As we reflect on this last year, we wanted to re-air this great conversation with David D’Amore, Assistant Vice President – Facility Services at Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc.! In this episode, he brings a refreshingly practical and grounded perspective to leadership. His journey illustrates how embracing discomfort, leaning into unfamiliar challenges, and staying aligned with clear organizational priorities can shape a more capable, confident, and influential facility leader.
In this episode, you’ll hear how David’s philosophy of intentional growth has guided his career and why pushing beyond your comfort zone is essential for developing resilience, strategic clarity, and team cohesion. He also breaks down the pillars that have shaped his approach to managing complex operations, fostering collaboration across departments, and navigating change with consistency and purpose.
Additionally, David offers thoughtful insights on continuous learning, strengthening cross-functional partnerships, and understanding the broader business impacts that facility teams influence every day.
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In this special holiday episode, Jay Culbert offers a message of gratitude, reflecting on the past year and sharing exciting news about the future of Facility Rockstars. The episode begins by thanking the entire community, from weekly listeners to long-time and new members. Jay emphasizes that the show's growth and vitality are a "real testament" to the engagement, feedback, and shared knowledge within the community. He reinforces the core mission of Facility Rock Stars: "honoring the unsung heroes of our everyday lives," facility professionals, and consistently bringing like-minded people together who are actively willing to share and help one another.
Jay also highlights several 2025 events and milestones, including an educational forum hosted by Dan O'Connell and his team at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in March, the summer Swim with a Mission fundraiser events, which included paintball and a Gold Star dinner, the booth at the ISPE event in Gillette Stadium in October, and the annual fall event hosted by Tim Scarpa and his team at Avalon's Sky Lounge. Jay extends a special thank you to guest speakers, particularly three-time Navy SEAL speaker Sal DeFranco and first-time speaker Wayne, and acknowledges the support from board members of the IFMA and AFE Boston and Worcester chapters. Looking ahead to 2026, the community can anticipate more episodes, an educational collaboration series with Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and more events focused on education, entertainment, and connection. Jay concludes with a warm, happy holiday and New Year wish, encouraging everyone to rest, celebrate, and appreciate their supporters.
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Max Young, Regional Director of Facilities at ESFM, explores what truly defines effective leadership in facilities management. Drawing from his journey through the trades into executive leadership, Max shares how his hands-on background shaped a people-first philosophy rooted in empathy, authenticity, and connection.
Max challenges traditional ideas of workplace culture, explaining why culture is not built through annual events but through everyday actions, consistent presence, and intentional leadership. He dives into the concept of subcultures within facilities teams, from engineers to janitorial staff to AV teams, and explains why leaders must understand and respect each group to create a cohesive operation. Throughout the conversation, Max emphasizes the importance of communication, continuous feedback, and succession planning, offering practical insights for leaders at every stage of their careers.
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Derek Bettencourt, a seasoned facilities and property management professional with over 15 years of experience spanning biotech, life sciences, and commercial properties, shares his unique career path, which literally started at age 12, working in the ditches of his father’s irrigation company, to his most recent role as a Facility Manager at a multi-billion dollar life science company. He emphasizes that wearing every single hat in the industry, from technician to lead engineer, has been his greatest strength, allowing him to bridge the "misunderstanding" between vendors, customers, and internal teams through appreciation and empathy.
Derek illustrates the power of this hands-on experience with two phenomenal stories. The first involves a simple sprinkler repair at a historic, multi-faceted Cambridge building that turned into a 45-minute sprint to shut off 150 PSI of cross-fed live street pressure, resulting in a basement swimming pool and a 50-hour cleanup. This catastrophe became the catalyst for him to take full ownership and map out the entire complex system, ultimately leading to permanent solutions. He also discusses his love for tackling challenges, preferring old, complex buildings over new ones, and shares a heartwarming personal story about how fixing a phone stuck in a treadmill led him to meet his wife. Finally, he offers powerful, two-part advice for both new and established professionals, highlighting the importance of mentorship and learning to "love to lose" in the grind of daily facility management.
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Joe Gilliland, a returning guest with over two decades of experience in HSE initiatives, and Paul Timko, a leader in the health, safety, and medical industries with a 15-plus-year career spanning medical device sales, marketing, and strategic growth. The discussion centers on the surprising and often overlooked role of topical pain relief in the workplace, a subject Joe Gilliland only learned about six months prior, despite his 27 years in the field.
Joe and Paul discuss how topical pain relievers, particularly those using menthol, are a vital, non-disruptive, and cost-effective tool for HSE professionals. Traditional treatments for musculoskeletal disorders or impact injuries involve oral pain relievers, ice, and time away from work. In contrast, topical pain relief allows an employee to get immediate care, apply the ointment, and quickly return to work, ultimately reducing downtime. Paul explains the science, noting that menthol topicals are FDA-regulated OTCs that have two mechanisms of action: local cryotherapy and interrupting the pain signal by attaching to the TRPM8 receptors. Critically, as Joe points out, these products treat symptoms without triggering OSHA recordability, which is a significant advantage for safety and health managers looking to keep injury rates down. The speakers encourage listeners to drop the historical stigma and recognize the clinical foundation and recent innovation in these products as a proactive health and wellness tool.
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Part two of our special live compilation from the Avalon Bay North Station Sky Lounge dives deeper into the operational and cultural heart of facility management. A major theme in this instalment is the critical importance of cohesive teams and mentorship. Guests shared powerful personal stories: Dr Ashraf Omran highlighted the successful, collaborative effort to build a $2 million Operational Controls Lab at Mass Maritime, which is now inspiring high schools to build their own labs. Paul Donhauser, whose facilities remit spans 173 countries, detailed the intense challenge and incredible return of integrating siloed global teams into a single, high-performing unit. The discussion emphasized that the facility world often feels like running a "floating city," requiring diverse skills and mutual respect.
Innovation and future challenges remain top of mind. Andrew DelPrete reinforced the conversation around AI and automation, describing the next evolution of Building Automation Systems (BAS) where AI sensors allow FMs to literally "have a conversation with your building." Frank Rhodes II from IFMA Boston addressed the pressing, specific Boston-area challenges of sustainability, electrification (like "Alberto 2.0"), and capital planning against the constraints of the local grid. Most profoundly, guests celebrated the Facility Rockstars community itself, describing it as an essential forum where professionals can escape the feeling of being an "unsung hero" and sacrifice their own time and energy to help one another, fostering a genuine, mission-driven team mentality across the entire industry.
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This special first installment of our Avalon Bay event compilation captures the energy, insights, and conversations from the Facility Rockstars live event, hosted 35 floors above the TD Garden at the scenic Avalon Bay North Station Sky Lounge in Boston. The professionals gathered, many of whom are past podcast guests, offered powerful perspectives on the state and future of facility management. A dominant theme was the immediate impact and future potential of AI, with guests like Michael and Harvey confirming they are already using it daily for tasks ranging from proposal analysis and optimizing emails to pulling data from Internet of Things (IoT) devices and Building Management Systems (BMS). They envision AI becoming a mainstream, cost-effective tool within the next three to five years, significantly improving efficiency.
Beyond technology, the discussion highlighted significant workforce and community dynamics. Matt pointed to the blending of the experienced, retiring workforce with a new generation as the biggest current challenge, noting the shift in how the new generation operates. Several guests, including Dave and Mike, emphasized the critical nature of teamwork and community, sharing recent project challenges (like coordinating complex floor installations or defense contracting projects) that required intense, multi-departmental cooperation. They universally praised the Facility Rockstars community for providing a crucial forum where professionals, who often feel "alone on an island," can share experiences, solve common problems, and develop professionally.
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Lori Santoli, executive EHS leader, joins "Facility Rock Stars" to share her mission-driven approach to environmental, health, and safety. She details her biggest career lesson: "You get more done by being nice". Lori explains that in a regulatory-driven field, building a collaborative culture where people are invested in solutions and trust leaders enough to raise concerns is the key to creating a truly safe workplace.
The conversation also dives into critical EHS strategies, including the urgent need to shift focus from traditional OSHA recordability metrics to preventing Serious Injuries and Fatalities (SIF). Lori provides actionable advice on how to integrate EHS directly into a company's daily operating system using tools like tier meetings and Gemba walks. She also shares novel approaches, such as using athletic trainers to proactively manage ergonomic injuries and the importance of involving all employee levels, especially middle management, in risk assessments.
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Kahn Chace, Building Maintenance Manager at Milton Academy, shares his incredible journey from starting as a custodian to becoming a facilities leader. He details how his hands-on experience at every level shaped his management philosophy, which is built on two core pillars: communication and teamwork. Kahn emphasizes that clear, honest communication—both up and down the chain—is the key to motivating a team, building morale, and solving problems effectively before they become catastrophes.
Kahn also dives into the practical side of modernizing a facilities department. He discusses the massive project of replacing an outdated, paper-based work order system with a dynamic digital platform. This move revolutionized his team's preventive maintenance program by highlighting critical gaps and dramatically improving transparency with the campus community. He also shares his team's systematic approach to Facility Condition Assessments (FCAs) and the unexpected challenge of rebuilding a department's "brain trust" after losing several key, long-term staff members in a short period.
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Michael Bernabei, Chief Facilities Engineering Manager for Life Sciences at Hobbs Brook Real Estate. Michael shares his core philosophy, "prepare for the worst and hope for the best,” illustrated by a harrowing story of an arctic chill event that tested his team's emergency preparedness. The discussion centers on the "soft skills" that create a high-performing facilities department, particularly Michael's emphasis on building a team with a "growth mindset". He explains why he values "hungry" engineers willing to learn over those who are more knowledgeable but "stuck in their ways".
Michael also dives into the technical side of his role, detailing strategies for managing both legacy and modern buildings. He stresses the importance of long-term capital planning to avoid being blindsided by failing equipment. He explains how he uses a Building Management System (BMS) with "curiosity" to run trends and optimize mechanical systems, and how energy profiling software helps detect excess consumption. Ultimately, Michael’s leadership approach, from approachability to clear communication, is driven by one goal: to "drive a great tenant experience" that feels like a "five-star resort".
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Jessica Goodhue, a seasoned EH&S Manager at Channel Fish Processing, discusses her extensive experience spanning from the manufacturing floors of Massachusetts to the remote and challenging environments of the Alaskan seafood industry. Jessica emphasizes that effective communication is the single most critical lesson from her career, detailing how it builds trust, overcomes significant language and cultural barriers with a diverse international workforce, and fosters true collaboration. She shares powerful stories of creating an inclusive and safe environment for employees from countries like Mexico, Somalia, Ukraine, and Fiji, which required adapting everything from housing and dietary plans to daily operational training.
The conversation explores the unique complexities of working in remote locations, including logistical hurdles like planning around volcanic ash, adapting to life on processing vessels that operate as "small floating towns," and implementing robust safety programs where no municipal fire or police services exist. Jessica shares her core EHS philosophy: a program is only successful if it's visible, actively implemented, and genuinely helps employees in their daily tasks. Using real-world examples, she illustrates the power of "thinking outside the box" to automate processes, reduce human error, and solve complex environmental challenges like improving wastewater quality by examining the entire upstream chemical handling lifecycle.
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In this special edition of Facility Rockstars, we take you inside the recent ISPE event at the iconic Gillette Stadium for a fast-paced compilation of conversations with professionals across biotech, pharma, life sciences, and facilities management. Hosted by the producer of Facility Rockstars, Amanda Goyette, chats with attendees from organizations like CBRE, Moderna, CHA, New England Biolabs, and more, asking each guest a few simple questions in order to create connections. The result is a lively snapshot of how diverse, curious, and connected the facilities world truly is, with plenty of laughs, sports banter, and thoughtful insights about building stronger industry relationships.
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This special episode is a celebration of the incredible women making a significant impact in the facilities management industry. We hear directly from female leaders who are shaping the future of the field with a core philosophy that leadership is about people, not just buildings. These experts share their experiences managing vast, multi-campus institutions by acting as a "conductor" for diverse departments like procurement, risk management, and capital planning. They offer a masterclass in building positive team culture through bold strategies like the "no assholes rule," which prioritizes humility and team cohesion over raw technical skill. The conversation highlights their innovative approaches to talent management, effective change implementation, and fostering a proactive, hospitality-minded service culture. Listeners will also gain invaluable insights into their expert handling of technical and safety challenges, from using causal analysis for incident investigation to leveraging data through custom "control towers" and improving processes with accessible technology like mobile ticketing and QR code audits.
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Mark Bloodworth, Founder of Lifeblood Performance and a powerhouse in building high-performing teams,shares his core leadership philosophy, "Tell Less, Ask More," a powerful framework designed to close the gap between management and the workforce. He explains why leaders should stop providing all the answers and start asking questions to unlock their team's "Frontline Intelligence"—the deep, intimate knowledge that employees have about their own processes. Through compelling stories from his time at Kodak and recent client successes, Mark illustrates how this approach builds confidence, engagement, and a culture of continuous improvement focused on people, not just processes. This episode is a masterclass for any leader looking to empower their unsung heroes and transform their team into a true asset.
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Captain Jamie McDonald, Dean of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Massachusetts Maritime Academy, shares insights from his extensive career as a marine engineer, educator, and leader. He introduces his core management philosophy that performance is a product of ability multiplied by motivation, providing a framework for diagnosing and solving personnel challenges. Captain McDonald discusses the importance of creating policy to implement vision, using his own efforts to establish new graduate programs—like the "Four plus One" and a potential doctoral degree—as prime examples. He also touches on the significance of financial literacy for engineers, innovative energy projects at the MMA campus, and a harrowing story of surviving a storm at sea that shaped his perspective on overcoming challenges.
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Mark Netherton, Maintenance Manager at Grower Direct Farms, New England's largest greenhouse, shares insights from his diverse career in chemical and dairy manufacturing, explaining how the core principles of maintenance management translate to the unique environment of a 50-acre indoor farm. He emphasizes that patience is the most crucial lesson he's learned, as priorities on the floor can shift in an instant. The conversation covers the importance of creating a work environment where employees feel a sense of joy and fulfillment, which Mark sees as essential for long-term success.
The discussion takes a dramatic turn as Mark recounts a devastating fire that affected 30% of their facility, wiping out all supporting departments, from shipping to the boiler room. He shares the incredible story of how the entire team, from the owner to the operators, rallied together to restore power, water, and air within 48 hours. Through this experience and his day-to-day leadership, Mark illustrates how building a proactive, empowered, and resilient team is the key to overcoming any challenge.
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Don Bezek, Director of Global Health and Safety at Griffith Foods, shares his core philosophy that safety is ultimately about serving and protecting people, a principle embodied in his company's motto, "Nothing you do here will be as important as going home to your family and loved ones".
Don discusses how Lean principles can be powerfully applied to health and safety, viewing injuries as the ultimate form of waste. He explains how tools like Kaizen events, tiered meetings, and root cause analysis help engage employees and create a safer work environment. A key theme is the importance of closing the communication loop with employees; Don details how Griffith Foods implemented a multilingual, QR-code-based system with their partner, Origami Risk, to make it easy for employees to report concerns and see tangible results. The conversation also explores the unique cultural nuances of managing safety on a global scale, the specific challenges of the food industry, and Don’s advice for aspiring HSE professionals.
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Doug Blake, founder of Rez-Stone Industrial Flooring and the Director of Industrial Flooring at Kaloutas, shares decades of experience, moving beyond the simple "paint it ain't" philosophy to dissect the complex world of high-performance flooring solutions. He covers everything from the critical importance of proper joint repair to minimize downtime and equipment damage to selecting specialized systems like ESD, Novolac, and Vinyl Ester for unique environments in pharmaceutical, food and beverage, and defense facilities. Doug emphasizes a solutions-based approach, stressing the need for thorough inspection, asking the right questions, and understanding the science behind moisture mitigation and surface preparation to ensure a long-lasting, safe, and compliant floor.
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Ben O'Donnell, the Innovation and Facilities Engineer at Novia Corporation, shares his journey from a six-year-old welder to a hands-on innovator in the metal fabrication industry. He shares his profound belief in the power of long-term solutions over short-term fixes, illustrating his philosophy with real-world examples of process and product innovation at his company. The conversation also explores the critical role of self-confidence in career growth, the importance of listening to and empowering coworkers, and practical strategies for training new talent in the industry. He also provides a compelling look at how a mindset focused on continuous improvement and genuine problem-solving can lead to significant advancements in efficiency, quality, and overall job satisfaction.
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Michael Manning, a seasoned facilities management professional who currently serves as the Facilities Manager at Omega Optical, shares his invaluable insights on transforming a facilities department from a cost center into a key driver of business strategy. Michael takes us on a journey from the boiler room to the boardroom, detailing how effective communication, data-driven decisions, and proactive planning can elevate the role of any facilities team. He discusses the critical importance of building a strong, empowered team founded on trust and advocacy, shares gripping stories of handling on-site emergencies, and offers practical advice on everything from implementing a CMMS to championing real-world sustainability initiatives that make a tangible impact.
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Facility Rockstars is sponsored by Kaloutas, operating the way you operate in order to make your life easier. Learn more at: https://www.kaloutas.com