#22 - Facilities and School Safety with Tom Czyz (Armoured One)

#22 - Facilities and School Safety with Tom Czyz

Introduction:

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  

Welcome to another episode of the modern facilities management podcast. Today is interview three at the Tennessee School Plant Management Association Annual Conference in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee.

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

Man, you got that right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

I know there for three, believe it or not. And our third guest, thanks for coming on Tom. Introduce yourself so I don't put [inaudible 00:44] your last name.

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

It's Tom Czyz if you Google search it. So don't misspell it because bad things come up. But yeah, if you look at it and say it's total opposite so Tom is good for me. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Perfect and you said Google, tick tock from what I hear as well. 

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

Yes, tick tock famous if you find it, not me. But if you look up [inaudible 01:05], I don't know how to spell that French or something. But he's got millions and millions of views showing off our product line which is glass security. We do security assessments training. We're really the subject matter experts in active shooter especially K through 12 in the United States and work with schools all over the United States plus Canada and Mexico now getting into the UK, the Middle East and Northern Africa. But coming with a strong background, true background in active shooter. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And so why are you here? 

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

So, I'm here, I was asked to speak at the conference active shooter in American schools. I'm a retired homicide detective and SWAT operator and SWAT trainer out of New York. My wife was a school teacher. She now runs our not-for-profit Training Division, one training and we train K through 12 schools is our specialty in active shooter training. But we run across the nation, we do security glass and affordable security solution. But for here we were teaching actually the history of active shooter and using Parkland as a case study to show what facilities operators and directors could do to make a safer school. They really are very effective in protecting their schools and making decisions that affect the whole school, the school building or the school districts and we were here to teach on that not to really talk about classroom training or any of those portions. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I guess talk to that a little bit more where in those unfortunate circumstances where the facilities manager, facilities director comes into play, what really goes on behind the scenes and the preparation all the way through to the execution of when that situation arises?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

Yeah, definitely. So, coming in here, it was definitely very different because you have a vendor speaking for two hours. We're not trying to sell anything of course but we're talking to them partially as a vendor. So I can speak on a vendor term and then I can speak from an educational term working with FBI and Secret Service, the federal government for active shooter stuff and local police, of course. But with that, coming in and saying okay, it's difficult when you come to a school district, who do you talk to? How do you sell a product whether that product is going to save lives or clean floors, what is it doing and why is it doing it? Who do you talk to with those and it might be a superintendent, a business administrator, a school board, it's different every time and it's every district in every state is so different. And what we've learned as a company working in all 50 states is consistently, it is the facilities maintenance, directors, or superintendents, whatever their title is, is truly a great decision maker for what we're doing. Whether it's even the start of training. 

Training has to do with the educational side of school. You have the facilities, directors the one that is typically bringing us to the table and saying, you need to talk to these guys, these men and women that do training specialized for K through 12 and they'll do the vetting process and bring it to the table and that same goes for us with product lines. And I tell you the vendor side, because more importantly, as a facilities director, they're the ones sitting there that are vetting the companies and saying okay, we're doing this, COVID hits and what are we using to sanitize our schools? What are we using for the shields on the desks at this point? They're doing all the legwork to keep people alive, protected, safe, healthy and they're doing a great job at that and we've really created a great relationship with our facilities associations across the nation.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I guess talk to that. You mentioned the whole buying process, right? I mean, that's something that's, it can be very tedious and there's a lot of factors that go into it and that is the first step in preparing for this. And so you're coming in as a consultant essentially and working with these facilities directors and how does that typically work and what is the main point you're trying to make as they're going to implement this type of product.

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

So I'm going to touch on a couple things there too. First, I feel your pain as facilities directors and operators. Almost nine years in the business now working with schools, government all that but let's focus K through 12 schools. It's different for every single facilities operator but they might push for something for two years and be stalemated by a school board, by a superintendent, by a business administrator and we need this, we need this, we need this. And then all of a sudden, they get the green light and it's like get the bids and get this done in two months, right? Find somebody and do it. And they're not saying specifically I need this product but I need this solution, whatever it is for the school, so then they have to run. So, they go from pretty much begging and telling and saying do this to get it. So being on the vendor side and working with these schools for so long, I feel their pain because we will talk to them and they'll say okay, come in and talk to the school board, come talk to the supervisor. And we try different processes and steps to put the puzzle pieces together to say okay, this facilities director wants this for a reason whatever it is, new doors because our security consulting of what we do with being subject matter experts in physical security, active shooter, counterterrorism, all of those things. We might bring a Navy SEAL to your place and say okay, this is what you need and why and they'll speak to it and that facility director says yes, we absolutely need this, yes, this is what we need and then we go to the next person they say no, we go to the next one they say no. 

So, I always say it's kind of like a real world solution. We're showing the real-world solution. The facilities directors get it because they know their buildings. Not only do they know their buildings, every inch, every square foot of that place but they also know the people that are in them and what their needs are and this is so drastically different than a principal or superintendent who's not even in that building. Our facilities, whether they're custodians, maintenance workers, they know what the people want, what they need, they know where the vulnerabilities are working inside those buildings. So, you and I are here to talk about security. A lot of people will mix up safety and security. Safety is unintentional so it could be a weather-related accident, slip and fall injury, death, it could be that bad where security is manmade, it's malicious, someone is coming in to injure, kill, destroy, take away that security and it could be stealing a cell phone that's intentional. A cell phone blowing away in a storm is unintentional and accidental, right? 

So, OSHA does a great job managing our places, or schools like our manufacturing facilities saying follow the safety guidelines but there's not much for security. And what we've seen and what we've witnessed over the years is facilities, a lot of schools don't have security directors and even if they do it falls under maintenance and facilities and they're the ones that reach out and say okay, how do we start solving these problems and what do we do, how do we approach it, what's the solution? And we'll show them solutions and saying here, work with these three companies but then they get that door closed in their face a lot of times,

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And I guess with that, and looking at it from their perspective where they have the entirety of the school system whether it's multiple schools or single location or a single building within a school and they have to account for every possible scenario. And we focused on glass on our conversations thus far but beyond that, what is that, what goes into that from a facilities manager’s perspective?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

So being government entities, they're typically looking on how much they're spending could be a bidding process, looking off state contracts, looking from sourcing companies that are on state bids or GSAs, things like that. But a lot of times, it'll be a newer insecurity world, a lot of new innovation is coming out and these companies are not on your state bids. They're not on your sourcing companies, and you're not able to just buy them. So now you have to put it out to bid. And what we're learning there too is working closely to get a true understanding of what you want. That product could be a blue light system. We're going to call a lockdown and we're going to hit a lockdown button in a school. We're trying to secure it. What does that lockdown button do? Does it include the blue light system? Does it close fire doors, does it notify staff via text and email that we are in lockdown, does it shut down any smart operating unit like a smart board at a school a laptop and say we're in lockdown, stop people from using stuff so they know what's going on? Pushing out the blue lights or the blue lights flashing telling people there's a visual, if they can't hear it, they can see it that we're in lockdown and that creates a specification when that spec gets written. This is everything our lockdown button and blue light system does. So, if we're going into a true lockdown, we see a guy with a gun we hit the button. Is it calling 911? Is it mass notification to any police officers off duty that can be close? What's going on with that system? There's so many software writing things that you can do behind that button compared to push the button and alarm goes off and we call 911. That's not truly solving it. When the facilities operator gets involved and sees what's written down, what's happening, he says all of this makes sense for us. 

We had a lockdown before. I've had facilities directors tell me this, we had 400 cars here. Parents trying to get their kids, demanding that they get their kids during lockdown. We couldn't even get an ambulance into the building. So, we need that mass notification to all staff, to all parents do not come to the schools, go to the secondary location. We have no details at this time other than the school is in lockdown, we will update you immediately when we have it. In the facility yes, we've had that problem. The superintendent probably doesn't know because they never came to the school during the lockdown because it ended up being nothing. The media wasn't involved yet we had 400 parents there, traffic backed up for two hours on the main highway coming in because people thought they were coming to rescue their children and abandoning their cars on highways. 

So, when they look at it and they say okay, this meets exactly what we need. I always say your spec is your need. When you're reading a specification if that's what you need, make the spec, meet your need and then release that in the RFP(Request for Proposal). If that goes out and people are not able to meet that need, don't buy them just because they're the least expensive. We see that over and over again and I would say facilities has gotten the best better than business administrator. Sorry, if you're listening but they will spend the money and do it two or three times the wrong way where facilities directors are given that budget and they know if they step out of it, they're wasting money. It might cost more upfront but it's going to save me over the next two years and now I can buy this. Now I can get that for maintenance or for facilities or whatever or it opens up another position. They've been really good at that. I know you do facilities with this interview but I know way more people listen to it other than facilities, directors and operators to say okay, understand the importance of these people and what they're doing because that's where we've seen the biggest changes of fighting active shooters for eight years in schools now. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And so do you find I mean, unfortunately, over the last decade in particular, applied [inaudible 12:07] myself where that's more of memory for me but there's been more and more shootings that we've come across and do you feel I mean I think as if that's being brought front of mind where you are preparing, do you feel still to this day where people are kind of throwing their hands up there, have really no direction on where to even begin because facilities, it covers a wide range of tasks. And so, throwing security in there, you could kind of feel helpless so do you still find that to be the case?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

Absolutely! We see more proactiveness and we see more money being given for it whether it's federally or by states. I know you're from Florida, Governor DeSantis has pushed money into the schools after the Parkland shooting, the federal government has released ECER and cops the CLPs but there's monies that are available for it. So they're dealing with it because the money's there and they're able to get it but they're still kind of lost in the sauce. And that too is where I tell them make sure that you work with getting a true subject matter expert in physical security, not somebody with an online degree that they did in six weeks of taking a course, not somebody who wrote a book who claims to be an expert. Sometimes not even your police officers, your local police departments. If they're not deemed the government, the state governments and federal governments will deem certain people subject matter experts in explosives, in active shooter, in multiple things in law enforcement. Don't just take a police officer’s word or law enforcement officers word because they said do this. They're not an expert in that field. 

So, when you find true experts and you say okay, we need guidance. Well, what are you looking for guidance for? We want to create a secure vestibule. Well, that's secure vestibule, you could put a million dollars into a beautiful vestibule that has every bell and whistle that you can imagine to check people in to bring them through and X ray things and anything that you can imagine they can have. But if your back door is unlocked and it's not secure or your side doors and the shooter knows that, what good was a secure vestibule, right? If you're with a subject matter expert and physical security, they're going to say block every exterior door, harden them up, get better and these are the least expensive entries. But then when you do your front, it's going to force people to move to the front of the building. You create those layers of protection and you force the bad guy where you want them to go. That's what a subject matter expert will do for them compared to just asking a recommendation of somebody that the local police chief and we've had that three person police department. Hey chief, what do we do? We do this, this and this and he's been a part time cop for five years now. He's chief of police of a three-man department. He has no clue what he's telling you and I'm not putting law enforcement down. I'm a retired cop, homicide and SWAT. I eat and breathe this stuff still. I love what they do but police officers will admit to you, there's people that are experts. SWAT is an expert in special weapons and tactics. Hostage negotiators are subject matter experts in their field. We turn to them, we just don't turn to anybody. 

So, when you're looking for the real solution, it's teaming up with the right people and making sure you get that vetted before you're saying let's do this.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, I mean and to make the analogy and facilities, I mean you have electricians, you have plumbers, and they are specialists. Just because you're in facilities doesn't mean you should be the one doing an electrical project, rely on an expert. 

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

The painters aren't doing the plumbing right. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Exactly! So, everything you just mentioned it seems as though it would be a long rollout, potentially a large investment and a lot of yeses that need to be had from top down to make sure that it's implemented. What are some quick fixes or at least to begin the process, what can you do to really have safety and security up front?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

So in SWAT, people will say band aids don't work in SWAT. We say they do because you might get shot and then you have to put your hand and put pressure on. You don't have a tourniquet and you don't have a surgeon yet. So, it's like putting a band aid on a gushing wound. Sometimes you have to put those band aids on. But one thing I will say there's been many studies done that if you do it right the first time it saves you money in the long run and that especially goes into security that if you're able to do it right, and again, it's budgets, it's yeses, it's everything. We always say eat the elephant one bite at a time. So, if you're able to say okay, here's my big goal is to do this. We're going to create secure classroom doors. On all of our elementary schools, there's 110 doors that need to be secured in here. We need new locks and glass, new doors, vision light kits, framing, hinges, all of that goes into it. We need an architect to uproot, we need all that take baby steps. Or if you're looking at the whole district, you start with one school, you see how it goes, you work out the kinks to say okay, how can we become more efficient? How can we get a better deal here? How can we prove to the school board that this only costs us 100,000? They thought it would be 900,000. We did it for 100 grand and now we're able to say okay, let's do 10 next year and we take baby step after baby step. And when it comes to security, trust your gut, trust your people, your people know. You could have districts with three buildings, you can have districts with 400 buildings, Clark County schools over 400. There are areas of Clark County that are in the middle of nowhere in Nevada, that are in the middle of nowhere and then you have stuff that is down in very crime ridden areas where school buses are getting shot at, you would want to harden up and deal with something like hardening of a classroom in an area where there's a threat of gun violence due to gangs in the neighborhood before you would do that in an area where there's less of a threat. Or you talk to your people and they say we got these too crazy dads at this elementary school. We need to do that one first before we work on the high school. And we take our steps of strategically protecting based on what your need is per district per building, per classroom sometimes.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And it certainly makes sense and we see that a lot in facilities projects especially with school districts where it is to email if it one bite at a time right and really, there isn't too I would imagine new construction going on with schools a lot of renovation. And I imagine the project you guys are doing it's retrofitting. That'd be fair to say? 

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

Yeah, we do a lot of retrofitting and remodeling and I would say the school districts that have 50 to 150 schools are the ones that are building 1-3 a year. They're getting a lot of people moving in to their counties, their areas and they're building but it's definitely not like a New York State. I don't think New York State builds one to two new schools in the whole state. They take old buildings and keep them living which our facilities directors know this is a nightmare. You're given now 10 buildings that were remodeling a $200 million dollar project across the whole entire school district. That's hard to manage, keep track of, go with and say okay, what's the priority for what we do with security which I always say it should be your number one priority. It doesn't mean you're spending the most money. Typically, it's the least amount of money but it should be your primary focus would be security first and safety second because if our kids and our teachers and school staff members are not coming home safe and alive, what are we doing all this for? And then aesthetically, things would fall into place afterwards. You could still have beautiful aesthetics with security, it's just going to cost more. 

So if the architect is hammering and saying do it this way, I want a whole glass front of this building, it's going to cost more to do that. There's data and analytics on this stuff where are the attackers going? How are they doing it? What areas are we going to harden? What areas do we harden the second or third phase because statistically, it's less likely to happen? An active shooter at a school is more likely going to happen at a high school although some of the most deadly have been like Sandy Hook Elementary where 26 were killed in about three minutes at an elementary school and it's the most devastating because it's first graders. But the truth is more school shootings are happening at high schools. 

So, if we're looking at it and saying okay, where's our decision and how are we doing it, these are good ways to guide and do it. But a lot of it has been retrofit and there's different solutions for the retrofit that we offer with security film or retrofitting glass to come in and take place of glass and a classroom door, things like that.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, it's funny because you mentioned the breaking it down from the whole school district to a single location and strategically based on the demographics or the crime area, whatever it may be focusing on one specific area and you could even go a layer further and deeper. And within that school, if we have x amount of dollars, we only focus on one area, you mentioned that there's data on. Okay, let's focus on this one at a specific school in this specific school district and so it's really going to that level of detail where to start?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

Yeah, and there's not many. Even I worked for the government for about 20 years. I worked for the government, I own my own private business. There's always a budget behind what you do. The only ones that might not have that would be like an Amazon, right? You're almost a billion-dollar company or an apple. It's endless. But the thing is there's still a budget behind it. 

So, like you said, if there's only 100,000 that can be spent at this high school, 300,000 square foot high school, what do we do? Like you said, we could isolate that down to let's work on our large group. We're going to harden those. If we're going to harden anything, cafeterias, libraries, large group rooms where there's a lot of people that the shooter can get to, how do we protect them if he's roaming through the hallway? We would harden those first and then we start to expand from there afterwards.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And as far as you alluded to data, what resources are out there and available for people to look into this in more detail that data that they can go gather and analyze?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

So for security and safety, I love the NSSPA so the National Safety Security Protection Association, nsspa.org. They have a lot of data, a lot of analytics. They have retired federal agents from FBI Secret Service, multiple sources and then they also even have facilities operators that work there. Keith Watkins that you interviewed at one point, he's one that sits on the board for them because we want people doing the job. They want people doing the job to sit there and say okay, why are we doing this? What's makes sense for us? And a couple of our team members from retired FBI and Secret Service work with them to collect data and analytics and that is released publicly to our schools and sources there to say okay, why are we doing this? Where are we doing this? What is the best practice? My expertise and security and now glass security, schools will come in and say I want to do the whole first floor. I'm worried about them shooting up this English teaching room over here or this wing, the art wing because it sits right on the parking lot and it's on the parking lot to someone else and I'm worried that they're going to come up and shoot all of our kids. Statistically, that does not happen. 

So, when we're telling them as a school, don't spend a million dollars with us, spend $50,000 with us and do your doorways plus your glass next to it. That's where the shooter is coming through. It is doorway, the glass right next to it, that'll save you a lot of money than spend $950,000 on lockdown systems notification systems, updating your Wi Fi so that systems work that you have phones in every classroom whether it's a Cisco phone or whoever is out there, what are you doing? You could spend that money in other ways. That's the smart way of doing business for us as a company but the NSSPA is one that gives guidance on that and says okay, this is what you're looking to do. Here's some real-world solutions that we're giving you not just from us as different subject matter experts from architectural engineering to FBI but also people sitting there saying I've worked on facilities for over 30 years. I've been an architect for schools for 30 years. Here's what you can do when they come up with those solutions. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's great and to wrap up this topic here, what lasting words of advice would you have for people listening out there?

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

So, my thing is you are the first responder. My facilities, directors, anyone that works in there, if you're a custodian mopping floors, you're a first responder. You're roaming the hallways, you know your places better, if something bad happens whether it's someone choking or someone getting shot, you're the first one that is there which makes you the first responder so make sure you have a plan. If there's no preparation, there's failure. Preparation is the key to success whether you're going off to college or you're preparing for a terrible attack at your school. If you don't have a plan, you don't have things put together the only person who controls that person attacking your building. So have a plan be prepared. You are the first responder

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's great! And where can people find you other than Tik Tok? 

Speaker: Tom Czyz  

I have watched like five videos on there. We are armouredone.com. So, if you search armored one it should come up, if you search fat tattoo guy punching glass, it should come up too as well. That might be the easier way but you can find those ways and I will tell all you listeners too. Whatever you're doing security wise whether it's a school, it's a building, feel free to reach out to us. Advice is for free and we give it out all the time. And a lot of times too we tell customers, you're not ready for glass security. You've got a lot of other issues that you need to deal with before you hire us to put glass in because it can save lives but it doesn't always save lives. So, reach out to us feel free and we'll give you information and put you in touch with the right people

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Love it. Well, thank you so much for the time. It's been a pleasure. I know offline we talked for about three hours but yeah hey, thank you, man. Appreciate it. 

Outro:

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