#44 Clarence Carson: Stop, Collaborate and Listen

‍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. I am your host, Speaker: Griffin Hamilton and today, I've got the pleasure to speak with Clarence Carson. Clarence, how you doing?

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

I'm doing okay, actually, it's snowing in Chicago, which is kind of silly if you think about this in March. It was just 68 degrees two days in a row. I'm sorry 50 degrees, and now it's back in the 20s and snowing. It’s ridiculous.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yep, I don't want to rub it in but I'm in Atlanta and had a couple of days of 75 and sunny, so I hope that streak continues and I'll let you guys keep the snow up there.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Cool. Cool. Cool. Thanks, Griffin. I really appreciate you sharing that. I really appreciate it, thanks.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Not to rub it in like I said. Well, Clarence, other than you being from Chicago, want you to tell the audience a little bit about yourself and how you got into facilities.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Yeah, originally, I'm actually from Detroit, Michigan. You can imagine being in Chicago is definitely complex. You had to root for certain teams here and that's hard to do at times when you're from Detroit. Me being a Lions fan of course, we lose a lot, but it's what it is and also other teams work in Detroit. So really from there, but live in Chicago. I grew up in Detroit in our family business and our family business was construction, renovations, demolition, real estate, a lot of other areas as well. So that's the third generation in construction, and moved to Chicago after going to school at Michigan State University go green for undergrad and grad school for construction management with a minor in facilities management, their regional planning. I've been in Chicago ever since.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. And I guess going back really quickly to the sporting affiliation. I'm in Atlanta so we finally got our title here recently with the Braves, which is near and dear to my heart, but almost makes up for 28 to three so I don't feel too bad for Lions fans. We don't have to go through that heartbreak.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Well, I’ll say this too about the Braves. Being from Detroit, you grow up watching WGN and also TBS, so you end up watching the White Sox a whole lot. we're a bunch of Franktown is still even though I'm a Tigers fan, some tigers and Sox fan and also watching the Braves. My hat collection was definitely blue and orange, black and white and blue, red and white. I totally get it. So covered all the bases.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yep, there you go. Well, again, I certainly appreciate you making the time to come on. I know we

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

have to highlight something that with that. Being a Lions fan and being used to someone's losing definitely builds your character. (inaudible 3:15)

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Is being numb part of your, does that add to your character?

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Yeah, you just haven't used the word hope a lot and I keep saying the word hope a lot now. It's probably rooted in my football dreams being squashed.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Well, like I said, I don't have too much pity for lions without the 23 nonsense we had to deal with down here. But I guess we could go in perhaps when I'm up in Chicago one day have a beer and go sold. I guess going into post school and getting into facilities, getting your feet wet, obviously had a quite an illustrious career and made it up into the CFO chief facilities officer at Chicago Public Schools

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

I always say the small f. You got the chief facilities officers saying the slightly smaller F. It's still uppercase, but it's just like super. What do you call it? You have a larger F, smaller F Yeah, just leave it like that, I guess.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah. Not to say that it's not nearly as important, but I understand you're coming from there. I guess tell me about that journey, how you got into facilities and made your way up, progressed into that position into such a large public school district. Yeah.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

In very interesting path. Again, most of my life, outside of school has been working in construction management and substructure management, either GC or CM, or even a program manager or owner's rep. So a lot of my path has been in really understanding projects, understanding the fine details of the contracts, the estimates and schedules, know my clients, know what neighborhoods need and then building upon that. As I progressed from the construction management side, it went from fully being engrossed in tall buildings, wide buildings, the details of buildings, specifications, and so on, to then being in internal audit. I've kind of like the era of being T shaped, it's free scope in T shirts, you go really deep in one area, and then you go wide, you spread wide in other areas. After really digging into construction for many years, I then became an internal auditor of capital and construction at an energy company. That kind of refined even more so my skill set and contracts, policies and procedures and policies and you can imagine audit his own space. People always like auditors I found I didn't know that going into it. But I still recall when I was in the gym one day, lifting like 1000 pounds, of course, in the company I was at, and I was on the bench press, and this guy walked by, hey you need to spot? Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. And I'm just lifting million pounds. They said a million pounds, right? And then this guy was paying, what department are you in? I was like, I'm an internal audit and he walked away and left me there. Sounds like oh, okay, so I had no idea internal audit was like that but again, it added new skill sets to my toolbox and tools on toolbox and then later on, I migrated to being in a global risk consultant, to Allianz Assurance Company, global company out of Germany, and again, doing risk assessments for major underwriting for this global leader and assurance AGCS. I say all that to say it added to my universe of construction, facilities, real estate, internal audit, and dealing with the cost and the fraud, everything else as well, the issues that can come up with that the contracts, and then also the risk management that comes through insurance and risk management itself. So all of that created a really well rounded person leader. 

I have children, I have a daughter who's 10, and I have a son who's four now. And by the time before I joined CPS, my daughter was probably in kindergarten or first grade at law school in Chicago, call Maday classical school [unsure 7:40] and I said, I'm going to get to your answer, I'm going to get to your question I promise. And, while there, there’s been really long period, I'm like that parent going on high five with kids, and the principal knows who I am and I can always hope our parents would be really involved. One day, they had a meeting at a PTA saying, hey, there’s an opening for the treasurer and my daughter at this meeting, said my dad, my dad will be the new treasurer of our school vote for him and everyone kind of  looked and they voted for me to be the treasurer because everyone knew who I was. The next thing you know, I'm this figure around the school now, really bought into where the school was going and where our city Chicago School District was going as well, really learning that I'm not from here again. Next thing you know, I went to say some higher ups in our school and said, hey, you hit the school, it would be renovated or expanded upon all goes into sixth grade. What do you all think about me presenting a plan to you all about this? And this group, the LSE itself is a great leadership school, local school council said as never been done before, we've tried, but sure we want to try it. So I put together an estimate, a schedule design, surveyed all the students, elementary school students and staff, the neighborhood itself brought in some leaders, went down to the school board, March 2018, you can look this up, I believe on the YouTube page for the district. I mean, presenting with everyone, and I printed the whole plan all choreographed and school board loved it. Now, when did they love my idea about our own school, I also brought the fact that there was two more schools like ours, that also needed renovations and had all the plans for each one cramped down. They loved it so much, then fast forward May 2018, the mayor came out to our school within March to May came to our school, did a ribbon cutting. They okayed our renovation and our expansion of the building, as well as the other two schools and I'd say that then say the next step. I got a phone call in May saying hey, (inaudible 9:56) to interview for a job at Chicago Public Schools. And I said to do what? They said to be the chief service officer. I said, of what? They said for all the schools that many schools, and it kind of went into that and I came in for the interview and that changed my life. I interviewed with so many different leaders there, and they all wanted me, the thing they certainly said was, we want you to do what you did for those three schools, the care, concern you put for the students that were there, the staffs that was there, the built environment itself, all the planning and the choreography you put in place there, we wanted you to do what you did for those three schools for all 600 campuses, all 1300 buildings, all 4000 employees in the facilities department, all 355,000 students, all 74 million square feet. They didn't say all that but you get the gist. And so I became the chief facilities officer of the third largest school district in the country, bringing all my skill set into it and the rest was history.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

I mean, that's incredible. I think important to point out the beginning of that story of how you had so many different skills and the journey that you took, isn't necessarily the ‘traditional way’ to get into that type of leadership position, if there ever is a traditional way to do so. But you took a little bit of every piece or component, every job or career path that you had and it all came together, managing the third largest school district in America, that's absolutely incredible. And another point that I imagine the success you have with that first go round with those handful of schools, because your daughter was going to the school, and you were familiar with the students area, you said you surveyed the students, you knew the community, it was very much a familial feel to it, from the sound of it and I imagine, correct me I'm wrong but that played a huge part into the care that you had about the actual buildings and the properties and the entirety of that project. Not to say you wouldn't elsewhere, but whenever you think your daughter is going there, I'm sure there's a lot more to it there and having that type of, I guess that mindset, I'm sure carried over to the rest of the public school district once you've gotten to that position.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Yeah, you're exactly right. Look, there's some parents that may go a little overboard when it comes to what they want for their kid in their region. How will they raise their points? That was not my goal. My goal was to have a structured approach to not just for my kid, but all those kids in that school, the schools, their school is a small school, but it’s for classical students just happen to be because they gifted smart, little kids. But those children 210 students, it was 96% of black students, I think it's 2% Hispanic, 1% Asian, 1% white school, so it's a really small school compared to the other schools in the district but every school matters. And you're right, me understanding the students and the communities have helped out a lot with what the district wanted to have in a leader. And, me being on the other side of the fence, I've always built buildings for the communities itself, you have to look back at my degree, it was built that way on purpose. It was always built around the building itself, how that building affects the community that surrounds it, the urban planning side of it, and how that building is meant to run forever. So again, construction, facilities management and urban planning, being my base degree going together, but it was a risk going into the job too I’ll say that part too, I want to make sure to highlight that thing. I was the fifth chief in six years so turnover is very high in facilities. When I made my first year, I threw a party. I was like, oh yeah, it's great. Mama, I made it kind of a thing. Yeah, exactly. But it was so much energy I wanted to bring to it. So much work to do and I truly cherish my time serving. I mean, everyone in facilities, you can't be in facilities if it's about the money, it's just not what it's about. You're not in facilities, if you're looking for the shine, either. Even though this may seem like a shiny kind of a moment being on a podcast, but he's really talking about the work itself that really went into it, a lot of long hours. Then we are working two, three, four in the morning and I'm serious, being in the office, even in the pandemic which we're going to talk about even 2,3,4 o'clock in the morning myself, to make sure that schools are ready, staffs and ready, that our team is ready to succeed and our buildings are safe. So even before that, we're the essential workers and that goes from the chief facilities officer on down and being a leader is important to me. And that does not mean going home early, you're on your team is on. During the pandemic, I'm in the office, or I'm in the field looking at buildings, because my team is also in the field looking at buildings, make sure they're safe. And to use a phrase that hasn't always been used, the best way lead from the front.  Truly, truly, you want to lead from the front and be an example, what you want your team to be and for me in no shade, or anyone else, of course. But for me, that meant being in the office, my team's out there, I'm out there.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yep, it's hard to lead by pointing and say, go do this without you being the one that's willing to get your roller sleeves up, get your hands dirty, and do it yourself as well. That is a pretty good transition here on really diving into what we were really going to discuss a lot of detail and that's how to operate, what made you successful. And a point that we're really going to drive home today is the ability to communicate and collaborate between various departments. It's not just facilities, it's not just your small organization, or in your case, large organization. It is the ability to communicate with your team, procurement, HR, really the entire organization and so, let's start there. How did you go about and what have you found to be most beneficial and efforts to collaborate and communicate with other areas of the organization?

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

I'm going to put this in two different buckets and for those that are listening, this is really important to me and I want to convey this. There's an internal collaboration and there has to be an external collaboration, especially during the pandemic, that I think is going to be most important for us, still going forward all of us, no matter what we're doing going forward. The internal collaboration, wasn't there for the facilities department before I joined and how does the facilities department truly touch upon a school district facilities and operations and usually operations is separated for education, and truly understand that K 12, is about the education of students understand that, everyone understands that that's true, that comes first. But also make sure that the learning environment for those students is safe, CPS we'd say, safe, warm and dry, is really important as well. Learning can happen without the structure and especially being in person structure being the four walls and roof, that conditioned space itself. So we are an integral part of that component to make sure that there's success. But with that, facilities a lot of times gets left out. There are districts around the country where facility is not a part of cabinet, the Executive Cabinet leadership. Before I joined, facilities was not a part of executive leadership in the cabinet at Chicago Public Schools, it was something I had to press on, because everything, all these fires would happen, or issues will be raised, even pre pandemic, about the conditions at school, cleanliness, air quality, the engineering of the buildings itself, pest control, security of the building, whatever it was, it always came up as an emergency for facilities, and they weren't really pulled into the higher level planning of the district. So that's something that I push for a lot, but I'm talking about collaboration. So really key for collaboration is between facilities, and procurement, and HR especially during the pandemic, maybe before that. Facilities, a lot of that deals with contracts, at least in the district I was in, we have the IFM program, integrated facility manager program but also a lot of vendors were very vendor heavy, either through our jock initiative job or contracting, or other means as well, for Custodio, pest control, and so on. Their countries come up (inaudible 19:01) every couple of years, but who's also maintaining and managing those contracts during the year as well is really important. And what we did with partnership with the procurement department, we actually hired on our own contract compliance manager within our department. That person was more of like a connection point between us and the procurement department to truly manage the KPIs and metrics we put in place on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, annual basis and make sure our vendors are meeting their metrics and holding them accountable, truly managing it, but being in partnership with the procurement department, really key for us, but at the same time, you recognize that the procurement department is increasing solicitations, write the contracts, put this up the bid measurable process, but it really takes our input into that and as well as the legal department, of course, and the other one is HR. Look, the pandemic’s really blown up the procurement department and all the other departments, the hiring, the loss of staff in procurement. So procurement department has had to lean on cooperative agreements, or piggybacking as well, put them on the staff and legal staff to also do that. HR, another one of those areas as well, which has been hit really hard by the pandemic. Departments need staff, but the hiring process has slowed his luggage. I know, CPS, though, we've done better with the background check process, but it was very slow, because we didn’t have losses and the other agencies that actually review those staff. So when someone's applying to your department, but they're also applying to work at Walmart or applying to work somewhere else, they're clearing faster for the other company than they are for those districts. So for that reason, we were having hard times of really being in collaboration between HR and procurement slash law is really important for the success of the district and facilities department especially, otherwise, you just can't succeed. And also budget, budget department as well for dollars, cycle those dollars in to be used as promptly as possible for all the more recent expenditures that the department had had to buy before, sanitizer was not a thing. In 2019 (inaudible 21:23) just soap and water and that kind of thing. But so many new things we've had to buy, facilities departments had to buy, that, through these, this partnership really needs to be there for success.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I want to go back to this. And don't let me forget to go back to the perching and just that there are different programs out there that have been released that aren't being used as they should be and kind of money's being left on the table but we'll touch on that here in a second. And going back into the relationship with procurement and HR in particular, what are some best practices that you guys followed and you alluded to some KPIs. What were some of the KPIs that you were following closely to ensure that you did have that type of relationship, you were collaborating and you're putting your best foot forward?

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Now, this is a part of like a 13 parter, or 8 part programming or visit this like every two weeks or every other month because this is a lot of information to give here. One of the things to I'm going to highlight and come right back to this was an internal partnership with external ones, that we had a CPS that were really beneficial for us as a department. I met with nearly all the major school districts in the country every week on Fridays to talk to them about those lessons learned in the pandemic. Things we’ve bought, our staffing issues, we cried together as well and losses of staff as well in the pandemic, our strategies that helped us out a lot externally. Now, I hope that others do the same no matter what department you're in, especially if you’re in facilities, you don't have all the answers, not anymore. So because of that, please lead on your county or your local universities, if you're in K 12, or your other school districts as well locally, or reach out to when you go to conferences and keep those maintain those relationships abroad outside of your state, because there's so many lessons to be learned that we took in Chicago, from Broward County, from Seattle, from New York, from Houston from Detroit, Miami, all over because we're all at different places around the country when the pandemic hit. We talked about some lessons learned.

 So we again, also with that team we had internally, we also met weekly on our strategic purchasing. That's something that we didn't do before. We changed our business model for this IFM model, which again, we've talked about this all the time, and IFM being integrated facilities management to FMO, facilities management office model, and CBS or we control it, all the buying, all the products and all the staff and came to us directly. You can imagine being way more hands on, even during the pandemic but otherwise meant you didn't know where every product is coming from, where you're going to receive it, where it's going to be loaded, where it has to get out from the distribution, out to schools as well, and also the dollars needed to fund it. And that's where our budget relationship, the budget office, a CPS as well as acumen office and us work together very closely. There's so many KPIs and metrics that we put into place as well, which I can ramble on about a long time about but it's a lot of lessons learned I can give.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

I guess, the follow up there because you did speak to budgeting and you guys really took ownership of that in conjunction with that type of relationship with procurement. How did you manage all of the different funding that was available and stay on top of that, because again, that is something that we see time and time again, where the resources are available, they're just not being taken advantage of and I'm sure that's just due to some potential poor communication or just not having the knowledge of it.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Also, I'm going to highlight here, the fact that I left Chicago public schools in November of last year so I'm now on the private sector so I want to highlight that part as well. Now, you're exactly right. When I was there, there was a lot of money coming in from the federal dollars from the state as well, that came about due to the pandemic, we received funding that we've never received before. I think, this coming year, again, we're going to hit a whole new high, it comes to capital development, capital construction projects, as well as facilities. But what we did was we really, look, I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It was tough. It was tough. These dollars are coming in. (inaudible 26:09) and we're somewhat being targeted for special projects, some of which may not have been our priority as a department but a lot of them were. I would say we took advantage of every dollar we could as an organization as CPS, no doubt about it, wherever the dollar was coming from, we used it to target our issues. Now, some of them may not have been some of our long standing issues like EDA issues as well and we had long standing EDA issues, make sure our builders are all compliant that still aren't already there. Our BAS systems, they have to truly manage every buildings controls automatically is still not there yet, either. It was something else we wanted to really target, you also want to target for a long time, cannot snap our fingers and use a dollars for what we would like to, but we were able to use the dollars for what they were intended for was indoor air quality, making sure our mechanical systems were the most up to date, make sure we have the highest filtration our buildings can allow, the purifiers, those units being all the classrooms, our water quality, of course, we always present our water quality being high, changing out water fountain bottle fillers, all that stuff is not cheap, either, make sure our windows are providing the most airflow as possible as well. All these things we were able to target with those dollars, we just couldn't do it all, all the things we wanted to but we still working on it even now. I still say we like I’m in the district, don't get me wrong, it happens all the time because I'm still a part of it, I still cherish the time I had there but at the same time, it was time for me to migrate on, had some really good opportunities, new leadership came in. We're on our third CEO in one year, 2021 and that was rough so I'm glad I was able to  transition out. My team is still there and they're all doing a fantastic job still.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, and I think that the areas that you pointed out, being very much putting the student and the youth in front of mine, where there's so many studies out there that show the direct impact that indoor air quality has on learning and not only from students but also faculty members, where we recognize here the last couple of years. I mean, hopefully it didn't take a pandemic to recognize the importance of teachers but with my mother having been one, me being biased think that they've been underappreciated, and still are to an extent, but you want to make sure that their environment is just as beneficial for their own health benefits and productivity and really shaping our youth, which I think is a pretty important job. But yeah, every initiative you brought up just leads back to that being a huge point and really interesting to hear how you guys addressed that.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

I just want to highlight the fact that we have 3.6 billion in deferred maintenance. Even with all the doubt, I'm going to make sure to highlight that part. You go from 1.8 to 3.6 really quickly, by allowing it to stay still, you can imagine there are a lot of prerogatives that happen in every city, in every district as well when damaged or somewhat targeted and steered certain ways. In the deferred maintenance, things break and I used to tell people to wear the break fix business. Things don't stay solve forever with us but we're there to be responsive. So you can never fix it all but I trust that the district as well as other districts have learned a lot. The building environment is not going to be the same anymore and as rotations are very high, and they should be, they should have been for a long time. But now we've learned a lot and hopefully we never go back to what it was like before.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yep, absolutely. Well as we're wrapping up Clarence, I do have one last question for you, I asked everybody this, who or what has had the biggest impact on you and your career?

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

Alright, I'm going to say the easy answer my dad. My dad is Clarence Carson as well. I'm Clarence Carson, my son his name is Clarence Carson also. My dad actually grew up in Alabama. Him and my mom didn't go to college, but they were high school sweethearts. Later on in life, they moved up to Detroit, Michigan, and worked like everyone else did, and did that migration up to up north, and had five children and decided to be entrepreneurial, and be innovative and that meant really taking a risk and a bet on himself. Now, maybe that's also what led me to take the job of CPS knowing that I was a fifth chief in six years taking a risk. But he really believed in community, he really believed in jobs and putting people to work, but also giving them the honor of work itself as well. So we hired throughout the communities he worked in, he owned businesses in, had projects in and he really believed in construction and development, and that work itself and that resonated through all the staff, and all the projects he built. Now he passed away in 2004, my last year of grad school, so I didn't get a chance to work in the family business and so on. But what I did do that resonated with me so much, and I connect right back to it, I enjoy construction, I enjoy facilities, I enjoy projects, I enjoy working with people very collaboratively and that drives me to one that can impact now in everything I do, but really with a build environment, how I work in the build environment and even now. When I took some time away from Chicago public schools, I then joined a facilities management consultancy company that's housed national headquarters is actually in Toronto but our base of headquarters United States is actually in Chicago, Illinois and I'm the Senior Vice President of that for USA. And we're looking to do great things actually with facilities management, really helping our clients and I would say our mantra is supporting clients and the communities that they serve, receive the highest facilities management services possible. And I believe in that, and I'm so excited to do that work every day, and bring what my father and my mother instilled in me, have faith in work, have faith in community, have faith in people into what I do, even now. So yeah, that's my dad I guess.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Yeah, no, I absolutely love that I could see your passion and that's why I was really excited to have you on today because I know you're one very decorated in the industry, have a phenomenal background, but only more importantly, in my opinion is the passion, the foundation of why you got here, you understand your whys, you have that passion that is certainly contagious. Again, Clarence, certainly appreciate you coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure going to have to have you on again in some time and there's  million other topics we could talk about so looking forward to staying in touch and we'll be talking soon hopefully on the podcast once again.

Speaker: Clarence Carson  

That’s awesome. Looking forward to it. There's a lot of some talk about Facilities and Operations.

Speaker: Griffin Hamilton  

Absolutely. Well, hey, man we'll be talking soon. 

Outro:

Thanks for listening to another episode of the modern facilities management podcast. Make sure to subscribe for future episodes and visit our website stratumcommunity.com for more facilities management content.

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