in commercial real estate. And you know, just through lunches, and discussions and everything with him, you know, you talk personal issues as well. But, you know, you get into business talk also, right. So, I think, because he's on the other side as an owner, real estate, property management. You know, he's not a client, but he knows the whole aspect of real estate, knows that side of the business. So, I think that's really helped on. You know, me as an entrepreneur, learning how to grow our business as well, but personally, having a friend that has that knowledge that, you know, you know you can trust sort of thing, right. You can rely on what they're saying that they're not just saying, because they're trying to sell you something. There's no business relationship there, we have other than we're buddies having a lunch and talking about his business and my business, sort of thing.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. What are you reading right now? 

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Sorry?

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

What are you reading right now?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Oh, jeez. I'd love to read more books. But I don't have time. I started a Bobby Orr book. Jeez, probably about three years ago on vacation, I still haven’t finished it. And normally what I'm reading is, we hired a marketing manager last year. So, he's always shooting me stuff about doing, you know, information and ideas on doing blogs, different business opportunities, everything else out there. So, it's really, you know, a four pager on something that somebody posted on the Internet that I'm going to comment on or do a blog on sort of thing. So, it's a lot of short little things that were not personal interest, but more business interest. My background is carpentry, so I have a bunch of carpentry magazines that keep coming to the house and I hope to get to them one day so.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

So, Bobby Orr. So, I don't want to stereotype with you being in Canada. But I imagine with you getting in reading Bobby Orr’s book, big hockey fan?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Oh, yeah, for sure. Yeah. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

So, I'm a lightning fan. So how does it feel for a team from Florida to be Stanley Cup champs right now?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, that's great. We always in Canada, we always say yeah, it's 70% of the team is Canadian guys anyways, but that's changing. There's a lot of Europeans and a lot of Americans. I mean, the whole sport’s changing, and I actually played curling as well. So, I don't know if you know much about curling, another Canadian game. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Every four years I do. 

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And like this year, the US has done really well. So, you know, and even the European countries are getting a lot better. So, I think you know, both games become more competitive as more people are getting a higher skill level attitude, right. And the debate in Canada always is or anywhere is, who's the best hockey player ever, right? So, is it Wayne Gretzky, Bobby or Mario Lemieux? Whatever, right? And everybody has their opinion on it. But Gretzky is probably the best for sure. I mean, I grew up with him. So, I saw the whole evolution of his career and all that. And I was out in Alberta at the time too, right. So, it was fun to sort of, you know, see it. You know, you hear, I mean, when I was little, I watched Bobby Orr too but he didn't have a long career, and I think that was one of the things is with his knee injuries and everything else. Had he had like a lengthier career like some of the players nowadays, I think, he probably would have been the best. But you got to say Wayne Gretzky is the best. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

When you say you grew up with him, as in childhood.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Oh, no, just at the age group. Sorry. Oh okay. I was going to say, you going to casually drop that in.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Yeah.  Well actually, we lived in Guelph, and he was in Brampton, so, it wasn't that far. But no, I never knew him personally. I did meet him a couple times. When I was out, West I was working in in Banff and Canmore. And at that time, when they had the Team Canada, games against Russia, and all that, Glenn Sather who was Edmonton’s coach and GM at the time, he was the coach and GM of Team Canada. So, he always brought the team to Banff to train before they went over to Europe for Team Canada games, or they were playing here. So, we didn't meet a lot. They would golf at the golf course there at the Banff Springs Hotel. And that's where I was working at the clubhouse. So, we met all the players and everything else. So that was fun. Because, you know, at that time I was in my early 20s, and you know, you're meeting all these idols that you see on TV playing hockey, right. So, it was pretty cool.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's awesome. Well, wait, before I let you go, any last words or bits of advice for people interested in getting into facilities management?

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

I think like you said, it's going to be a growing field for sure. You know, no matter what level people are at in the industry, you know, if they work their way up over the last 30, 40 years, and they're the ones that are going to be retiring. You know, and again, I think traditionally, those people were sort of, you know, the blue-collar people that started in the industry, again, 40, 50 years and work their way up. You know, they've obviously transitioned more technology, more aspects that they've learned over the time. But as they sort of move into retirement, I think the ones coming in, are going to be, you know, a higher-level education, obviously. They're going to look at processes internally to say, how are we doing now? How can we do it better. And I think, the younger crew coming in, are going to move through the claim ladder a lot quicker, because of their knowledge. So, I think they're going to use more, sort of current technology to say, look, this can be done better, here's how it can be done better. And because they're doing that they're going to be recognized within their client, the company and move up the ladder rather quickly, as well. So, I think that's good for everybody. I think, you know, everybody looks at the cost, the bottom line, and there are a lot of ways you can save money by doing things more efficiently. And I think that's what the younger people are going to look at as they get into the industry.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, it's going to be really exciting to see what changes do occur. And I think rather quickly, we're going to see these changes with more and more technology and more and more innovation in the industry. But great point there. And, once again, we definitely appreciate you coming on. It's been a pleasure talking to you and get to know you. And yeah, you have a great rest of your week. 

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

That's great. Thanks very much. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Take care Wayne.

Speaker: Wayne Beamish  

Good, bye-bye.

Outro:

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