From Marine to VP Success

[Chris VanDruff] (0:00 - 0:50) We've got to stop looking or portraying the trades as kind of the second best, right? Forever, you had to go do that college thing. You had to go do that military thing.

Well, it's not for everybody. You know, I had a painter who I wanted to make a Taekwondo. And he said, No, I like painting.

I like, I like being a painter. And I said, Okay, I support that. What do you need to be the best painter you want to be?

And I think we need to recognize that, right? Just because we see something that would support us or our business line might not be where that person wants to be. Customer service, we don't do a good job with teaching or with promoting customer service.

Our problem started with a person, a human being who has a need or problem.

[Adrian Danila] (0:50 - 1:22) Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Multifamily X podcasts, Masters of Maintenance. I'm your host, Adrian Danila. I'm going to start by thanking our sponsors for making this broadcast possible.

They are Kairos and Appwork. Please check them out if you're in need of leak prevention solutions, or if you're in need of maintenance management solutions. They have great products out there, and we thank them for the support.

With that being said, going to our special guest today, Chris Vondroff. Welcome to the show, Chris.

[Chris VanDruff] (1:23 - 1:25) Thank you, Adrian. Thanks for having me.

[Adrian Danila] (1:25 - 1:36) Chris is the Vice President of Facilities Services with Maxwell Group. So, Chris, I want to start by asking you to share with us your journey in real estate and facilities maintenance.

[Chris VanDruff] (1:37 - 5:23) Yeah, for sure. For sure. My background is pretty vast, and my road was kind of windy.

I came out of the Marine Corps as a military police officer and didn't really know what I was going to do. And so, I answered an ad in the newspaper for a heating technician, and I didn't even know what that meant at that time. But it was an entry-level role, and I needed to make money to put food on the table.

So, I went into doing residential heating and installations in New Hampshire. And from there, I kind of rolled into a Plumbers and Steamfitters local and was a journeyman fitter out of Ithaca, New York, and then got my education and training in HVAC and refrigeration, followed that trajectory. That led me to Cornell University, where I was a HVAC and refrigeration tech for many years.

Gosh, long time, it feels like. Also did a stint of about three years in automated controls, building management and automated controls at Cornell. And while I was there, I was blessed to get my education.

And at one point, I decided to put the tools away. I didn't want to beat myself up anymore. And I was on a rooftop at two o'clock in the morning in the middle of January working on a rack system, and I thought, I don't want to do this anymore.

And so, put the tools away and went into facilities maintenance and facilities management. Yeah, I was blessed. The opportunity arose for a role that wasn't even created as an assistant facility manager at Cornell in the student and academic housing world.

And I answered what was actually a posted ad internal, and I talked to a friend that was the director, and he gave me the shot, right? He gave me the nod. I've got the leadership background and the skill set, I guess, and he saw something in me and gave, I like to tell people, he gave a pair of dirty boots an opportunity.

And so, went into, started out as an assistant facility manager, backing up three facility managers in three different areas. So, I had freshman housing, I had upper class housing, and then I had the, what we call the graduate student, you know, the folks with apartments and their families and those places. So, I backed all those guys up, and that led quickly into a full-time facility management role when the student and academic, or student and graduate housing guy left, jumped into that, and it's been an upward spiral, I guess, ever since.

Here I am, I left Cornell a few years back, went into healthcare. So, I've got a healthcare background as well. I'm a paramedic by licensure, worked in a trauma center.

So, I said, well, let's do this thing in healthcare, and ran a hospital for a little bit, got recruited to come back to academia in North Carolina. So, I left upstate New York, came to Charlotte, and ran operations at Queens University, where I had grounds, housekeeping, and maintenance there, and all things, both academia buildings and housing buildings. And then, got this opportunity to come to Maxwell Group Senior Living Communities, where I support 15 properties in six states as the vice president of facility services.

That's a long way around, but I got there.

[Adrian Danila] (5:24 - 5:38) Chris, an amazing journey for those that are looking up to someone like you. They want to become you one day. They want to be like Chris.

What are the best pieces of advice that you could share with them to help you get where you are today?

[Chris VanDruff] (5:39 - 7:41) That's a great question. You know, my thing is, I even tell my kids, you need to be able to sit at the table with anybody, right? You need to be able to have conversations, to build relationships, to be able to talk to anybody at any time.

It doesn't matter the role, the title, the whatever. I feel like I am the epitome of that opportunity, right? I can swing them up with the best of them, and I can sit at a seven-course meal next to anybody.

And I've always prided myself in that. Don't limit yourself, right? I thought that I was a fitter.

I was a plumber, and I was going to set toilets and fixtures for the rest of my life. And I tell people nowadays, don't tell anybody that I'm a plumber, because I really don't want to set toilets anymore. I can't, I will, but I don't want to.

And so that limited thinking kind of kept me down a little bit. And then when I got to Cornell, you know, I worked alongside some amazing folks with visionary, visionary people that started out the same way I did. And so, you know, just create those relationships, learn everything possible from everybody.

If you think you're the smartest person in the room, you're probably in the wrong room. So, you know, keep an open mind and just keep climbing. I had a great conversation this morning, Adrian, with a fellow who put in, applied for a Director of Facility Services position.

He's a technician right now. And, you know, I had to tell him, look, I see you. I really appreciate what you're doing.

You're not quite ready. Right. And that's a tough conversation to have with somebody, especially in this world where, you know, they're going to, they're going to leave you for 10 cents anytime.

But the biggest thing I told him was, I see you, I see you working hard. I see you educating yourself. I'm going to help you get where you want to be.

Just stick with me. But it's not right now. So.

[Adrian Danila] (7:43 - 8:51) Definitely a tough conversation to have. You always wonder, is that going to be received well? You know, am I going to love this person?

But I think at the end of the day, you owe that person the truth. Right. You don't want to set them up to fail.

And at the same time, you know, you want to be supportive and say, look, I think you're on the right trajectory and I could help you get there. Just bear with me. Just bear with me.

Let's walk this road together. I want to go back to when you first started, when you first got right out of military service, you got your first tech job and you said you needed to put, you know, food on a table. You didn't know much about what was that job about?

How do we make those jobs, intentional careers? Because, you know, this, this is the common theme. Almost everybody, like 99% of the individuals that I talk to in facilities industry, in multifamily, in our circle, in our world, they're saying, you know, it was by accident.

I fell by accident. I just ended up here and I made the best of it. How do we shift the narrative from like, I fell in it, into it, to this was a career, like I was, I was aware that this could be a career for me.

How do we make an intentional career? We as, you know, facilities industry.

[Chris VanDruff] (8:52 - 11:35) Yeah, I think, you know, it's funny. I think we need to do it the same way the military did it with us when, when, when we were coming up, right? They were in our face all the time.

Hey, this is an opportunity for you. I think we have to stop, and this is something I focus on regularly, is we've got to stop looking or, or portraying the trades as kind of the second best, right? Forever, you had to go do that college thing.

You had to go do that military thing. Well, it's not for everybody. And we really have to drive that.

There's a, there's a great HVAC tech in the, in the community that I live in, who regularly rents out our, our community clubhouse and has days where, you know, he'll invite the, the kids from the community in and talk about the trades. And I think while that's great, I think there's also this stigma where he does, I reached out and offered, Hey, man, I'd really like to jump on this thing with you. Let me, let me come with you and support you and support this, right?

And I didn't hear anything from him. So I think we also as trades folks have to get away from protecting our thing, right? I don't want to bring somebody in.

They might take, take money away. They might take business away from us. Well, listen, we've got to do a better job as a group, highlighting that thing.

I had a conversation with, with my, I'm blessed. I have a 14 year old in the house and we were talking recently about electricians and you know, the, the, the, the money I did a thing, my HVAC broke. I can fix my own stuff, right?

I didn't have to call somebody, but we talked about what that would have cost. And we broke it down and actually had an educational session on, okay, this is what that person could make coming to do this job. Right.

And his eyes lit up and he's not a kid that, that I don't think plans to go to university or, you know, so I try to paint that picture. Also, I think as we were coming up, there were trades out there that I didn't know about, right. I didn't know about the trades.

My dad's a city firefighter, retired. My mom's a nurse, right? I know about civil service.

I know about that thing, but elevator technicians, man, what a racket, right? Those guys are making money. Granted, putting their lives on the line every day, probably one of the most dangerous jobs out there, but I didn't know that was even a thing.

Crane operators, you know, I knew there was cranes, but I didn't realize that it was a special person that drove those things, right? Those are the things we have to figure out how to drive home.

[Adrian Danila] (11:36 - 11:54) I want to go to leadership right now. My question here is, it's about applying technical skills in leadership. How have the hands-on skills you gain as a plumber fit or influence your approach to managing very complex facilities across senior living communities and student communities?

[Chris VanDruff] (11:55 - 13:19) That's great, man. You know, that's one of the things that I love. I love leading people.

I love coaching people. It's a true passion of mine, and I feel like with my skill set and my knowledge, our skill set and knowledge as facilities leaders, right? Many of us came from the trenches.

I can lead from the trenches, right? I have no problem getting in the dirt with the team, and I think anytime you can do that, anytime you can get side by side with, you know, the folks you're trying to lead or you want to lead, you gain respect. You gain trust, and trust and respect in this business is the largest thing you can have.

If you've got a team that trusts you and respects you, you've got a team, and I think, like I said, by getting in the trenches with them, you know, I think I gain that, and I think that is one of the true tools that we use as leaders is the ability to get next to them. We can talk about what I would do, or we can spit regulation all day, but until we can get in there and show them and train them side by side what we're talking about, we're just, we're just, we're just putting words out there.

[Adrian Danila] (13:19 - 13:49) Chris, the entire facilities industry, whether it's senior living, multi-family, student housing, it's facing a tremendous staffing shortage, especially on the maintenance side, on the trade side, on the qualified worker side. What are some opportunities that you see for us to do better as an industry? How can we do better to attract qualified talent, and what are some things that, maybe you have going on at Maxwell that are actually helping overcome this pain?

[Chris VanDruff] (13:50 - 17:27) Yeah, I think that's a fantastic question, man. We're all fighting this war out here on labor, and I think our biggest focus and one of the biggest misses is really retention, right? It's keeping the people we have, recognizing ability in them, and trying to build them up.

The recruitment piece, it's wild, you know, like I just said, everybody's looking for a dime in the hip, and they will leave you without question for a dime in the hip, unless you can somehow make them feel more valued, and so that's what we do. Maxwell Group Senior Living Communities really has done a great job promoting retention, showing our people that we care, showing our people that we value what we have, and that we want to keep them. We look at wage bans quarterly.

We increase wage bans quarterly. We don't force our people to come ask us for a raise, or we don't have that annual two cents, so I think that's one of the biggest things that we do. We have a GL line for recruitment and retention, or as you were, employee retention, and we don't raise an eyebrow when folks use it, and it's not just, you know, a pizza over a lunch and learn.

It's, you know, going out and bonding with your team. It's going to a ballgame or doing something outside of the community to show, you know, we're investing in you. My other thing, too, is I try to support the person where they're at.

I try to see the folks where they're at. So, you know, I had a painter who I wanted to make a Tech 1, and he said, no, I like painting. I like being a painter, and I said, okay, I support that.

What do you need to be the best painter you want to be? What brush do you want that's going to make you the best painter? And I think we need to recognize that, right, just because we see something that would support us or our business line might not be where that person wants to be, so I fully support that.

I also drive training, you know, make yourself better. How can I help you become better? I do, personally, I will do training videos, so we had ice machine cleaning.

We had a site that didn't know how to clean ice machines, so I did a total training video on ice machines and put it on our SharePoint and, you know, try to invest in that way as well. The other thing I'll tell you, too, Adrian, that we can do as facilities folks is really drive the PM program, right? I think preventative maintenance is huge.

I think we lack in preventative maintenance. I think the people we support, right, from the executive level, they don't understand the importance of PM, so it's easy to push that to the wayside. Well, guess what?

If we're doing our preventative maintenance, we're going to make our team members happy because they're not going to be in there every weekend battling a battle, putting out a fire, right, because we're ahead of the game. We can plan mindfully. It also shows our members that we're investing, we're reinvesting what you have given us, and we care about where you are and supporting where you are and making it safe and comfortable.

Those are just a couple of the things that we really try to drive.

[Adrian Danila] (17:28 - 17:33) We're also saving a ton of money by fixing things or maintaining them before they break.

[Chris VanDruff] (17:34 - 17:34) That's right.

[Adrian Danila] (17:35 - 17:57) I think that's a very important part of preventative maintenance. You spoke a little bit on training, right, about training, and you mentioned a particular instance where you created a video about how to clean an ice machine. I do want to ask you if you were to be in charge for the entire industry to write a program and to envision, what's your vision?

[Dean Fung A Wing] (18:01 - 19:22) Next is this fire protection solution around kitchen fires, right? Again, we are not by any means saying that this is replacing your fire suppression system. This is replacing your building's fire protection systems, which are all regulated by fire departments and local codes and all that, right?

You still have to have all that, but I'm telling you there's actually a step before any of those systems go off, and that is just knowing what the temperature in that kitchen above that stove is in real time. You knowing that is the difference between you stopping a fire in your apartment and not. If you knew that that apartment was 100 degrees, Adrian, you could get to it with a fire extinguisher.

You could wake up the resident, open that door, get in there, solve that problem before it spreads to the whole building. Again, you can also notify the fire department just by the moment that kitchen's over 100 degrees, notify the fire department via text message, email, phone call. You can notify your local building engineer, your maintenance staff, your property manager.

Everybody needs to know the moment that apartment's over 100 degrees. Simple solution to a problem nobody ever wants to think about. This is a life safety issue and it's no one else's responsibility except for a building owner to make sure that we take care of that building and make sure we protect residents.

So we're here to help if that's something that folks are interested in.

[Adrian Danila] (19:23 - 19:28) Ideal training in 2024 and beyond for maintenance personnel in our industry.

[Chris VanDruff] (19:29 - 20:37) I think we have to understand that everybody is going to social media, YouTube, the internet for training, right? We have to be able to meet them there. We have to understand that people learn differently.

We might need to have a position where we've got an assistant facility manager or a mentor that can go out in the field and do training for us. We have to bring people in, right? I know at Cornell we had several vendors who would bring in training programs.

Sporland was one that I can remember coming in and doing a class on TXVs and stuff, right? We have to bring it to them. We can't expect because ultimately some of these people might be working two or three jobs or supporting a family and going to school after hours isn't, you know, it's not a possibility for them.

So let's bring it to them. Let's figure out how to meet them where they are and bring them some training, bring our folks some training and get out and train side by side.

[Adrian Danila] (20:38 - 21:01) I want to go to technology next, Chris. What are some things that you see from a technology standpoint that are going really well within an industry? What it applies to you on the facility side of the business and how would you envision the, I guess, the ideal piece of technology that will support our field teams doing their jobs to be the perfect tool?

[Chris VanDruff] (21:02 - 22:49) Technology is amazing, right? I've seen, you know, I've seen things from pneumatic, air over pneumatic or pneumatic to electric all the way to, you know, where we are now with DDC. And so I've watched technology evolve and, you know, so I understand how amazing it is.

I used to blow kids' minds when I told them I could turn their lights off in their dorm room from my computer. You know, it was like, oh, that's crazy. I think AI is really going to advance us.

I've seen incredible changes just in senior living care with AI. I think it's going to be super helpful for what we do, having that ability, right? Obviously, healthcare is using it.

Doctors are using AI in different settings. I think we can embrace it. I don't think we need to be afraid of it.

And the reason I say that is because just like the healthcare industry, somebody's going to have to turn the wrench. The AI person can't turn the wrench, but they can get us a lot closer. They can free us up with the amount of time it takes to diagnose or, you know, guide us in a direction that we might be missing.

I think that's huge, that piece of technology is huge. You know, when you're talking technology, talking tech, you know, any of your smart buildings, the folks that are coming up now, the folks that are coming into my industry and senior living, they understand smart buildings, smart processes. They're going to be looking for it.

And if you're not building smart at this point, you were really missing the boat. So, you know, you've got, you know, light timers and, you know, water regulation and stuff like that. So those are the things that I think are really going to help us in our industry.

[Adrian Danila] (22:50 - 23:30) Great point. So I want to ask you, what's your take on centralized access control? I'm thinking right here, you know, the friction that having to use a key to go open, you know, a door, go back and forth to and from the office using keys to actually unlock doors versus like doing something like the hotels have been doing for decades, you know, using a device.

And nowadays that's your cell phone to actually lock and unlock. And like, you could schedule access for your vendors, for employees, for residents, for everyone. You could actually control that remotely.

What's your take on automation and like access control within the industry? Are there any benefits? Are you seeing any initiatives?

Is your company having any initiatives of that nature?

[Chris VanDruff] (23:31 - 25:50) Yes, sir. So we do. We do have access control, obviously multiple reasons.

We have gated communities. We have, you know, secure, secure areas because that's where our folks are living. And we don't want folks just running around.

I don't want to rely on a security person or a courtesy officer as we call them to have to remember which doors to lock at night, which doors to unlock. So I think that's huge. I think having the ability to see who comes and goes is priceless.

I think the biggest thing is we have to build it or plan for it mindfully. It's got to be a CapEx plan. I think the biggest factor right now is cost, you know, and trying to re-outfit an entire existing building is quite expensive.

And so we have so many other areas that we need to spend the money on. We currently use key fobs and key cards. The problem with that is so does everybody else.

And you get, you know, senior members or, you know, young persons who, you know, have the key fob for their pool at home. Well, now they've got 25 key fobs, right? So we've got to figure out how to do that.

We are a little bit smarter in that we can program, you know, your key fob for your house to work for, you know, our buildings as well if the programs talk. But I think that's one thing. And I'd love to see, you know, some incentives from the industry on changing to that sort of technology.

We have to remember too that that system is only as good as the information we're putting into it, right? So right now I'm cleaning up an access control system that's just been neglected for, you know, what looks to be about a year or so. And, you know, you've got members who are no longer with us.

You've got employees who have been terminated. Well, if we as the person are not keeping up with that access control, you know, it can get convoluted pretty quickly. So that's the other thing.

And as a facilities manager or director or whomever is in charge of that program, again, there's so many other areas that need us. So to sit at the computer for, you know, 20 minutes, a half hour every day to put in and take out is problematic.

[Adrian Danila] (25:51 - 26:20) Yeah. The great news here is that there's software that does that automatically. Takes a person from onboarding, you know, tells us like orders the uniforms for them, creates access plugins for them, for all the software that they need to.

And then the off boarding part is that, you know, when they're leaving the company and HR terminates them in a system, their entire access to everything is being cut off, which is, you know, kind of cool. Right. So you don't have this process manually, like it's done automatically.

[Chris VanDruff] (26:20 - 26:25) Yeah, that's a, that is a great tool. I can't wait to get there.

[Adrian Danila] (26:26 - 26:45) Yeah. Key centralization, it's another hot topic. I'm hearing a lot of conversations about in the multifamily space, especially.

So I want to get your take on in your space. Is this a real thing, especially when it comes to centralized maintenance? Is this a real thing?

Is it just a buzzword? What is, you know, just a thing that's like somewhere in between the two?

[Chris VanDruff] (26:45 - 27:21) I think it's a great thing. You know, I've come from centralized maintenance to zone maintenance to it changes all the time. Right.

So I think it's not a bad thing. I think it needs to be managed appropriately. I think it gives our trades folks a better opportunity to learn different areas and to see different things.

But again, I think we're still in flux at this point where there's just too many unknowns for somebody to truly commit at this point.

[Voiceover] (27:21 - 27:25) And now a word from Sean Landsberg, co-founder Appwork.

[Adrian Danila] (27:25 - 27:42) The ideal experience from an end user perspective is the Uber experience. What I mean by that is you put the app in the hands of anyone who would know how to video, they should be able to figure it out and order an Uber. How is that Appwork providing that type of Uber experience for maintenance?

[Sean Landsberg] (27:43 - 28:38) We've done a lot of research behind each and every end user of the product, whether it's your property manager, your leasing agent, your regional manager, your maintenance supervisor and your maintenance technician. And we did a lot of research behind them. And for example, the app is used by maintenance supervisors and maintenance technicians.

So we have to build a profile around them, who they are, how they think, how they're going to interact with the app. And we have to design it in a way that requires little to no training. Like you said, we used Uber as our model.

Aside from incorporating features, such as reviews and other really cool components to the Uber style, it was designed behind the same concept of Uber. Whereas when somebody goes to call an Uber to take them from point A to point B, there's no how-to videos or instructions. So hey, let's teach you how to use Uber, right?

It's you download the app, you know how to use it. So that was the same thing for us. We use that from a design perspective.

We need this to be as simple as it is to call an Uber.

[Adrian Danila] (28:39 - 28:53) For a young person that's right out of school, whether it's high school or college, and they entertain the idea of entering multifamily facilities or like assistant living facilities, maintenance in general, what are some pieces of advice that you have for them?

[Chris VanDruff] (28:54 - 29:57) Learn as much as you can. Look at all aspects. There's so many different areas and different opportunities.

You've got hotel maintenance, you've got multifamily maintenance, you've got healthcare maintenance. It's a great world. It's really just trying to find which area has your heart.

Find out what area makes you want to go to work every day. But don't stop learning. Make as many relationships as you can and learn as much as possible and become the best maintenance person you can be.

I think the times of being the maintenance person who is the only one who knows this particular area is over, I think we have to embrace the team aspect of it and understand that your job is not in jeopardy because we hired somebody else. We're adding to your team, we're adding to your value. So join that team and really dig in and share as much as possible.

[Adrian Danila] (29:58 - 30:14) Chris, I want to look forward towards the future. I want to ask you, what's your vision about the future when it comes to our trade, the facilities maintenance industry, and especially in relation to the senior living, to the industry, the part of the industry that you're in?

[Chris VanDruff] (30:14 - 31:36) I'll tell you right now, my industry is booming. We just had a conversation. I mean, this whole silver tsunami thing that they're talking about, I don't know if you've heard about it, but we don't have enough housing for the group that's coming into senior housing.

Every builder right now could stop building multifamily and start building senior living and we wouldn't have enough time to catch up. So that's one of the things to really focus on. Senior living is not going anywhere.

It's a massive industry. It's a booming industry and it's going to be around for a long, long time. We've got a lot of planning to do.

Again, I think those smart buildings, I think the group that's coming is they're very intelligent individuals. They're folks who come from industry and from background and are going to have high expectations and they're going to expect smart thermostats, smart lighting, smart buildings, and they're going to really want to talk about what are we doing with their investment? How are we prepared to make sure that they're safe and comfortable?

So I think those are the two biggest things that we're really looking at.

[Adrian Danila] (31:36 - 31:48) Who was or who were the people that made the most positive impact in your life and in your career? And if it's one person that it's top of mind and both, tell us about that person.

[Chris VanDruff] (31:48 - 34:21) I just had the privilege of listening to a speaker at our annual meeting, Kevin Brown, and he talks about being a superhero. And when you look in the mirror, if you only see your own face in the mirror, then you're failing, right? You need to see all the people that have helped you get to where you are.

So I'd be remiss if I, obviously, my parents had a huge impact. They worked their tails off forever and ever and they taught me my work ethic. Then I go into my military background and my military career and some of the greats that I worked for.

I remember a young corporal at the time ended up becoming a first sergeant, getting killed in Iraq. But we worked in the jail together and the prison together and he would always tell me, it's a fine line between us and them. And if you come to work with a chip on your shoulder, you're going to have a hard time, right?

Treat them as humans, treat everybody as human beings and be kind. So Luke Mercadoni was that voice that always stays right here. Treat everybody with kindness until they prove they're not worthy.

I get to Cornell and obviously working side by side with the father of BACnet, Michael Newman. If you don't know BACnet, BACnet is basically the talking force behind every building automation system we have right now. I mean, that's where it began.

And he was a visionary that told me that we're not stuck twisting wires together, doing shielded twisted pairs all day and getting calluses on your fingertips. You can learn the logic and do the programming. So he had great impact.

And then my mentor, Chad Loomis, who's an electrical engineer, he's the one that gave me the shot in facilities, right? He's the one who allowed me to come off the rooftops and out of the trenches and really give me that opportunity. So he's the one that taught me it's rarely no, it's how, right?

Rarely no. Not never no, but it's rarely no, but how? How can we get to where you want to be?

How can we get this done for you? If you start right out with no, you're going to have hard conversations and it's not going to go well for you. So let's talk about how we can get where you want to get.

So those are just some people that really, they stay right here.

[Adrian Danila] (34:21 - 35:13) Chris, the transition from being a hands-on professional, someone that actually uses tools to fix, to address people problems, maintenance problems, you mentioned. BMO plumber, install toilets, fix water leaks, you name it. From there to like being someone that manages people, there's a significant difference.

For the most part, in my personal experience, I haven't seen our industry doing an amazing job in like transitioning people from hands-on working to becoming managers. What are some things that you have to share with me and with the audience right here that will help someone in a position that there's greater their trade, they want to become a manager of people, they want to move up the ladder. What are some things to help them outside of like a company structured environment?

What are some things that you could teach them, like you could advise them to do to make that transition smoother, easier?

[Chris VanDruff] (35:14 - 37:31) That's a fantastic question, Adrian. I talk about this regularly. We take good people or good maintenance techs and we immediately promote them to the director.

You're going to be the director. And of course, they want to be the director, right? Their egos tell them that they can do it, they want to.

But we're setting them up for failure. We have not prepared them for customer service. We have not prepared them to be able to handle the regulatory compliance on all the paperwork and all the things, right?

They're great maintenance techs. They can go out and fix anything you put in front of them. But you can't be both.

You can't be the leader and the wrench turner. The biggest thing is obviously the education. You've got to become, you've got to be able to look at things from a grander picture, not just the problem that's in front of you, but what are the future problems?

How can we avoid the future problems? Yes, we can fix it the way it stands, but can we fix it better? Think about that.

Think about how to make something better. Customer service. We don't do a good job with teaching or with promoting customer service.

You got to take some classes and get some background in being a customer servant, right? We have to have a servant heart to do what we do. But you also need to understand that our problem started with a person, a human being who has a need or problem.

And so we need to address that human aspect of it before we jump right into how to fix their problem. So you need to be well-versed in that. Aside from that, it goes back to that kindness and the understanding that everybody needs to be treated as a human being and with kindness.

And if you can't do that, then you might better just stay out there fixing things. But even out there fixing things, you still have to have all of those. But once you get those, you can become a great leader.

[Adrian Danila] (37:32 - 37:46) Chris, one of the things that I'm thinking about quite a bit is that what's being left behind when it's all said and done, legacy. So when it's all said and done for you, how would you like to be remembered? What would you like your legacy to look like?

[Chris VanDruff] (37:47 - 38:39) That's good, man. I hope that somebody will talk about me the way I talk about those people that are in my mirror. I hope every day that I can make somebody's day a little better.

I leave the house thinking, how am I going to make somebody's day a little better today? I know that I can't do that without a fantastic team. So I truly support the team aspect.

And I hope that when they talk about me, they talk about, that cat really, he understood where we were coming from and cared about. If there's nothing else, then I hope that's what they think about me. Yeah, he had it together.

He knew how to fix things, but he cared about us. He truly gave care, really wanted us to be the best.

[Adrian Danila] (38:40 - 38:48) Chris, what are some final thoughts that you have for the audience? Some things that you wish you would have said during the conversation you didn't have the opportunity to.

[Chris VanDruff] (38:48 - 41:17) I don't want to gloss over the preventative maintenance. I want to talk about our preventative maintenance program. I think that's huge.

I think, you know, we talk about preventative maintenance and we assign preventative maintenance. I think we need to make sure that our technicians know what preventative maintenance is supposed to be, right? I think if we just send them out there to PM a condensing unit and they walk out and they put their hand over the top and it's blowing hot air and they feel the lines and it's cold and, you know, that's not preventative maintenance.

That's a visual inspection. So I think we need to do a great job at making sure our technicians and our folks, whether it be housekeepers, landscapers, I think we need to do a much better job in promoting that and making sure they understand our expectations. Make sure they're written down, they're understood, and they're portrayed well.

I think that's the biggest thing and I think we really need to sell that to the folks that we're supporting and we're supposed to be taking care of, not only our technicians, but our colleagues, right? We need to help them understand. You know, I talk about Maxwell Group has a fantastic, probably one of the best PTO structures I've ever seen, but it doesn't do any good if we can't use it, right?

If we're constantly being pulled back to the communities, back to the job, we can't leave the job because we're, you know, we're constantly fighting fires. Well, that's why we have to, that's the best way to promote our preventative maintenance program. We want retention.

We need to make sure our folks can get away from here for a while. We want more people buying into our communities and more members. We need to make sure that things aren't breaking, you know, a month after they move in.

So, those are a couple of the things and then, you know, just I know I drove home the education piece, but really we're all so much more, right? We need to focus on being extraordinary. I think people have told us we're ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

Thanks again to Kevin Brown. I can't steal that line, but we are extraordinary people and when we leave the house every day and we know that we're extraordinary people and we're going to go out and do extraordinary things, we're already ahead of the game. So, continue to strive to be extraordinary every day, you know, be kind, be extraordinary.

[Adrian Danila] (41:19 - 41:30) Be kind, be extraordinary. What a great line to close this conversation with. Chris, for those in our audience that, you know, wanted to reach out to you, want to connect with you, what are the best ways to find you and connect with you?

[Chris VanDruff] (41:30 - 42:28) Absolutely. I'm on LinkedIn, same name, Chris Vandruff. My email is cvandruff at maxwell-group.com.

Definitely, and I believe my LinkedIn has my email and my phone on there. I'm always open. I love relationships.

I think in this world, we are only as good as the relationships we create and we're all fighting the same fight. We're all battling the same thing every day, whether you're doing senior living or student housing or high-rises or hospitals, it's the same battle, right? And I love having the network to be able to reach out and say, hey, have you seen this or what do you think of this or how do you handle this?

I think that's huge and we're only as good as our network and our relationships. So, definitely reach out. I would love to have the connections.

I'd love to talk, shop or share a beer or whatever you want to do. Let's make it happen.

[Adrian Danila] (42:28 - 42:44) Chris, thank you so much for making time to speak with me today and be here for the audience as well. I hope to stay in touch. I hope to see you on a facilities leadership group that we started like seven months ago and I hope to continue this conversation later down the road.

[Chris VanDruff] (42:44 - 42:47) Love to, Adrian. Thanks so much, man. I appreciate the opportunity.

[Adrian Danila] (42:48 - 43:02) Everybody, thank you for watching us, for watching another episode of Multifamily X Podcasts, Masters of Maintenance. I do want to thank our sponsors for making this possible, Kairos and Upwork, and we hope to see you back here soon. Have an amazing day.