#27: FM in Hospitality with Derek Bacigal, IFMA 40Under40

#27- FM in Hospitality with Derek Bacigal

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  

Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the modern facilities management Podcast. Today, I've got Derek and Derek I’m going to butcher your last name, so I'll let you go for it. 

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Derek Bacigal

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Derek once again, thank you for joining us here today. I know we've talked to you in the past, I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. And for me, it's the afternoon. For you, you're just waking up and you're over in Hawaii, right.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yep, over in Inoahu.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's awesome. Don't rub it in too much. How long have you been out there for?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

I’ve been out here for about six years now, working in the hospitality division of Facilities Management.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's awesome. And so, I guess but before we jump into the details of what you do you and how you got into facilities management, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about yourself. A little personal and professional background there.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yep, so I love working hard and playing hard. And we get to do that year-round here out in Hawaii. Coming out here, I lived in Seattle, San Francisco and Chicago prior to that. I was born and raised in Michigan. I went to school for architecture originally and then residential design. And I fell into the facility management world through Ferris State University. They are one of the oldest FM programs do that my foundation. And from there, I started working for Dow Chemical, worked for the State of Michigan full time. I was going for my associates and bachelor's degree, and then went out to Boeing for an internship in Everett, Washington, which was a very awesome experience, I actually had the opportunity to work at the largest belly, by volume in the world at the time. We had about 65,000 occupants there every day. So, a shift change and just project administration was pretty interesting. And then I headed back to Michigan to finish up my degree program. And I started working for Dow Chemical at their global headquarters, and then quickly got picked up by Hyatt Hotels. And I started their corporate management training program in Chicago, which was good to learn a lot of different trades. We going to have you dive in that, largest Hyatt hotel in the world, which was fun. And then quickly got pushed out of there to lead us in projects that they had in San Francisco, which was super fun. We did about a $80 million pit project. And then once that kind of closed up, I headed off to Hawaii and started working for the Hale Koa serving those who serve. And then most recently, I've been doing that in conjunction with consulting through Aka Mines Facility Consulting, as I'm the principal, and also teaching at the University of Hawaii as a lecturer for their facility management program for environmental life, health safety and compliance.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

That's awesome. And so, we're going to go into what you're doing at university here in a bit, but walk me through that transition being from the north and making your way out west. And going over to Hawaii. I'm guessing now it's quite a transition for you.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah, I mean, as we travel and go about, we learn how different people, place and culture is and how important that is behind the workplace, in delivering any product or service and with what you're looking to achieve. And knowing the different cultures and learning them is extremely important. And it's just something I value a lot. That's why I like to travel, especially internationally, be able to get out there and learn how to connect with people differently and see what drives people and what their values are there certainly. Obviously, the climate was a big change. And living in the big cities was fine. Honolulu is a decent sized modern city itself, for me very remote out in islands.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and with that change, what's the biggest difference that you see from working in these larger cities now going up to Hawaii, I'm sure from, you know, vendor perspective or, you know, supply perspective, it's a bit of a challenge there as well.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah, there's definitely a lot of different constraints. First, analogy would just be same Amazon, one- or two-day shipping is like Amazon one week, and that's better than what it was five years ago. There's definitely a shortage in vendors and supplies. And you have much longer lead times because it could take six to eight weeks to get something on a boat over here. And then from the labor side, it's very interesting, because you don't have skilled labor trades and unions developing those specific trades as much over here, as you'd see in the larger cities like Chicago, Detroit, Philly, New York, or even San Francisco or LA or something like that.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I'm sure that's quite an adjustment that you've had to make. But before we jump into kind of what you're doing right now, walk me through just your story of what got you interested in facilities management. How did you stumble across it? And you mentioned that you got the degree. So, you are very intentional on getting into the industry. So, what really spurred that interest for you?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah, so I was wrapping up my associates degree, in probably about 2008, or 2009. I'd done building trades before that, and I was looking around, and I was like, wow, here in Michigan, three out of four houses down the road have foreclosed. And mom and dad or whoever have gone belly up on their jobs and their LLC is through the automotive industry and stuff like that. I was like, who's working, who’s designs building or at least maintaining and still making big bucks, and it was the buildings, right. The buildings, the built environment didn't go anywhere, the people might have when that commercial real estate changed hands. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing with COVID right now, except, like a surge rate, which is quite interesting with commercial real estate, in the next few years is going to look even more interesting. So, I decided to go to Ferris instead of pursuing more of the traditional architecture degree. And I have zero regrets. And I think that the experience that I've gained through the roles that I've had have allowed me to design and construct more projects than what I would have been able to at this point in my career. I've led hundreds of projects, ranging from a 100,000 to 2 million, and like a dozen or two projects and 10, to 100- and 20-million-dollar yield. And that's from programming, Contract Administration design, and everything, which is awesome. Because you holistically get to understand the requirements, develop them, push it through the RFP, process, RFQ, and all that, to really own it all the way through, like the architect will own it from the beginning of their contract, and then they'll let it go. But when we're done with it, we keep it and then we get to maintain it and call the warranty cause of everything. So, you're the owner of your own demise in that respect, but it's awesome, because you get to build it from beginning to end, and then you get to maintain it afterwards.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And so, looking at where you're at now, what you've experienced, and obviously, you're very passionate about what you do, what fuels that fire, what keeps you going in facilities management.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

I just love seeing everybody grow around me and growing together. I do a lot of nonprofit work. I’m on a lot of boards, I’m on a hotel lodging, and tourism associations engineering Advisory Council board of directors, I've had that role for a few years now. And then I'm the chair of IFMAs young professionals for the Americas. So that's about 113 chapters that we are leading regionally throughout the Americas, and then also working with the University of Hawaii as the president of their academic Advisory Board for their facility and management program. So just bringing everybody together and sharing that common knowledge of making FM a career of choice. Being able to share what we learn every day, so, our peer facility managers don't run into the hiccups that we've seen in the past years. And we continue to improve as we maintain and deliver the product and service that our occupants need.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I've had several conversations on the show with folks with the emphasis. I have the emphasis of broadcasting what facilities management is and focusing on the future of the industry. And you mentioned that you're the chair of young professionals through IFMA. So, what are you guys doing? What initiatives you guys have coming up to continue that mission to keep broadcasting what it is and, you know, spur interest in the youth right now?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah, awesome question. So, the IFMA young professionals has been a task force for a few years now. And we've had events and facility fusion and world workplace bringing all the why piece together which is going to be a member that's 35 and younger. And this board that we're leading is regional and now structured just like the Americans advisory board. So, we're regionally structured across North and South America representing 113 plus chapters and growing. And our mission is to create value throughout this membership profile for kind of like two target markets. One would be somebody that's new into facilities management, they're younger, they are in their early 20s. Maybe they're going to school for a bachelor's degree and have one or two years of experience, we're going to hone in on a perceived value of that and try to make that uniform throughout the chapters, while also doing that, for people like me and you who are still a young professional, but we're 30, 32. And we're, maybe a principal or a director or something like that, with 10 or 15 years of experience. That perceived value is much different, and we plan to hit both of them on the head and bring everybody together so we can rise to the top.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. That's the difference between the two, right? Just getting into the industry and I'm curious versus I'm established, right. And it's interesting that in the same group, value could be had from both sides of it, right. And it's just kind of what direction you're coming from. Is there a challenge separating the two?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

I don't think so. Because I think we look at it as one membership profile, and we're all in it together. But we link up with other initiatives that have same mission. So, the IFMA foundation or Faciliton or the SkillsUSA, things that you see happening, or even a local chapter. So, one thing you'll see us rolling out is toolkits and best practices for chapters throughout the Americas that facilitate a successful young professional membership profile. We're not telling you that you got to use it, but here's tips and tricks of the trade that has really worked for large chapters like Toronto and Arizona and New York, kind of the big players that have big established programs that are doing great things. Whether it's standard operating procedures for research branches of a facility management programs, through their local IFMA chapter working with the professionals that have capex projects that they need to get accomplished. And that's a win-win scenario for everybody. They get a capstone project, that's a real-life situation that they can present when they're trying to get their job, or their next job or when they graduate. But also, on the beneficiary end of whoever mentors them or helps them with that capstone project. They're meeting project requirements at pretty much a cost-free basis. So that would be one example of like the value we're providing, but also bringing people together at events specifically for the young professionals at world workplaces and facility fusion. And then also we've had panels where we discuss the different views of the different generations or our interpretation behind what facility management is and where it's going specifically to like the workplace, and in how the workplace and organizational development is evolving. And I think we see that evolving at a quicker pace, even just with COVID. The last panel we did was facility fusion, about a month or two ago. We had a panel of us, young professional spread all the way across the Americas, from the Caribbean, to Hawaii. We even had Maria from Italy, she represents the young professionals in the Europe region, and now Joe has been appointed for Asia. So, we will have a global young professional presence here soon, within the entire organization, which should tie us even tired together. Just kind of creating a future that is sustainable for this program, because the young professionals are tomorrow's facility directors and that's inevitable.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And you're having even more of an impact locally, obviously, through the university. To talk about that, what got you, you know, piqued your interest there, and how did you get involved with the University of Hawaii?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

So, I was a part of the McGuire chapter and I got invited to the kickoff of the program, probably about, let's say, for about five years ago now. And the facility management program was just in its infancy in its first year, and they were looking for somebody to run the academic advisory board to kind of help steer the program from their industry's perspective. And we do that collectively, we have a group of us industry professionals that help mentor the program, whether it's the curriculum. We set up best practices for, like internships or mentorships, or providing scholarships through different associations that we have not just dedicated to IFMA. It could be BOMA or ASHRAE or somebody else that's applicable to FM, that the University of Hawaii's Facility Management Program has a BA and a BAS. So really, you're looking at two similar degree programs, but one is going to be more focused on the business in soft service side and the other is going to be more in the heart service technical side. And that is very important that they have both of those out here in Hawaii. There is definitely a deficiency for facility managers, facility directors, and then there's a deficiency for ones that are highly qualified for those jobs. And this gives people the stepping stone in place to kind of rise to the top once they have a few of those lower rules checked off from the box.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And you said, that's a program that's just five years old?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah. So, we got about two or three graduates now.  And we've pretty much aligned everything with the new ABET accreditation process. And hopefully, once we get a few more, we'll start pumping them through. This last year was obviously all virtual, which kind of threw a kink in the normal operation of what we're just kind of getting into the rhythm with. But I think it's very good too, because it opens us up to maybe some people that won’t be able to commute all the way across the island. We only have a handful of freeways here and they get pretty plugged up with a million people on our rock and it doesn't make it always convenient to drive all the way back and forth to be able to be in an in-person class, especially at the university level where if you're going to school full time, you have a full-time job, it's a day job, it's just not going to work for a lot of people.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

And yeah, that's one of the side effects of COVID, that is a positive, right. Where we are so accustomed to having these virtual meetings now. And that's opening a whole new world for quite a few folks that, like you said earlier, they wouldn't have potentially not even gone into the program, if not for that virtual opportunity there.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yep. And we're seeing a lot of the retired military members come out of the program too, and that's one of the roles that I hold is director of facilities for the Hale Koa which is a military hotel. And I think there's a good connection with us there and also helping the service members transition out of the military through the UH program. The Department of Defense runs a lot of installations throughout the world that has a lot of Public Works division associated with supporting the infrastructure, and supporting not only our service members and our mission to execute our country's objectives when it comes to our defense strategy, but also to support their families, so, they can have like a real life too. Whether they're in Japan or Germany, or America, they still have those normal luxuries that any other US citizen would have. And a lot of these enlisted soldiers, they're doing the roles of the generator mechanic, whatever it may be to support those installations that are very transferable to facility management outside of their career there.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, we've seen that quite a bit. And that's, you know, one of the focuses of stratum is broadcasting this in general. But also, we've noticed how the skill sets, most obtained from military, they apply quite well over to facilities management, right, where you have to be resourceful. You're constantly coming across new problems. And it's not, you know, a traditional nine to five, and here my set responsibilities. And so, we have noticed quite a bit of correlation between the two. And that's interesting  that you're really involved in that piece of it.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah. And I think you'll see a lot of the military members; they have a lot of cultural diversity because they're there 20 years or so that they do in service. They get deployed all over the world. And they get to learn so many different things. And if you were just stay in Iowa for your whole life or wherever in the United States, if you're just to stay in your one little area, you're not going to be able to see or understand things and I think that, it's very important when it comes to executing FM at a leadership level. You got to be able to understand people placement process and how different cultures interact, and what motivates people. Because a lot of the time your CEO that you're reporting to is going to be different than your janitorial staff, or your landscaping staff, or your winter crew that's coming and de-icing and getting rid of the snow or your design and construction team, you really need to understand how to connect and communicate with everybody, to efficiently and effectively do whatever you're trying to accomplish.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, the part of facilities management that oftentimes gets overlooked is the skill set of maintainers relationships, building relationships, and to your point, having different perspective, from a cultural perspective, that allows you to build those, work more efficiently and maintain those relationships.  Because you need them, you know. You can't do everything on your own. And you do need a good set of vendors to be successful in this position.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Definitely. Even peers in the industry, and that's exactly why we have our EAC Council out here. We have our IFMA community and even our young professionals, building that network will just only make you stronger, right. Kudos to you, Griffin, for reaching out to me. I think this is going to be a great relationship. And I think we're going to see this push forward as the future goes on. And it's going to be a great thing.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, it's all about the network. And everyone I interview, they could think back and they credit a lot of their success to the people they surround themselves with, because there's a lot. A big piece of being a facilities manager is being humble. You know, you don't know everything, and you're not going to have a solution to every single problem you're going to come across. That's just the nature of the beast. And so, you have to surround yourself with intelligent people that have been there, done that, and you can bounce ideas off of one another. And that I can't put enough emphasis on that how important that is.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Yeah. I mean, they're there for you, right and they’ll help you in a pinch. And I've always said, like, you are a product of your environment, right. So, I mean, if you think you're going to have a bad day, you're going to have a bad day, if you hang out with bad people, likely, you're going to do bad things, right. Or vice versa with good, right. So, every day is a great day. That's a mantra I try to live with or another day in paradise, right. For now.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Easy for you to say. 

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

But those connections, they just go on forever, and even connections I made in IFMA student chapter 10, 12 years ago, I still have today. I remember going to the First World workplace and reaching out to some people, I'm still in contact with them all the time. Today, they're there to support me wherever we need it. And I'm there to support them. And traditionally, it turns into more of a friendship than a peer-to-peer relationship, the more and more you work together and get to know each other.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, it's certainly a tight knit group and facilities. Well, Derek switching gears here, going from just your involvement in broadcasting FM, tell me more about what you're doing right now. Because I know you mentioned earlier that you're consulting. So, talk about that. What your day to day look like, as best as you can describe it?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

So, the consulting is kind of on the side of my day job. But I kind of fell into this as I had lots of requests all the time for people to troubleshoot or help them with things that was kind of more than just like the peer to peer call on the side. They're asking me to do jobs or commission things. And I pushed it off for a while. And I was like, alright, it's time to do it. And let's just see where it goes, right. So, I've been focusing on specifically luxury hotels and condos, and how I have a very keen attention to detail when it comes to product and service design. But also assessing current product and service. And that's all the way through contract administration, design and construction, process operations, unit assessments, energy audits, different things like that. And then even just assessing their service and product design being like kind of like a mystery customer and writing reports and stuff on that. And giving them feedback as they know whether it's evaluating like the Michelin star restaurant, or going through somebody's physical plant, or auditing the life health safety systems throughout the facilities, all in a good manner to help whatever their requirement is that they have.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Did you intentionally get into the hospitality space? Because you mentioned that you focus on luxury hotels. Is that just something that, you know, that's just where your experience happened to lead you? Or is that something where you are intent on going into that space?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

It's kind of two-fold. I have a lot of experience in that. I am a certified hospitalities facility executive through the American Hotel and Lodging educational institute. And the luxury side kind of came on as one of my first clients. And they had me come in and audit kind of like their design and construction. They were doing a product improvement plan, which was several 100 million dollars and they just wanted my feedback on how they were doing as they were about 80% through the project, going and looking at everything right. Looking at their design, looking at their quality control for construction, and just kind of going through, doing a full analysis, a lot of weekend jam up there. And then, I'm staying over at the Four Seasons in Cololina, doing market research and connecting with Alan over here, and just going to see all the great things that she's done. One thing I'm just keen on when I walk through facilities is making sure color temperature is matching, and it's perfect, and they've done an exceptional job. I go through so many hotels, on a monthly basis, and a lot of people miss [inaudible 25:30]. We’ll have a light, but it's 3000 Calvin next to 5000 Calvin. It's just the small things, the details what really makes a difference in luxury from the place and the people and how they execute their service.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

What would you say is the biggest challenge that you face in the hospitality specifically?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

So, the challenge is different for kind of each property and depending on what requirements they have, whether it's the consulting, or running as an operator, and if you were like employed by the hotel, so hotels are generally owned by a different company. And then who's actually managing that, when you're looking at like the larger big full-service hotels that have whatever 400 Plus guestrooms eight restaurants, a few different pools, a spa, vendors, different things like that. So, the constraints are different, and their business objective as an asset manager are going to dictate that a lot. And whatever that contract management agreement is. Whether it's 20 years, 40 years, and what branding requirements you have really affect what constraints you're going to have. But overall, hotels, they're not like corporate environments where you have a lot of extra change in your pockets. And they're always looking to increase their NIBD as much as possible, while also increasing revenue right [inaudible 26:53]. The bottom of the day, your NIBD is really what you get to keep and put into your shareholders or to put into your capital renewal program to maintain your asset, continue to grow the product that you have now to become better and more competitive, obviously, to eventually generate more revenue.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and on the flip side of that, so going from the biggest challenge to, you know, I guess, the most enjoyment you get out of managing hospitality or luxury hotel. I know you mentioned, the attention to detail is something you pride yourself in. What about managing a luxury hotel really gets you going?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

I love the fact that I could be just doing my shift change meeting and then I'll go up and I'll brief somebody from corporate or general or something and you could come down, and you're helping a service contractor troubleshoot, why your heat pumps aren't transferring heat or from your return inside of your chilled water loop to preheat your hot water for the domestic water. And then you're going to the front of the house to resolve some issues on a construction job next to the pool, and you just get to interact with guests and see people really enjoying themselves and you get to interact with so many different types of people. And you get to wear so many different types of hats all day long. It really keeps you on your toes. But it's super great because you get to see people making memories of a lifetime at the same time, right. And that's not something everybody gets to do on a daily basis.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And you’re being the facilities manager there, you play a big role in that, right? Like, the setting and the just the atmosphere that you're creating, although you may not get the credit that you deserve for it right, of here is just what makes this feel unique. That is what really leads those experiences and why people come back and you know, the memories that they're creating, it does tie back to the environment that you're creating.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Certainly, and you know, in the facility side, my specific role at the Hale Koa, I oversee all programming, design, construction, facility operations, maintenance and operations, and kind of like asset management. So, you get to really, like I was talking earlier go from programming through the execution where you fundamentally get to create a product, right. The product in what you're selling, and you deliver the service on the operation side with the product, through the built environment is really what people are drawn to. And then the service is really the icing on the cake there. And it's so cool to watch that because you get to influence behavior of the people, place and process. Again, of both internal and external customers.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and you mentioned earlier as far as just the lighting, I keep going back to that example. But I think the different technology that is now being implemented with just commercial buildings in general. What changes have you seen? And what do you see in the near future from a tech perspective, and how that's impacting just facilities with hotels?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

I have seen a lot of it in hotels, in like luxury condominium establishments, like high rises out here, they're just building them like crazy in Takako. And you're seeing the integration of property management with building operation systems and your DDC systems. A lot of low frequency communications tying in the internet of things, right. So, your door locks are talking to your thermostat, your thermostat’s talking to your other door sensor on the lanai. And that's talking to an occupant sensor and that's talking to your AP, feeding it back downstairs, which is tied into the property management system. So, I know Griffin likes to check in and he likes his room at 76 degrees all the time. So as soon as he checks in at the front desk, boom, you're at 76 degrees. But that smart technology also allows you to monitor in the room too, right. So, it doesn't see Griffin in the room for 10 minutes, it's going to go into a low energy state and start saving some energy. You can trend that through your building analysis, right. Some of the other systems, you have it so far as to where it ties into your food and beverage and kind of what your preferences are, associated with eating or whether you like the drink of certain soda or beer. And so, they can proactively escalate their service delivery, and kind of be able to predict what your behavior patterns are. So, they can satisfy your needs to a greater extent.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

I've heard of predictive maintenance on assets, but I haven't had a conversation with anyone about how technology is predicting me as a customer, what I'm going to be doing and making that experience that much better. And with luxury hotels, once again, it is all about creating that experience forum.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

It is yeah, now even most of the hotels you go to, you can text them and ask for things. You can do contactless check in, and just use your phone as a room key. I think you're going to see that accelerate more with COVID. And that's going to allow these hotels to make more money. Obviously, they have to pay for the technology, but it's going to be much less labor in many of the larger city areas. Your workforce is going to be unionized. But also, making them a little bit more expensive too, right. But also, it is important to take care of your people, right. You hear that workplace, from Google in Mountain View, and everything over in Silicon Valley that's kind of trickling out across America, but even more so in hospitality, because if your maintenance mechanic or your linen attendant or whoever is out there, serving drinks, is not happy in the back of the house, guaranteed they're not delivering the top servicing, you guys are expecting them to deliver. And as leaders, we should all be concerned about our staff both in and outside of work so we can help them get wherever they want to go. Whether it's personal or professional, I mean, we're here to lead them to be the best person that can be.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and you mentioned the long-term investment, right, of that type of technology investing in your people. I'm sure you're getting bombarded with, you know, calls and emails that here's this technology that could do X, Y, and Z. And I imagine that's all becoming more and more common. So, you in your position, what does that process look like whenever you're presented with a potential new technology that can lead, so, they say to, you know, a better experience or better environment for your employees?  How do you evaluate those technology options presented together?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

We kind of see what we have going on right now. Is that an existing operation or product and service design that we're delivering? If it's not, what value is going to create? And what resources do we have to put against it to accomplish this new technology? The evaluation is also going to be a cost perspective. And then a risk perspective and more of a need perspective, because we're not buying things that we don't really need or that aren't really true and verified, right. So, we need good data. And I'll support both a product and a financial situation that would make it a good idea to do. Generally, once we find a solution or a technology that will develop a requirement, we're going to do it competitively. So, we make sure that we're not just picking up one thing on the side of the road and running away with it. And that we're really getting ourselves into the market doing the right research and doing the competitive bidding process to make sure we're getting the best value.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and you mentioned data, it's all about data. You can't run away from the numbers and you have to rely on them as you make these decisions to make these improvements, you got to stay ahead of the curve. And it's hard to do that without that data they're

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Certainly. And you'll see just more and more data being compiled through those DDC systems and property management systems. More things you're going to start seeing is like the smarter transformers where it's filtering power, and it's looking at harmonic distortion for power quality throughout your facilities. And putting temperature and vibration sensors on kind of critical transformers, at critical pumps and motors that supply your cooling systems or whatever it may be. So, you can kind of predictively know that they're going to fail soon, if it's too hot, or if it's rattling. You don't have to necessarily catch that in your quarterly pm or your semi-annual PM, where it might be too late. That critical system might have a large negative effect if it failed during critical service time, right.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, absolutely. And, Derek, I certainly appreciate the insights here and just your story, getting into facilities management, what you're doing is absolutely incredible. Really furthering the industry along. I've got one last question for you. And I ask this to everybody, but who or what has had the biggest impact on you and your career?

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Who or what? That’s a good question.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

So, I ask every time.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

I would say who, it would be Larry Belter. He was my Director of Engineering for Hyatt Hotels in San Francisco. He was the former North America Director of Engineering through the corporate office. And he just kind of went to that property at the end of his career. And he was a great mentor to me, as I was the project manager and kind of the assistant director at that property. He taught me a lot of things, a lot of things. But leadership was one thing he taught me. And was just always, whoever you're supporting, just sit down and ask him, what can I do to help you today? So many leaders miss that. And it could just be something small, it can be something big. But as a leader, you're there to support them, if you're just barking down, that ain't it. That ain't sustainable and that's not a good environment. I mean, you're there to help people, no matter how many meetings you have, or how many requirements you have on your desk. You need to sit down and know your leaders at a personal level, personally and professionally. You need to be there to support them and what they need. They need time off, or they need support at the house or what do they need, you just need to go sign something because you've been in so many meetings, you haven't been able to sign up a task order for a contract or whatever it is to keep that football moving down the field.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And I mean, that's a great point there. You have to have, you know, leave the door open, right. You can't just be you know, a traditional, stereotypical boss where, like you mentioned, just giving orders and pointing and saying do this, do that. You got to have that relationship and leave that door open. So, you can mold people, you can have an impact on them both professionally and personally. Because, you know, we're spending 40, 50, 60 hours a week with, you know, the people we're working with, so you got to make the most out of there. 

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Definitely. 

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Well Derek, once again, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a pleasure getting to know you and appreciate hearing your story and what you're doing right now. Really looking forward to staying in touch. And once again, thanks for being a guest.

Speaker: Derek Bacigal  

Awesome likewise, Griffin. Thank you so much brother and aloha.

Outro:

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