Facility Management in 2020

In this Exit Your Way Live, we talked with Nick Dorsey about what he saw in 2020 managing many facilities across the country. Over the years, Nick has taken on different facility management roles in various industries and companies building effective facilities departments.

Facility management has been a hard thing to do in 2020. The COVID forced changes in business processes and the increased risks for worker safety required quick thinking and comprehensive changes in facility management practices.

In this Exit Your Way Live, we talked with Nick Dorsey about what he saw in 2020 managing many facilities across the country. Over the years, Nick has taken on different facility management roles in various industries and companies building effective facilities departments.

Today, Nick shared a few of his endeavors on the way to efficient leadership. In the beginning, he talks about his experience at the Casinos. Nick says that the smooth running of a casino is quite a tricky job. Just to keep the entire system running, there were rooms with servers in them. These servers also had backups and generators to handle any fault.

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During the middle of the conversation, Nick shed light upon his views of leadership and how he got into this whole idea of team culture. Here Nick talked about when he was working at a casino, and he had this leader who was an empathetic leader, showed gratitude, and maintained a very friendly workplace environment.

That leader soon promoted Nick to a management level. Later on, Nick went to a keynote speech where he heard a speaker talk about the importance of a good leader to work under. After listening to this speech nick decided to dedicate his efforts to managing with these traits of leadership and applying them to effective facility management.

Later on, Nick talked about the way an effective leader or a servant leader, as he calls it, works. Here too, he shares an example within the casino. When he has a managerial facility management position, his job was to make sure customers are enjoying their time there. Now here according to him, if the requirement of the place is to maintain a friendly fun environment, then the job must be done in the same way.

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Nick further talked about the way the current pandemic has affected his line of work as well. He said that his facility management work requires a physical appearance at work. However, during this entire time that was not possible so it was seemingly difficult to adjust.

Lastly, Nick stressed the fact that when you are in a leading position, you should take people as people and not numbers.

Thanks to Nick Dorsey for sharing his time and knowledge. Watch the video below for the entire conversation!

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Damon Pistulka  00:03

All right, everyone. Welcome once again. With me today on the exit your way round table. I’ve got Nick Dorsey, friend and fellow Seahawk fans. Welcome, Nick. Hey,

 

Nick Dorsey  00:17

thanks for having me, Damon. Appreciate it.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:19

Ah, yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:21

Good day. Because you know, this is Thursday. And what’s happening at 520? pacific time today.

 

Nick Dorsey  00:27

Seattle Seahawks, football. Yeah. Again, against the team or I live in Arizona. So this is just great. Yeah. It’s going on with the neighbors. It’s a it’s a good time. So, yes, right. Got the Seahawk flag flying out front. So good times.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:45

The flag is flying high out in front of my house. Well, between that and the cougar flag. I actually have two going but you know, you got to keep going.

 

Nick Dorsey  00:56

You got to get up. salutely.

 

Damon Pistulka  00:58

Yeah, yeah. Good. Good to get you on man. Because it. You know, it’s kind of funny. I just thought about it. We first met in person at a Seahawks game.

 

Nick Dorsey  01:07

Yes, sir. That we did do a couple we’ve been to multiple games. That Yeah, we’ve had this had some adult beverages at Seahawk games. We sat next to each other for a game we’ve ventured each other seats. Yeah. Good times.

 

Damon Pistulka  01:22

Yeah. No doubt. No doubt. So they’re the Seahawks. affinity runs deep. The thing that’s cool about is that you know, when I mentioned your you are running, you’re running the facilities for a cool manufacturing company in the in the Seattle area. And you’ve been, you know, your facilities background is really pretty neat. All

 

Nick Dorsey  01:49

Yeah, I saw all

 

Damon Pistulka  01:52

puked on the screen. Oh, yeah. I mean, whatever you want.

 

Nick Dorsey  01:58

I mean, it’s all good. I mean,

 

Damon Pistulka  02:00

it is all good. I do have to say, I am impressed with the Las Vegas Raiders this year. Yeah, I mean, it’s

 

Nick Dorsey  02:07

gonna be fine. It’s gonna be fun when we actually can have fans in because they’re actually not gonna have any fans there because everybody’s gonna travel to Vegas to watch their team. Yeah, it’s gonna price some right out. So it’s kind of nice.

 

Damon Pistulka  02:20

Yeah, it is. I mean that I’m pretty impressed with their playlists here. It’s good. Yeah,

 

Nick Dorsey  02:25

they’re, they’re playing well, so damning cars playing pretty good. And you know, that team just putting along so?

 

Damon Pistulka  02:31

Yeah, yeah. So okay, we got Brandon Ross is the guy No, and a Memphis. He said, She’s saying load up on the Hawks tonight.

 

Nick Dorsey  02:39

Oh, yeah. home game. I think they’re wearing their neon green uniforms. So they always love where they play great knows. Yep. So they do like they got some people coming back off injury. But it is a short week. So it makes it tough. So yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  02:54

I don’t know. I don’t know. I think that you know, we’ve had we lost 200 row. We don’t do that very often. And we’re playing at home on a night game. I’ll bet if you look at all that stats and stuff that we do pretty well on those. And yeah, so here’s IRA again. Yes. three minus at the Raiders or six and three. There. Yep. Yeah, we’re doing same. So that’s good. And I do have to give them props. They beat the raid or the chiefs. That’s a great team.

 

Nick Dorsey  03:21

Yep. Absolutely. Great team.

 

Damon Pistulka  03:23

So So get off on football.

 

Nick Dorsey  03:27

I if we could talk football night, it’s all good.

 

Damon Pistulka  03:30

Yeah. Because, yeah, I’ll just stop there. Well, you know, your background is really interesting on it, because you you’ve been in facilities manager for a long time. And in when we when we first met, I remember talking about you, you’d been in a couple casinos doing the casinos here in Washington. And I was been intrigued by those just because, like, I have an inkling of what’s behind those things to keep them running. And you know, they’re, they’re a 24 hour facility, a lot of them and there’s just a ton of connected electronics in there. So what were some of that crazy things that you learned in the casino industry that were that you just go? Wow, I would have never thought of that.

 

Nick Dorsey  04:14

I think the biggest thing that blew me away with casinos, obviously, not the aura casinos because it’s just it’s just a different beast in itself. But the server rooms and the UPS rooms were you know, if you’ve never been around any big companies like it companies or anything that deal dealt with servers like that, it was just it was unreal.

We I mean, we we had you know, 1500 to 2000 square foot rooms that were just filled with servers and other ones that were just filled with the UPS backups and the batteries and everything, just the rack storm, you know and the amount of AC that you got to keep going in there because you want to keep the temperature around 72 URIs and Adam economizers. Like during the wintertime to bring in that cool air like that, I mean, finding different ways and techniques to keep those rooms as the temperatures they need to be.

So they ran. And you know, a lot of people, if you don’t know what the UPS is, it’s the backup for all the slot machines, it’s the backup for like computers and everything. So yeah. And I believe, you know, if the power went out, we had 30 minutes, you know, for the generators to pop on which they pop on automatically, but usually get 30 to 60 minutes of ups backup, you know, just in case a generator didn’t kick off for some reason. And that brings up another thing, the how much we had a test and run and just make sure our generators were working too, especially in Washington, not one of the casinos I worked at, power went out quite a bit.

So that you know, there’s a lot of money that went into generator, PMS, a lot of money that went into our ups stuff, you know, changing batteries once a year, big car sized batteries, you know, so just interesting. And then going into different rooms, like the pause room where all the data goes into I just, that was a very highly secured room only handful people had access to it. But man that room, I mean, you want to talk about wires everywhere. You just want to I mean it, it just gave you a headache walking into it, looking at it, you know, so yeah, but just impressive. All that stuff.

 

Damon Pistulka  06:27

Yeah. I imagine. And, and you, you’ve made me think about this a little bit. And I and I’m thinking about that there need the key power on and the UPS is and then the generator backups, that’s got to be very similar to something like in hospital almost not that it’s life or death situation. But you can’t just have 1000 people in the casino and the power go out.

 

Nick Dorsey  06:51

No, you can’t. And, and if you look it from the casino side, we figured one of the casinos I worked in, it was $10,000 if a slot machine went down $10,000 of revenue. So think about that, if you have a whole section go down, you got 500 slot machines in that section that $10,000 a pop, your revenue is going out and yeah, the maintenance team is not gonna be Yeah, how would I say that very favorable department at that moment.

So there was a lot of stuff that we put in to prevent that from happening, you know, to make sure everything was up and running. I mean, obviously there’s things you can’t I mean, they it just happens and you can’t prevent stop it from happening. But I mean, we took all the measures we could physically to make sure at least the generators work. We had enough backup in the batteries. We did what we needed to do up to a point of a transformer blowing or something, you know,

 

Damon Pistulka  07:48

yeah, it is catastrophic.

 

Nick Dorsey  07:51

Absolutely. Which has happened before and that’s not fun. No. That’s that’s working three days straight with really no rest. So,

 

Damon Pistulka  08:02

yeah. Oh, we got IRAs, wishing he could post pictures in the comments, but that it’s

 

Nick Dorsey  08:06

all good. But we took it out a little earlier before the show. So yeah, that take care of

 

Damon Pistulka  08:11

Yeah, you guys had the gift. But yeah, never get into a gift wars the media guy.

 

Nick Dorsey  08:19

You know, but I found some and I never do them hardly at all, you know, be it now having a desktop and working everything from that sit on my phone. It’s Hello, game out a little bit. Makes a little more fun.

 

Damon Pistulka  08:29

Yeah. Yeah. So that so I mean, you think about the casinos and you think about these slot machines, they have to be built pretty tough, really, for the fact that the repetitive hits on the buttons, the people spilling drinks on the damn things, whatever.

 

Nick Dorsey  08:48

It was constantly replacing buttons, even though that wasn’t the maintenance department that was more of a video gaming devices, VGA, whatever you want to call them. They had their own team who took care of that. But any electrical issues that happened within them, we would work on them. Yeah, you’re absolutely correct. People punch those machines, they we kick them.

I mean, there’s a reason why those machines cost a lot of money there. There’s absolutely i mean, you spend a lot of money on by just one machine depending and depending on the size, you know, you’re looking anywhere from 20 Grand 80 grand depending on the type of machine it is, you know and think about there’s some casinos have three 4000 machines, you know, and you can rent them. And you have to pay the distributor, if it’s Bally’s igt or ever a cut of your winnings. Yeah.

So at the beginning, it’s a good thing to do. But if you’re I mean, if you’re if you’re bringing in a ton of money on it, you need to buy those things straight out at some point, you know, but yeah, I’ve seen people punch. I’ve seen people put their fist through the screens and then get there and stuck in there. It’s like, then they’re trying to say wasn’t there fall on my machine, dude, I mean, come on. Yeah, kick buttons break. I mean, the buttons, you just look at it. It’s a consumable. Yeah. happens. I mean, a little bit alcohol, people losing money, not a good combination.

 

Damon Pistulka  10:13

So, that’s for sure.  Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  10:15

And you make it a point is, is, most people don’t understand the facility management behind casinos, too, because I remember a friend of mine was, was actually helping one of the slot machine manufacturers in Nevada, do some work. And, you know, there’s, there’s several hundred plus million dollar companies making slot machines every year.

And they, you know, jamming those things out. And it’s just for the US market. But so when you look at that, and then you know, when we met, you’re working with a, a sizable aerospace manufacturer that was doing, you know, carbon fiber work and machining of the carbon fiber machining metals, I believe, too, and then assembly and other stuff like that. And you’re responsible for a fair amount of facilities, right? Yeah, we had,

 

Nick Dorsey  11:06

we have four properties with 10 different buildings, all them. So we had a lot of different machining areas, we had a lot of different clean rooms, even at a daycare. So yeah, so, you know, dealing with a lot of that, you know, and working with that made it a lot of fun. But, you know, going into an industry that I was never in before, you know, and they brought me in to build a facilities department and build all the preventative maintenance, and the policies and procedures, you know, and bringing the right people, you know, so learning CNC machines, learning, autoclave industrial ovens, not like the oven in your house.

You know, and ply cutters and everything, man, what a whole different world. But God, it was so interesting, you know, I mean, I took autoclaves, like, you know, with my plumbing background, I looked at them, they’re very similar to boilers. Yeah. But with just a high end program, autumn, you know, interface system, you know, so, so learning the interface systems, learning how those all combined together with rise of heat rate, and all that stuff, which I know a lot of this is somewhat music to yours, because this is your background. Yeah, way back.

So you know, it just, it was it was a lot of fun. And I felt I really excelled at it, because I just, it was something new and I just loved it. You know, it was just like, every day, there was something new. Yeah, the machine stay in the same spot. Obviously, your assembly is the same. But man, I tell you why. Just all of a sudden, now you know, you have a million dollar machine, something goes down with it. One day, three weeks later, something else goes down, like, Wow, I didn’t even know that existed on this damn thing.

So you know, trying to figure stuff out. But you know, Damon, it’s amazing. You can fix a million dollar CNC machine by YouTube in a video. It is a real and that’s what we did. A lot of we brought people in to train us. But you know, you couldn’t wait three days in for a machine to be down to fly somebody in from like North Carolina or Florida or something, you know, you had to figure something out here. And even third party vendors that worked with the distributors here were so bogged up because they did, they couldn’t find the talent to work on a lot of these machines, because they’re so like, our machines were so specialized to us.

We had custom built machines. So you know, it was it was at a point to where you can call people, they can have an idea, but they’re in the same boat. You were it’s like, this machine’s not around. I’ve never seen this before. So why would we call them and to spend all this time on the phone troubleshooting it with the manufacturer, we could do it and save that money and get the same result at the end? Yeah, so yeah, so I mean, but that was a lot of fun working with that. And so

 

Damon Pistulka  14:02

in that business, and you they had a maintenance department, but they didn’t have the pounds, but you’re responsible for the whole maintenance department and everything in there. They had what they

 

Nick Dorsey  14:11

called a maintenance department, which was two people who really took advantage of it. And it was four properties and where it wasn’t around a lot. There’s nobody really leaving the department. It was just there and there are more reactive than proactive. Okay, so they, I worked with one of the owners at a previous company. Yeah, we didn’t work together for like, a couple years. He gave me a call.

What do you think about this? This is what we’re trying to do? Are you up for the challenge, went back and forth for a couple months, took on the challenge. And basically he went in and let the slate clean, man just start it from the ground up, do what you need to do, do what’s best for the company. So I feel very fortunate on that because a lot of people don’t get that much freedom and we do creased a lot of downtime on machines.

I mean, I brought in some pretty cool people that I used to work with in the past two that came and work with us. And we had a really good time, we learned a lot, and we really enjoyed it, it was, it was great, you know, and if I didn’t, if I wasn’t on a mission to move to Arizona, I would still be working for that company, I would not leave them, they’re absolutely just fantastic to work for. So very appreciative of everything they’ve done for me.

 

Damon Pistulka  15:28

That’s awesome. And it’s in it’s a one of those things to where we’re not many people have the opportunity to move in and build a department or a function like that from the ground up, if you can, so I’ve got a I’ve got a I’ve got to believe that you learn some things, doing that, that was was really new to you, that you didn’t learn in your previous job. So what are some of the things in there that you learned that you’re like, man, now I, I really, that helped me a lot. Or some of those things, you know, a lot of it was

 

Nick Dorsey  16:05

how to properly develop a policy and procedure, you know, to an individual machine, you know, cuz like, when I was in casinos and everything. The machines were the machines. Yeah, you know, the AC was the AC, you know, are the units they are to us were the RTS, they’re all the same repetitive, don’t get me wrong, that’s the best way to do it makes it nice and easy. But now you get into the aerospace industry, where we had on threads, we have horses we had, Oh, God, I forgot some of the names of them now.

But thermo woods, you know, we had all these different types of machines, where you had to create a policy procedure almost for each individual machine. So not making kind of bland policies procedures, which were the same was really research and each machine because they were just there was, you know, each manufacturer want to make everything so much different.

Yeah. And then another huge thing for manufacturing were the clean rooms, the regulations on the clean rooms, holy cow, I, he told me about it beforehand, and I was like, okay, whatever, you don’t realize it till you’re in the middle of it. It’s just like my goodness, and even regulations on the machines that we had to have through different places called like dad cap and or OSHA, or NAD caps, just a fun name for the aerospace industry. So as 9100 stuff like that all those audits were just insane what you needed to do. So it looks like Mr. Pants has jumped in. Yeah, you know, yep. Oh, I can get a little crazy.

 

17:52

But, you know, I

 

Nick Dorsey  17:53

mean, that stuff was a lot of fun. It really was because I like learning new things. Yeah, you know, I like continuing to expand my mind, you know, and my abilities and my resume or whatever you want to call it, you know, and it was just so intriguing. And learning a lot of those things, I think really is going to help me down the road. And it’s gonna, because it just opens my mind, it makes me think about so many other angles and obstacles that could happen because aerospace, you got to think of almost a worst case scenario.

I mean, the absolutely worst case scenario and work that way. You know, before it was like, Okay, this is what’s good. You know, we don’t want this to happen. But this is what we’re building off of. And it’s almost like you want to build off the worst, just so you have every single point taken care of, you know, so yeah, it was good times.

 

Damon Pistulka  18:47

Yeah. Yeah. No doubt. I mean, I look at the background, you know, first in the casino, because the uptime and facility management is ultra critical, right? Yeah. And in because of the ups and the other things that you have to do to keep it going. And then you go into the manufacturing where the uptime is maybe downtime is not quite as critical or as or as important just because you’re not running 24 seven sometimes but needless to say, the dollar throughput in an hour is significant in some of these of these manufacturing places for sure.

So then when you’re talking about to most people don’t understand the complexity in a in a modern CNC machine, and what it would take to build the proper preventative maintenance plan from the ground up on something and that’s the way to do that, that that had to be quite a technical challenge for you and your team. So when you when you’re doing this, and I’m gonna put a couple of comments up here, because someone’s shown IRA, how to actually Robert Murray, he was on our show and I read how to do that, Robert, you’re not helping

 

Nick Dorsey  19:57

us right now.

 

Damon Pistulka  19:58

Yeah. And pictures in here pretty soon. And then, and then Ron, and they’re starting to talk about the neon pants, which Yes, they will have neon pants, and they’ll be expandable.

 

Nick Dorsey  20:10

Yeah, Ron, you need to get neon green. Just remember that, that that would work well with your wardrobe. I think we appreciate that. Yep. It goes really good with Bitcoin too. So between Ron neon green pants and Bitcoin man 100%. Matt, you’re all over?

 

Damon Pistulka  20:27

Yeah, we’re getting with that are good. Is that for sure. So other than, you know, you’ve talked a bit about this, too. And we’ve been talking about a lot of technical stuff. But you know, one of the things that, that you’ve talked a lot about in in your, your video and podcasts and live stream with other people is that leadership and culture? And so when you were talking about is it when you’re in the manufacturing place? Would it really be a the start where you really got to experience that more deeply, because you were building this, this team from the ground up, or, or where you think that really started with you? That

 

Nick Dorsey  21:08

started with me in the casinos. Um, we were I worked in an apartment for a little bit that was just a very toxic, it was very bad. And it made it tough, you know, and then that person left do person came in who came in who was a very servant leader, to just love that leadership style, lead with empathy, you know, lead with compassion, but make sure we’re getting the work done, but enjoy what we’re doing.

And I remember they took me, then I got promoted up to a management level. Yeah. Oh, and went to a trade show conference, sat in the keynote speaker. And I remember the keynote speaker was like, do you remember your good managers? Everybody raises their hand? Do you remember your bad managers?

Have you had a bad 180 percent of the crowd? You know, 90% raise their hand. He goes, do you remember getting yelled at? Do you remember, you know, this happening? Remember that happened? These people say raise your hand, he goes, people raise your hand, if you want to be a good leader. Don’t be that person. That’s all it took. For me. It just like, duh, you know, but it like chain, because if you never really been in it, you don’t realize it. You know, and, and a lot of people at that time, you know, this is, my 1015 years ago, was still kind of the old school mentality.

You know, it was you’re working for a company for 30 or 40 years. Yeah, I’m gonna bully you. I don’t care what you say. It’s my way or the highway. You know, and, you know, now with this day and age of social media, and recruiters being out there, and jobs just being coming at you, and every angle that obviously changes. And it brings more of the servant leadership and empathy and compassion in and, and I’m glad I hit it at the time I did, because I got to see the old school way. And I’m getting to see the new school way. So I’m right in the middle of it. So it wasn’t like I fell into the old school way, because that’s how it always been, you know, it was just, Hey, I’m in the middle. This is cool.

And my mindset, Damon was, listen, this younger generation, this is what they want, this is how they want to be led. Fine, I’m going to do it because of the fact these are going to be the leaders 1015 years from now, these are the people I’m gonna have to rely on. So why am I going to just stay stubborn and stay in this way? Or am I going to expand my mind and get ahead of some of these people who right now are starting to understand and struggling because they have, they’ve been doing something for 30 years, and now they have to totally change who they are to keep a leadership role because they just don’t fit in anymore?

 

Damon Pistulka  23:40

Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think? I mean, because it’s a different it’s a much different thing, leading maintenance folks and technicians than it is, say, software developers are, or lawyers or, you know, medical professionals. What are some of the things that you really learned that because you had a wide range of probably people that were doing, you know, could be doing janitorial services and you had people that we’re doing high level? You know, I’ve been bugging,

 

Nick Dorsey  24:17

I’ve led people from anywhere to like a call center type thing where all they’re doing is sitting at desks, I’ve led janitorial crews, metrology crews, fleet crews and maintenance crews. And each one of them is very different. Yeah, maintenance crews are a lot more rougher.

You can talk in a lot more vulgar way to them. And they’re cool with it sense of humors are different and I’m not mean this bad against anybody but it just is when you work around more of the corporate world people you treat them a different way because of the fact you’re in a corporate world corporates a little different and you know, it’s it’s not You know, it’s not rough around the edges, you know, it’s, you know, it’s very cultural driven.

And that way, you know, you don’t tell crazy jokes, you do this, you’re here to do your job, you get your job done, and you make sure you know who the right people are to talk to, you know, so casinos, obviously, is a different way. Because, yes, you need to get the job done. You need keep the casino running. But what’s the main point of the casino?

You want people, it’s a party atmosphere, you want people to have fun. So what we really did was built our team into having fun with the people on the floor, the patrons on the floor. But but obviously getting your work done like we want, I wanted my teams to walk through, I would walk through the floor, I would know the regulars. And they would know my name. And I just go to them and just use as an example. You know, I see Ron Craig on the side. So hey, Ron, how’s it going today? Oh, anything winning anything losing anything? No, I’m losing my house. You know, and you just be like, man, sorry to hear, Hey, can I go grab you a pop or something or bring it back to you.

And you just keep those communications because you know what, it was my job to keep them in that casino. It was my job to keep them in. So you worked with those people, you want it to be with them, you know, you wanted, you know, to build those relationships to make them feel special to make them feel like they’re there. And the team’s the same way you want them to enjoy it. Go on the floor and enjoy your time in between your jobs. You know, I mean, it you see people went in and people are Yeah, you know, Pete, that happens a lot. You know, you walk over and see what’s going on. And I’m like, congratulate them. Tell them That’s awesome.

 

Damon Pistulka  26:44

I go,

 

Nick Dorsey  26:44

I know people that like hear this. I’m like, tell him Thank you for taking her money. That’s awesome. You know, what are you gonna do with the money? Are you coming back? Are you gonna buy something? What are you gonna do? Are you gonna reinvest? You know, I mean, just, you know, just

 

26:58

enjoy it.

 

Nick Dorsey  26:59

So then manufacturing Whoa, oh, my goodness, you know, I beat it, it gets intense, especially when you have an autoclave down that cost you 60,000 a run? Yeah, you know, yeah, I mean, replacing mechanical seals and everything on them. And, and you got, obviously the, the main leadership or executives coming down? What’s it going to be done? What’s it gonna be done? When you tell them this is gonna take four to six hours, this is part of the process, but an hour later, How much longer do we got, you know, because they have to nap. And I understand because they have to navigate the client.

 

Damon Pistulka  27:31

Yeah, we get the client. And the shipping

 

Nick Dorsey  27:34

that’s already scheduled to happen for the next day is gonna get pushed off. Now, there’s a lot of other things so that I’m not gonna lie, there was a lot of F bombs being thrown, there was a lot of this, but you know, that we just, but at the end of the day, we can go out and get a beer and just laugh with each other and enjoy it. Because one thing I try to teach all my team members is, it’s only work man, don’t take it personal, it’s work.

You know, it’s, you know, we all have to make a living, we, if we want to live a lifestyle, we got to do this stuff. So let’s enjoy it as much as we can, you know, and don’t take things personally, they get personal, bring it to the office, let’s hash it out. Let’s get it figured out and move on. I mean, we’re gonna see each other more than we’re gonna see our families. So let’s just enjoy this ride while we have it, you know, and that’s been very successful for me doing that. So been very blessed.

 

Damon Pistulka  28:28

Well, Robert, Robert Murray had a question here that I think is really interesting. And and I don’t know, if he’s asking us to record some facilities management, but interesting, remote facilities management.

 

Nick Dorsey  28:41

It’s, it’s, um, I’ve worked for a company where I’ve had multiple locations across the country. So doing a lot of these remote things with the vendors or with the local teams. It’s very difficult, I’m not gonna lie. We, you have to rely a lot on the local team. And sometimes the local team doesn’t understand what you’re talking about. Because they’re not there for maintenance.

They’re there to push the product out the door. Yeah, you know, so, you know, a lot of zoom calls, a lot of facetimes. A lot of just, you know, when you’re in a role, like I’ve been in, you’ve been in, sometimes you get stuck in it’s common sense to me, but it doesn’t mean it’s common sense to somebody else.

And, and it’s sometimes that’s very hard, because when you’re used to being around people where you can talk the lingo and the lingo is flying. And that’s all you do. And now all of a sudden, you’re talking lingo to, let’s say, a logistics person who is like, What are you talking about? You know? Yeah, Robert, I found me personally. It’s building the relationship with the local teams, being able to build great relationships and trust your vendors. That’s the hardest thing to do. It’s finding that trust especially You’re 3000 miles away.

 

Damon Pistulka  30:01

Yeah. And kind of

 

Nick Dorsey  30:06

sitting back and realizing that where you were maybe 10 years ago or 15 years ago, and not understanding the same things, and trying to think how you need to explain in layman’s terms, I mean, it, it is a struggle, and it’s always going to be a struggle unless you have a facilities person on staff at that particular property. It’s going to be a struggle, but there was a lot of face times a lot of zoom time, man, yeah, Tony, right now that, you know, you cannot show me the thing, you know, this is how you do this, you know, this, I do that and oh, my goodness, telling them, hey, grab the channel lock, what’s the channel lock? Oh, my goodness, okay. Um,

 

Damon Pistulka  30:49

you know, I was, I was talking to Jacob Warren who does it, it stuff. And he was we’re talking about this, I don’t know, six months ago. And he was talking about how the video has changed the way things can, can be done, because what you’re talking about the simple things can be taken care of with these kind of deals, whereas you used to draw us to fly a technician out all the time. But the video allows you to take care of some of these more simple items. And he said, what they do in the IT industry now is your technicians are only going to the problems that they can’t solve with a with a FaceTime.

And he was using FaceTime and what he does, which I think is really cool, because you don’t have somebody going out there to swap out a router that someone with, you know, can unplug and plug some wires back in can probably do in the IT world that saves the client time and money saves the technician, time and, you know, time that they could be doing on the hard projects that really do that they really need their expertise. And it’s interesting in some in some respects,

 

Nick Dorsey  31:56

I think it is. And I really think it’s what a lot of companies really got to start thinking about. Absolutely, absolutely correct, right there.

 

32:06

Yeah.

 

Nick Dorsey  32:08

I think a lot of companies really need to start investing in having a local person, um, a maintenance person, you don’t have to be the highly skilled ones, you can have a mid level one, but somebody who understands the basics to where I can zoom in, because like you said, like in the manufacturing world, how many times did we fly in somebody from North Carolina or Florida, or wherever? Because they’re the expert in it,

 

Damon Pistulka  32:33

you know,

 

Nick Dorsey  32:33

and 40 $500 to get room and board travel rental car per diem, bam, just 4500 on top of the bill,

 

32:42

just one right there,

 

Nick Dorsey  32:44

you know, so and if you’re flying them in multiple, you know, 1020 1015 times a year. I mean, just on their bill, you’re looking at 100 grand, you know, why can’t you hire a maintenance person at 75 grand having their have them be able to FaceTime that person, they’re going to learn it’s going to be a training session.

Yeah, we’re going to get a little bit of build time, a couple hours billing, but you rather pay, you rather pay somebody $110 an hour, sit in their office video chatting with them, then spending 1516 grand flying them out to fix it where basically your team is going to do a lot of the work with them. Because they need help because only one person came out. Yeah, so yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s a new era. And as much as

 

Damon Pistulka  33:35

Yeah, Robertson Alaska, that’s why Oh,

 

Nick Dorsey  33:38

yeah. Oh, it’s got to be complicated up there.

 

Damon Pistulka  33:42

I mean, you think about big equipment, you think about Okay, I got a I got a huge cat that’s broken down out here. And I don’t know why the hell it’s not moving. And in, if I can get on a video call with someone that knows what the hell they’re doing, and they can point me to it and I know how to run you know, the wrench on thing. I might fix it.

 

Nick Dorsey  34:02

You know, and I don’t know what the pandemics doing up in Alaska to be honest with you, but if they have to bring somebody in from the mainland, it’s an issue but number two, they have weathered deal with majority of the year so that that’s just another thing, you know, oh, man, I I don’t envy you at all bad.

 

Damon Pistulka  34:23

I talked to somebody about in in the augmented reality world A while ago and it’s been a few years ago now, but we were talking about things. They were saying something similar that, you know, if you have a piece of equipment or a like a complicated hv AC HVDC system on top of a building, and you have, like you said a maintenance person that understands kind of what an HVDC system does.

And you can flick up that that augmented reality they can look at it and it can show them what to be checking, and but it looks at pictures and just some of this stuff that’s coming out now. is going to revolutionize the way that maintenance is done on equipment. And it’s really cool to see,

 

Nick Dorsey  35:06

I think what’s going to happen a lot too is a lot of companies are going to invest more in their see MMS systems and BMS systems to where you can monitor it all this from a desk. Yeah, you could see you could see everything I mean, you can’t tell if the belts broken or, you know, if it’s leaking or not, my you might be able to, but you’re gonna utilize all your amperages you’re gonna utilize how hot everything’s running your oil levels, your hydraulic levels, they’re out there, the companies who have them are way ahead of the game.

Now, they are way ahead of the game, you know, and, you know, these companies I saw some Robert put on the side here, zoom stock. Or he’s Yeah, that that ain’t cool, dude.

 

Damon Pistulka  35:49

Oh, dude, I

 

Nick Dorsey  35:50

sorry. And Sorry, dude, it’s 88 degrees right now where I’m at. So I’m perfectly happy with that. So, um, but, you know, he puts zoom stock, and he’s right, you know, it’s the people who were investing in this stuff prior to this, who had that vision before this pandemic happened, are way ahead of the game, and they’re going to excel quick, and it’s gonna cause a lot of these companies who weren’t there to drop a lot of money. First, they have to drop pandemic money that they weren’t budgeting for now, they’re gonna have to drop this other type of money, because they’re gonna have to basically, replace the vendor coming out or the vendor flying in.

So they have to find other reasons. It’s all top heavy on front, but in the long run, it saves a ton of money. But, but, you know, you deal with these owners every day. And the first thing I see is, this is $500,000. That’s all they see. They don’t understand what the next five years how much money they’re actually gonna bring into them. You know, so but I’m not the one to write the checks. So it’s easy for me to say it so.

 

Damon Pistulka  36:59

Well, you know, it’s and you’re right about the zoom, the virtual, the video, all this stuff. I mean, we were lucky enough at exit your way that in 2019, we decided that we were going to do virtual, purely from the standpoint of, we had people that were not living in the same area. And the fact that in Seattle, for me to go from where I live to say we’re used to live, and that’s what is that 40 miles, maybe 45 that

 

Nick Dorsey  37:31

takes three hours.

 

Damon Pistulka  37:33

Yeah, takes three hours or four hours. Yeah, what the hell I can, I can do, I can do twice the client that I can do twice as good job for the clients virtually. And I can go see him once in a while I still do that while the crap now but you know, we can still do that. But you’re right, this virtual infrastructure that’s in place with these and and these people that are going to invest in this in their things, like they’re controlling the machines, and that the IT systems and some of the other stuff that the maintenance people and outside people are all looking at together and like they need to be, is going to, to revolutionize the way that that these things are managed. And you know,

 

Nick Dorsey  38:14

I won’t lie at the beginning of this pandemic, when it was work from home being a maintenance person, I was a struggle. Because when you’re a maintenance person, yours to be on the floor, your speed down, they’re used to doing the things, you know, and I took on a job in Arizona, where he was more of a corporate thing, but I still would fly to different properties. Well, that got shut down for a couple months, working from home, not meeting these people in person not seeing what was going on. Oh, man, it was a struggle for me, you know, and, you know, me, I’m a, I’m a I’m a people person. I love being around people.

But you know, I mean, it’s gone to grow on with me a little more, you know, you know, I’m in a different adventure now. And I just I think it’s, it’s all about who you surround yourself with, who you’re working with, and working for, that makes the experience a little better, ya know, and, but yeah, first, you know, we thought we’re just gonna work from home for a couple weeks. So cool. A couple weeks, turned into a month than a month turned into two months, then two months turned in, oh, the end of the year, we’re like, what the hell is going on? You know, it was tough, you know, and I live somewhere where,

 

Damon Pistulka  39:24

you know, we’re

 

Nick Dorsey  39:26

pretty much open. So seeing all these other people at work, doing all this other stuff, and being at home, you know, it kind of was a struggle, but you know, it’s all good. I learned a lot from it. Like you said before, I mean, this was a great learning tool for me, you know, I’m learning the virtual way. You know, I mean, we had it within departments in a building house three miles from me, you know, if if I couldn’t understand just get in and drive over there. You know, right now, if I had something going on in Florida, I just couldn’t get up and drive over there. You know, it still had to figure it out. So yeah, It’s just it’s been great. You know,

 

Damon Pistulka  40:04

it’s allowed us to bridge geography. You know, Robert, sitting in Alaska now watching this and we’re sitting here urine here in Arizona. I’m in Seattle and, or Washington. That’s it. So I’m talking states. But you know, the thing is, you’re doing your adventure you’re doing now in and this is funny to not funny but Roberts 220 miles from a stoplight?

 

Nick Dorsey  40:31

Well, the question is, being in Alaska, are you a Seahawks fan? That’s the class. Yeah. That’s your closest team, my friend. So well, you got I’m sorry. I’ll take that back. You got the Canadian Football League that probably Vancouver? Who’s got a team British Columbia is probably closer. But you know, we’re talking about real football for downs.

 

40:53

Like Canadian football team, it’s kind of different. Isn’t it? A lot of strategy. Thanks. Big field, too. Yeah. But

 

Damon Pistulka  41:00

anyway, so yeah, what do you what are you doing now Nick, I know that you’re, you’re kind of doing some contract work. Now you’re looking for other things to do full time. So I’m looking to do, I’m

 

Nick Dorsey  41:11

looking to do some facility work full time, now I’m doing some consulting work with impulse consulting, I’m going to help them, they brought me on as a director of business growth. So I’m going to help them grow their brand, help them grow their department over some of the strategies they do to help people with their profiles, and you know, lead generations and stuff. So it’s gonna, it’s gonna be fine. It’s

 

Damon Pistulka  41:34

a little different.

 

Nick Dorsey  41:36

It’s a little different for me. But I’ve been talking with him for a while I’ve been friends with the company, and, you know, they’ve, we’ve had some amazing conversations a great conversations over the last year. So I’m very grateful that they, they’re letting me do this, you know, in the middle time here, you know, to, you know, get some stuff going and everything and just, you know, glide into my next opportunity.

But if this opportunity works out well, like we’re hoping it does, actually, you know, this might turn into something totally different. But yeah, like to freelance for multiple companies. I have some friends to do that, you know, good friend at Bowman digital media, you know, freelances for a lot of companies does some great work, you know, so, you know, it just like he says, Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

So that might be the route I need to go now. So, but facilities is what I know, it’s what I’m great at. It’s Yeah, building cultures and departments is what I really excel at. And, you know, I just, I love doing those things. So you know, something’s gonna land right. And it’s gonna be great. And you know, it’s going to be well worth it. We’re sitting pretty good right now. So I’m very fortunate on that we were prepared. Okay, some, you know, in case, we wanted to go a different direction in the career, you know, so we prepared, you know, but you know, it’s gonna be a lot of fun, Damon, I mean, I’m really going to enjoy it. And I got to learn something new again.

 

Damon Pistulka  43:03

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It is one of those things. It’s a it’s a new learning experience, and it’ll be good for you. And, and, you know, the, I remember for me, it was 11 years ago. Now, when I stepped out on my own. I had no freaking idea what I was gonna do. I just knew that I couldn’t, I couldn’t keep working for people that didn’t care about people. And it was it and, yeah, I’ll just stop there.

 

Nick Dorsey  43:38

You know, I always say, you know, you need to work. People would you lead? You need to treat people like humans not like numbers. Yeah, when you get in that numbers game. It’s miserable. It is miserable. You know, and I’ve been in the numbers game. I’ve been in places where people treated like humans, and you know, and it’s just, I took notice, I took notes. I know how to treat people.

I know how I didn’t want to be treated. So absolutely. Never gonna treat anybody that way, man. It’s just, and, you know, got a great support system. So this is gonna be it’s gonna be a fun Next, you know, two to four weeks to see where, you know, which way which path I’m led down which way I’m supposed to go and what’s supposed to happen with my life. So it’s gonna, it’s gonna be a lot fun. I’m looking forward to it.

 

Damon Pistulka  44:29

Right. So now we’re gonna get on to the important topic. Yes. Go Hawks. Yeah. Yeah. First of all, just as say, Go Hawks. And what do you think’s going to happen because Arizona beat us last time. And they’re kind of that Nemesis team. That was kind of a

 

Nick Dorsey  44:50

I hate to call it a fluke. But God, you want to talk about every possible scenario that can happen for a team to win happen. You’re Up by 14 with three minutes left and you give up, and then you go to overtime. Then you get into overtime and you throw an interception, then you get an overtime, they miss a field goal and you get the ball back. It’s like, Oh, this is great. Then you go down, he turned the ball over again with which is horrible, you know, and it’s just it was tough to watch because it was a very winnable game.

Well, very, um, Arizona is great. They got lucky last week with the Hail Mary at the end. But you know what? luck is part of the game. That’s what people need to get over. It’s part of the game. And when you’re good. And like I tell people, like especially when I’m golfing if you’re having a good round and you’re shooting around par under par. Get close to that. You have to have some luck in that to make that happen.

 

Damon Pistulka  45:48

Yeah, yeah, no doubt. Robert said he never realized I’m a leader until boom. And you know, I think that I, I put that up there. Because I think every leader is put that down situation is like, yep, I’m leaving me. Well, what do you mean, I’m leaving people? Yeah. And you’re like, Oh, god, this is a little different. But

 

46:06

I love it. I

 

Nick Dorsey  46:07

remember when I realized it. And it was great. Because for me, I took on more responsibility. I felt like, it’s my job to train these people to get to the point where they where they can take my job. That’s the way I look at it. You know, come take my job. Because if you train him that good, you’re gonna have an amazing team. Yeah, you know, and don’t worry if you’re that good at what you do. Something will land in your lap. Yeah, that’s the thing. So now keep it up, Robert. Man. That’s some good stuff, man. I mean, apparently Robert, only one watching us. He goes,

 

Damon Pistulka  46:44

Oh, we got people watching me. You know, I love it. Hey, appreciate it. appreciate him. Oh, wow. That

 

Nick Dorsey  46:49

is awesome. Man.

 

Damon Pistulka  46:50

Girl. Name coming up here

 

Nick Dorsey  46:52

a guy 520 Pacific going to be on here. You know, we’re gonna be you know that. We invested in some electronics. Since we didn’t. We couldn’t go to games this year. We brought game sauce a little bit better. A little better. sound a little bigger TV. So guys. We got our soundbar outside we have out. Sorry, Robert. Well, we do outdoor living down here in Arizona.

So I’ll be outside eating dinner, watching the game enjoying a couple adult beverages on my back porch there. So I’ll be in a sweatshirt because it still feels cold to us at 80 degrees. So I’m just gonna die right now. I mean, we went I there were some stats that came out. I could be wrong on the exact number. But it was something like we went 117 days at 110 plus degrees. Oh, it was all bad. It was insane. So it was weird when it got down to 85. I’m like,

 

Damon Pistulka  47:48

yeah, that’s chilled. This up here that bad boy.

 

Nick Dorsey  47:54

Ira, you see this? Yeah, we’re so I mean. Yeah, but no, no good stuff. I saw he played hockey man. Yeah, sport, man. Good work, man. That’s Yeah, look at a hockey team. Now the cracking. Yeah, the CRO. I might just get a jersey just because that’s just an awesome logo. Yeah.

 

Damon Pistulka  48:17

I’m jacked about it. Well, Nick has been awesome to have you on today. Absolutely. Man. It’s love to be able to come on talk. And you know, we can talk technical crap forever. And it’s great to see what you’re doing. And we’re gonna keep in touch and keep people updated on what’s going on. But hey, Rob, everyone else has been listening. Thanks a lot. Just Happy, happy to be happy on and talk with you. So. So just, I’m just honored to have get you on let you talk about what you do. It’s just I really appreciate Damon. I

 

Nick Dorsey  48:48

mean, we’ve had a nice friendship now for over a year now. And it’s we really respect each other. So I mean, this is great when we’re able to do stuff like this with each other. Because when it all comes down to it. We have a good time. Yeah, you know, and that’s the biggest part of this. And hey, if something we said can help somebody else out there then awesome now that’s just great. So yeah,

 

Damon Pistulka  49:11

yeah. Cool. All right, man. Go Hawks. Go Hawks. And if the Raiders aren’t playing the Seahawks, I guess they can win too.

 

Nick Dorsey  49:19

Yeah, well, yeah, we’ll give it to. We’ll give it to IRA so

 

Damon Pistulka  49:24

yeah, that guy’s alright.

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