Fix It Forward - Episode 11

 There's nothing more rewarding than a incredible career path when you start with nothing. Our guests are individuals that typically have started ground skips. They ended up overseeing tens of millions of dollars, sometimes billion dollars worth of real estate, and they've learned everything on the job.

Hands on. If you think this is a story, a made up story where like. Something incredible out of your reach. It isn't, and it's called multifamily maintenance. This is an industry that is worth looking into if you're at a point in your life. What you're looking for a new career, and this episode is just for you.

Hi everyone. Super excited to be back. If inspiration, leadership and wisdom are some things that inspire you, that get you excited. This is the episode for you. Watch us spend an entire hour with Dwayne taking us around and sharing from his 36 year experience in multifamily industry. Let's go. We are here today with Dwayne at Hartman

at Station, our apartment.

Thank you for having us, Dwayne.

Thank

you. Now let's go.

Yep. Okay. Right away? Yep. Okay. First thing we'll we'll go and look at is our fitness center.

Oh, right.

Yep.

First of all, uh, how large is the property?

The property is 285 units.

And uh, what year was it built?

It was built in 16, 20 16. 2016. So it's 10 years old.

It was roughly about 10 years

old. On 10 years.

Yeah. I've been at this property now for four and a half years.

Four and a half years.

Yep. Uh, which you can see we have all our workout equipment here. Only thing we're missing is a couple of leg equipment, the workout, the legs. Other than that, we got everything you can imagine.

Yeah. Yes, sir. Yeah.

Yeah. So how long you been with Cushman Wakefield?

I've been with Cushman Weight Wheel for roughly four and a half years now.

So you, this was your first job with them?

This was my first job with them.

Okay. Okay.

Uhhuh

and, uh, how do you like it?

I love it. I think it's one of the better properties I ever worked at, you know, I think it's fantastic.

Tell me about the company itself.

The company itself is. When we're a big company, you know, we're one of the biggest company in multifamily. Yes. You know, and we, uh, definitely this company is great, you know, very good. You know, I mean, it's been good to me.

Okay.

Right here is we have our. No matter how big a property is or how small it is, I really believe in making sure that it has some organization to it, making sure that everything is set up just the same way it would if it was a 2000 room property, uh, 100 room property. Okay. So we have our on call schedule right here.

We have our cleanup schedule where they come in and sign in and out. Everybody have. A box, you know, uh, everybody that works in maintenance have a box to, when we print out the word tickets, we put in each one of the people's boxes.

Boxes are empty though. Why are they empty?

Because we don't believe in weight.

That's what I'm talking about.

Congratulations. Yeah. Yeah. We try to do, we, in this business, I have learned over the years to try to make sure that we close out with zero work taken. You know, that's what we're trying to do. Music

to my ears.

Yep. Right here is basically my make ready board. You also can see a units that's ready, you know, on one side, make ready board on this side and go from there, you know, which is, uh.

The nerve center, this is where it comes in. And this is where it goes out dealing with maintenance,

where the source is being made.

That is correct. That is correct. So what we're gonna do now, we'll go and look at some of the mechanics so that we can see exactly.

I love for you to allow for you to give us a master class.

That's correct.

For the mechanics of the building.

I've been in the business a lot of years, a long time, and this building is small. It's only 285 units, but it's big enough to be a thousand unit building, you know?

Yeah.

I mean it's so, it spread it out. It's so big, you know? So,

so, so true.

Yeah. Exactly.

By the way, how many years have you been at a business?

I've been in the business now for 32 years.

32 years. Yeah,

32 years.

You, you must have a lot of war stories.

Oh God. I tell you, I wished I could tell you, you know, my first day starting in maintenance, my very first day I, uh, started at an apartment complex and, um. The first day they had an eviction. I don't know if you remember this, but years ago they did not have the sheriff when they had the sheriff office, but the sheriff office didn't have anybody with them to evict people.

So maintenance, we had to do eviction. All, all the

trash

outs. Yeah, exactly. Well, not trash outs. We had the evicted people.

Whoa.

Yeah. You know, so That's wild. It was done in house.

That's wild.

This was my, my nightmare, you know? So what happened was. The maintenance supervisor called me up on the phone and said, Hey Dwayne, we need to use your truck my first day, you know, and we evicted these people with the sheriff there and had to take all the furniture and put it outside, and the little children was running around on the floor and it was the worst day of my life.

You know, I didn't know if I was going to make it, you know, watching people get put out the door and we moving they funny shower and et cetera. But you know, times have changed now, you know, now the sheriff office, they have people that come out and do all that for us now, you know?

So tell me about the story, how you really got, like, how did you get your first job in multifamily?

Well, that's another nightmare. You know, my first job in, in, I used to manage hotels, you know, I was the, I was the, what they call executive stood. I was in charge of all the kitchen areas, but I worked a lot of hours though. I went to work at six o'clock in the morning for breakfasts, and then, uh, I was at work till 12 o'clock at night doing dinners, you know, so it was a lot of hours.

So one day I needed an apartment. And I went to this apartment complex and they said, when Dwayne, uh, we got apartment for you, you know, and went from there. But I heard the leasing person talking to the manager said that they needed a groundsman. And believe it or not, now, I told the manager, I said, well, look, I could be the ground now.

She was looking at my application, she was looking at where I work and how much money I was making an hour and all that stuff. And I said, well, you know, let me try it out. I promise you, because she told me, she said, well, Dwayne, you too way overqualified to be a ground. I say, well ma'am, I tell you. You just give me a chance.

I promise you, you will never regret it, you know, so I took the job as a groundsman and I worked my way up. From there, I went from groundsman to punch tech, to tech, to um, maintenance assistant to maintenance supervisor. To director of maintenance, uh, operation. I was running at one time. I was running about 4,000 units, you know, so I've been a busy guy.

I've been on a busy guy over time. Let's see

what you have here. Inside? Yeah,

inside of here, we have the,

this is our pump station that actually pumps the water up throughout the building right here. Which, if you come on this side, you can, you can see actually the pump itself. Yeah. That pumps are ward up to the building to keep it at by 360.

What are some things that, uh, a person looking at this for the first time should know?

Yeah,

like without, without going like, you know, very deep into specific, but like a high level master class about a building system like this.

One thing about a building is. System like this, the first thing you need to know, if you don't know, don't touch nothing. You know, because you could really, number one, you could turn the wrong knob, turn the wrong level, and end up with a lot of problems.

Not only the fire system going off, because this is the fire system and this seals where the water from the building comes in at and goes up to the unit. You know, so first thing you need to know is ask questions first before you touch anything. You know, you know, know what you're doing, you know? But now from groundskeeper to tech, roughly, I worked about a year, you know, and, uh, I, I always been the type guy to where if I'm working somewhere.

I want to know everything, you know, and I want people to trust that I know everything. I mean, as a ground keeper, I had them to put me on call. Now I was a groundskeeper, you know,

it's,

uh, and I was on call. You know,

it, it, it happens, uh, I started a little later, right? Yeah. I don't have, uh, this much of a years,

yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Experience like you. But it was the same with me.

Yeah, exactly.

Groundskeeper, no training and like a few weeks in. You gotta be on call.

Oh, no.

How could I be on call? I don't know nothing about nothing,

but I loved it because when I was a groundskeeper, I wanted to be on call because I wanted to be attacked.

So they called me. They had a name for me. They called me a part changer, you know, because I didn't know how to fix it. But I know if I changed this change that it'll start working.

Eventually gonna get to the wrong one.

Yeah, exactly. You know?

So back when you were in that stage of your career, I want you to think if you could remember the first moment when you remember like a big breakthrough, like being the person that didn't know anything. Would like try things without actually like knowing if it's gonna work or not. To like actually becoming the troubleshooter

correct.

Saying that, you know, you did something more than just like unclogging a, a garbage disposal. That's something that took. Some skill and some steps into the troubleshooting process?

That's

correct. You actually trouble shot something. When was that moment? What was it?

Yeah, that moment was, believe it or not, fixing or air conditioner, you know, I took a chance on it to see if I could get it fixed, you know?

So what I did is I, I, um, went to the unit, okay. And, uh, opened, opened the, uh, box up to see what was going on with it. The very first time, and I said, well, Don, this is easy because nothing wrong with this thing, but this wire is loose. You know, I took the wire, put it back when it was burned off, you know, I took the wire, put another end on it, put it back up, down, and it was fixed.

It came on and I said, I felt good, you know? So then after then I just kept moving, moving, moving, fixing things, trusting in myself, you know? And going from there. But I paid attention to a lot of things that other guys was doing because back then you had better technicians than you have today. Because back then we, we had more time.

It wasn't about the computers and you know, it's a new world now. You know, our maintenance supervisor have computers and all this stuff. Well, back in the day he didn't have all that, you know, it was just about. Skills, you know, fixing things and knowing what you're fixing. And Sandra, you know, you had to know, you know, had to know.

Let's, let's go. This is our community room, uh, which you see very nice room. It's beautiful. Uh, we have a coffee service where they can get coffee and Sandra, you know, very nice tv. And right here we have the swimming pool area. We spend the day in the morning, we have a a robot that actually runs through the pool.

That we put it in the pool and let it does its thing. We also, in the morning, we spent a lot of time out here because of the high wind and the entrapment. All the tree limbs and leaves get trapped in this area. Woo. End up in the pool, you know, so we spent a lot of time in the pool trying to get it together.

And if you notice one thing about this pool, it's impossible. Impossible to keep people out of it. In fact, we had a guy that was in here this morning, it's 30 degrees, and he was in here swimming this morning.

Are you serious about that?

I am dead, sir. I wish I should have took a picture. You know,

we, we should have been here to capture the moment.

Yep, yep, yep. Yeah. You know, so, you know, you can't stop people 'cause there's no fence, there's no, you know, you just have to trust in God in order to make sure that things go well, you know?

What was the moment that you decided apartment ance is gonna be your career? Uh, was there a defining moment that you said, okay, I know, like this is what I'm gonna do for the rest of my life?

It's funny you ask that because. My mama always told me that anything that broke her house, I fixed it. You know, I even, I even bricked up the front of my mother's house when I was a little boy, you know, didn't know anything about brick work, didn't know anything about that type stuff, but I've done it.

We used to take stereos from a shop. That, uh, when I was a little boy, we would go and take the stereos that they throw away in the back that they couldn't fix and we would fix 'em, you know? Incredible.

The ball.

Yeah. So, but I never, always wanted to play sports, you know, so I wanted to be a quarterback. I wanted to play basketball.

That's what I really wanted to do. I didn't know about this talent until I took the job as the groundsman. And I saw the technicians fixing things and the Sandra, that's when I fell in love with it. You know, I said, now hold it. I need to be doing that. You know, because I already, I was born with the sense of knowing how to fix things.

I don't know if you really understand that, but.

I, I, I

do. I was kind of born with that.

I do.

I knew how to do it.

It's, uh, like a technical being technically inclined.

That's correct. Yeah. You know, it, it was easy for me. All I had to do was,

it's easier for some people than others.

That's correct.

You, you, you're absolutely right.

Yeah. All I had to do was see you do it once or do it once, and then it was easy. You know, I, I, you know, I could do it. I could take it apart. I could put it back together. It was easy. You know where I found my challenges? That is, and I had to learn this, the hard way is you, every place you go, I have, like I said, I have managed 60 units.

I have had 2000 unit property and I have, uh, done a multitude of 4,000. Uh, units, you know, uh, doing the director of maintenance services, you know, so it taught me, and I had to learn this and that was to make sure that wherever you go, whether three units, a 1500 units, make sure you set up a system, you know, because without a system.

It don't work, you know, don't assume that, oh, it's just me and another guy, or just myself and a groundsman. You still have to have a system because if you don't have a system, it's something going to fall in the cracks. Either you gonna have a leasing person that, that leased apartment and you didn't have a system, uh, to put together.

What we do here is I have a system put together to where I have a move in book. Yeah, every Monday I give the leasing people, they know that on they desk gonna be a piece of paper that's gonna go from desk to desk for them to fill out. They move-ins from Monday to next Tuesday. You know, you know, you see what I'm saying?

That way I don't have a problem with somebody saying when, uh, this is a movie and what, why it's not ready, you know? Uh, I know in advance, I know a week in advance what's gonna be a move in. So what I need to do and what I don't need to do, and I don't assume that because it's a 2000 room property where I got, uh, eight leasing people versus one.

I don't assume that that one person won't get me in a bind. Just like those 16 leasing people. You see what I'm saying? You have to have a system. Very important. You know, very important. So this is our yogurt room and uh, yogurt has bicycles.

You have to bicycles and different, we have mats that they could take out and work out on the floor and s you know, very nice.

Okay. This is a one bedroom. This is what's called a galley kitchen. You know, we have stainless steel, refrigerator, stainless steel, microwave, stainless steel stoves, and the Sandra, you know. Uh, very nice. We have washer and dryer. We have a washer, a dryer room for you right here, you know, very nice setup, you know?

Yep. You would enjoy it. Can you imagine you with your clothes in here?

Comes in pretty handy, but I don't have to take my basket with,

in the

laundry room.

All you gotta do is bring your basket.

Yep.

Yeah. Right here we have the living room, uh, which this apartment is very nice because it's set up where you can see the swimming pool area, you know.

Very nice setup. You know, uh, also you have the bedroom right here, which is facing the pool as well. Faces the pool area, you know, very nice bedroom. You know, here you have, let's go through this way here. You have your bathroom in this area, and this is your walk-in closet. Right here is your walk-in closet, you know, which is nice.

One bedroom. That's all you need.

That's a very large closet for a one bedroom.

Oh yeah. That's very nice. For one bedroom. Yep. And then you have to make a decision if you want the apartment. You know, now right here

I, uh, I think I'm sold.

Yeah.

After he show

me now. Right,

right here. I think I'm sold. I think I wanna sign the list.

Yep. Now right here you held. Uh, the patio area. Yep. Nice little patio area. Yep. Very nice. On the ground floor, the patio's a little smaller than on the second, third and fourth and fifth. Basically, this building have seven floors, you know? Yeah. So the first floor is a little smaller, but goes from there.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for the tour. Yes, sir. Yep. So where, where to next?

Okay. Where to, I thought you were gonna buy an apartment.

You asked me where too.

So the next step from service manager to regional director.

Yes, sir.

So when was your first, uh, regional director gig? When did you land that? What year?

Yeah. I land that back in 2009.

And uh, what, what was the company you worked for?

The company was called North South.

Okay, north

South.

Yeah, north South. Uh, what it was, was. And you won't believe how this happened. I was running the property and, uh, we're gonna make that left. I was running the property and the owner came out to the property, brand new property. You know, the owner came out to the property to look at it and I told him, I said, uh, sir, can I help you?

I didn't know who he was, you know? I said, well, sir, can I help you? I just saw him snooping around, snooping around. Because I always been the type person that take ownership. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. I take ownership on that property. So he came, he said, well, you know what? It's amazing that you stopped me and asked me what was I doing?

Can I help you? Can I, whatever? And me and him had a long talk. We talked for about two hours, and he said, well, take me around and show me around. And I took him to my shop. For him to see my shop and he said, you know what? I could eat breakfast in here every morning. You know? I mean, I just can't believe how nice this shop look and how things look in here, you know?

He said, you know what I want you to do? I want you to go to all my properties and make all my shops look like this. I'm gonna talk to you Monday. About a different position, you know? I said, well sir, so what position is that? He said, well, I want you to be the assistant director of maintenance services, you know, and I need you to drive around all my properties and make sure everybody's shop looks like this.

That's gonna be your first task, you know? And so I done it, you know, so this is our outside area, uh, which is very nice. You can look over the shopping mall and, uh. And stuff is very, very nice. Yeah. Yes, sir.

Well, I, uh, I would like for you to, uh, like tell us where we're going next. Now

we are going next.

We're going this way. We're going up to the roof.

Wow. Yep. I can't wait.

Yep. Going up

to the roof. I know it's gonna be, uh, yeah,

you're gonna be cold.

I know it's gonna be an experience, but I love the overview.

Yeah, yeah, that's for sure.

Okay, so now this is our, what I call the air condition factory. You know, this is where they, uh. Nuts and boats start from on air condition. Basically. We have heat pump systems, you know, and they run well. They run well. We've been blessed, you know, but we do have some that goes out, you know, and so we have to re replace 'em.

Now we have, uh, this section, this is not even the seventh floor section, but now if you notice. Certain sections of this building, the way it's built, the only way you can get to the top of it is up that ladder. So now imagine, imagine taking a, uh, having a AC unit and you gotta put it up on that roof on the seventh floor.

It's not easy, you know? It's not easy. So, uh, we have to go up there. Basically we get ropes and tie the ropes together and we, we, uh, I take about four or five guys from another property, bring them over here, and then we lift it up and put it up on the roof. You know, maintenance tech. Yep. You ever see your life, you know, he's a great guy.

He does a wonderful job. We've been working together now for what, oh God, maybe five years. Yep. Five years or so. He actually came from. The place I used to work, you know? Uh, so I brung them over here with me. You know, when you do that, then you know you got somebody, you know. Yeah.

Wonderful man to work

for.

Yep.

How many years in the industry, Jeff? I've been in this business since 88. I started as the Brown. So another, another amazing story. Oh

yeah, yeah, yeah.

Incredible. 1988.

Yes. And I've been the main supervisor. Uh, you know, I had my time and

yeah.

Worked with some, but guy, this man everywhere with that's what

I, it's nothing, it's nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

You know, that's for sure.

Nothing wrong with that.

Yeah.

Well, it was a really great meeting. You.

Thank you. Luck. Y'all have a nice day.

Yep. Well,

all right, now be good Jeffrey. Very good job.

So, Dwayne, when you are Yes,

sir.

When you're looking at the younger generation Yes sir. You know what's, what's coming?

From behind.

Yes, sir.

You had this incredible journey. Yes. 36 years.

Yes, sir.

Yeah. Mm-hmm. In a, in a industry and you, you know, you've seen a lot. Yeah. You've done a lot to learn a lot.

Mm-hmm.

What are some great pieces of advice that you have for the younger generation that's just now getting started in the industry?

When the younger generation maintenance, I'm kind of concerned about, I'm just gonna be honest with you, you know, people. As I've been going, I know this is harder and harder to find a maintenance tech, you know, and when you, when you do find one, you, you need to put money and time in them, you know? But I advise anybody.

This profession didn't let me go home in not one day. You know, I've done very, very well. You know, I didn't have to ask for money. Money was given to me, you know, always had a comfortable salary, you know, uh, so the, the, the talent, as long as you willing to spend the time to do the right thing, this is the job for anybody.

You know what I'm saying? You know, because you can go a multitude of directions if you, the type person that you not really into fixing things, you are into sales. You can get into maintenance and then graduate and go into leasing or be assistant manager or be a manager, you know? But I guarantee you, once you become a maintenance person, you'll be stuck because you'll love it.

Especially if you the type person that like every day to be different. You know? Because there's not one day that you're going to come to work and it's the same thing, you know, always gonna be different. But I advise any young fellow this is the way to go. You know? For sure. You know,

that's, that's fellow advice.

Okay, so this is the dog area. This is the dog wash, which is very nice. Uh, this, this room gets a lot of use, you know, get a lot of use. Let me introduce you to the, uh, the person responsible for making sure that this place how the grounds look. Nice to meet you. Fantastic. Like it, look right now, this is our good groundsman and he does a wonderful job, you know?

Yeah. Very good. I appreciate a good job. Nice to meet you, sir. Very good job. Okay, now what we are looking at now is our bicycle room. This is. Uh, where every, where all the residents keeps their bicycles, they keep 'em all in this area. We have, uh, tools for them to work on them. We have a pump. We also have they bicycles parked here, you know, so we keep all that in good perspective.

And right here is the maintenance shop. Alright. You asked me about the shop. You didn't even worry about that.

Uh, I thought that you may have

something

to hide. Yeah. Run.

Sooner or later you,

I thought that you might have something to hide. You never mentioned it, so.

No, we can't do that.

I just pretend that, yeah, I forgot.

Yeah,

of course. I'm kidding. I was, uh, you know. I was, uh,

hoping

that, you know, we gonna eventually get to your, uh, maintenance

shop. Exactly. Which you can see. This is our maintenance shop. We keep it very, very neat and organized. You know, here you have the cabinet that we keep all our flammables in, you know, to keep 'em inside of a fireproof cabinet, you know, very clean, very nice.

You know, it's the way we try to keep it, you know? Yeah. This way when a guy come in and needs some tools to work with, he can grab 'em and come on out. He don't have to, you know, he don't say, well, it took me 20 minutes to find a doorknob. You know?

So, Dwayne, uh, if we were, have, you know, your corporate office looking at us right now, and you'll speak to them directly?

Yes.

What are some things that, you know, you would like to share with 'em that maybe they don't know?

Yeah. Well, the biggest thing that I always, uh, that I learned being in this business. Is that time is changing. You know, time is really changing. The maintenance men that really knew what they was doing is Finn to fade away.

You know, we getting older, things are changing. Companies need to get a little smarter, you know, uh, and start taking older guys. And set up in their company training, you know, uh, they need the, perhaps take a older guy and make him a training manager to where when new people come in, he train them and he have different training on different things, you know, but the big thing is teaching them how to fix things and teaching them how the, uh, operation is supposed to run, you know, because.

With having a good maintenance team. Let's face facts. You know, once a person move into your apartment complex and not it, it don't belong to the complex anymore, now your future relies on your maintenance team. You know, because if you, if you have a bad maintenance team, people are moving out, you know, because they want to, they want to try.

They, they call in a work ticket. They want it. They don't want it done. Two weeks from here, they want it done either that same day or the next day. You know? So when you lose these great maintenance guys that know how to get this stuff done, you need to be training up guys coming behind them. You know, we need to concentrate on training.

Training is the key to keep this situation to where a company can save money. Because having a good maintenance team saves a lot of money, you know, and uh, that's just my thought, you know? Training is the key. You know,

I want to close it out with, uh, what a, a friend of mine said. Mm-hmm. A great thought.

Teams that don't pray, don't win,

don't win. Yep. Yep, yep.

And that's, that's a, that's a great way to, to wrap

on

this

chapter. You know what, that is the right way to end it. It makes sense.