From Service to Success

[Jose Murillo] I did four deployments to Iraq. My first deployment, I was 21 years old. It's even related over into multifamily because you're constantly on the go, you're on a standby, you know, on call.

You know, if you have an interest, reach out to those that are already in that position, find a mentor. That's one thing that I've learned from the Rich Dad Poor Dad program is having a mentor is essential, it is key. The thing with our industry is that we're not one subject matter expert, right?

I love the saying, you know, jack of all trades, the master of none, but I'd rather be the jack of all trades than the master of none, right? And I remember an old clip of, I can't remember, I think it was like on Good Morning America, they were like, what is this www.AOL? This is a trend.

No, like AI is the internet. To me, it's the new internet, right? One big thing that I want to leave off is that, you know, in the multifamily industry, especially from the maintenance perspective.

[Adrian Danila] Jose, I wanted to start by, you know, talking a little bit about who you are, you know, who you are as a person. We chat a lot about who we are as professionals, and that's extremely important. Basically, it comes down to that.

But also, I want for people to get to know you, who you are as a person. You know, let's start with the childhood. When you grew up, what did you want to become when you grew up?

[Jose Murillo] Great question. You know, I wanted to be a police officer probably when I started growing up. And then I watched Full Metal Jacket.

And I've seen the Dress Blues on the Marine. And then I've seen R. Lee Ermey.

And I said, that's what I wanted to be. I want to be a Marine. I want to be a drill instructor.

It just stuck in my head always. My uncle was in Vietnam. He's a multi-recipient in Purple Heart during the 68, during the Tet Offensive.

And so, I always had this military mindset. And I always wanted to go to the military, figured if I didn't stay as a career, then I'd get out and become a police officer. So, that was who and what I wanted to be, kind of, you know, as you go through the chapters of your life, kind of see some other little things here and there.

But that's what stuck. And that's the direction and the path I took as far as going into the military.

[Adrian Danila] Well, I thank you for your service. It is much appreciated. I just interviewed two hours ago.

I interviewed somebody else that's been in the service. And I learned that a lot of maintenance leaders in multifamily have a military background. And I think I understand why.

It's kind of like the discipline, the structure that military gives you. And there's a lot of purpose into, you know, doing maintenance, facilities maintenance. You know, there's a lot of serving out there.

So, I think there's a lot of commonality. It's part of the mindset on both, right?

[Jose Murillo] I think you hit it on the head. You know, it's that serving mentality. Those that joined to serve, that's what we did.

It's a greater purpose in joining and being a part of something that's greater than ourselves. And when you're in the military, you definitely feel that. Especially if you're within my generation of just consistent combat tours.

And, you know, if you joined from 2000 and on, you knew that you were going into that combat environment. But that was typically the reason majority of all of us joined, you know, to serve and serve our country. And then when you're in theater, you're serving that brother and sister to the left and right of you and making sure that they're getting home as well as yourself.

[Adrian Danila] What did you deploy, Jose?

[Jose Murillo] I deployed, I did four deployments to Iraq. My first deployment, I was 21 years old. It's an interesting story.

My wife, who I was dating at the time, we went to a little thing. I told her this story about how I wanted to go in the Marine Corps. Long story short, wasn't able to go.

She said, why don't you just try one more time? Dropped her off from this vacation, a little trip that we did. Went straight to the MEPS station.

And I was actually a supervisor at that time. I was 21 years old. I was a service supervisor, apartment complex.

I've been doing apartments since 2000, 2001. Dropped her off, went straight to the recruiting station. Look, you don't have to sell me.

I was supposed to go when I was 18, but I didn't make it. And I signed up. I called my manager at the time.

And I said, hey, I'm not going to be in starting Thursday. And this was on a Wednesday. And she says, what are you talking about?

I said, just signed up. I'm leaving Monday. I left to the Marine Corps in July 2003.

And then landed up, joined the Marine Corps, going in. And then by August of 2004, I was in Iraq. Did a six-month tour there.

Came back. We did the push for Fallujah. This year was its 20th year anniversary.

This was a big eye-opener. And I was a truck driver. I hated driving trucks, but I loved gunning.

So, when you're a truck driver, you kind of sit around and wait. And I took what I learned when I would go out on missions. We'd build what's called forward operating bases.

So, we had to take that supplies out there. Well, I hated sitting around and being stagnant. So, I used what I learned in those three years of being in multifamily.

And I took it in helping build huts, Quonset huts, running electrical, running HVAC, hooking up gauges, charging units, doing installs on many splits and everything of that, things of that nature. And then just kind of continued in my eight years while I was in the Marine Corps. Just did additional multiple deployments.

I did three more after that as well.

[Adrian Danila] What drove you? What pushed you towards, you know, that type of dedication to like go back over and over again? That's not the most friendliest environment.

I will say that probably it's hellish in many ways.

[Jose Murillo] So, I think it was one being that servant mindset, right? And then being a part of something greater than ourselves. When you're in that environment, you go through the challenges, the different things that you go through.

And at a young age, it's instilled in you. It's literally ingrained in you. And it just becomes a part of you.

It becomes a part of everything that you're a part of. Even my family, my kids, during that timeframe, my wife, we had three children while I was in the Marine Corps for eight years. She became a part of that.

It was just something about it, you know, that you just became a part of something that was greater than yourself, but even your family does. So, the support that I get from my family as well, the wife that I've had, you know, for 21 years, she's just always been there and supporting. And I think it's even related over into multifamily because you're constantly on the go, you're on a standby, you know, on call.

And so, I've always been blessed where she always understood, you know, like, hey, you got to go take care of this call or whatever the case may be. But what drives, I think, that mindset is just they become family. Those brothers and sisters that you're working with, you become family.

You're with them more than you are with your own family. And so, that's what really drives that and making sure, again, that if we are deploying, we're going into theater, we're going to make it back out all together.

[Adrian Danila] Jose Mourinho, thank you so much for sharing this with us. And everyone, if you started watching this episode, Jose is our special guest today. Jose is Regional Maintenance Manager with Graystar.

I also want to thank our sponsors from Upwork and Kairos for making this broadcast possible. Jose, going back to when you returned from Iraq, what was the path that you followed?

[Jose Murillo] So, I mean, I get back from Iraq, you kind of go through your workup. So, you're back depending on how you usually get about a six month where you stay back. We were back for six months, went back out, did another seven-month deployment, came back.

At some time where I stayed, I decided to re-enlist. I was actually going to get out and become a police officer in Albuquerque and just didn't go that route. They landed up doing bonuses.

They had a $15,000 sign on re-enlistment bonus and my wife still was enjoying it. At that time, we had two kids and a toddler and then an infant at the time. I put in orders, we landed up going to San Diego, went to the 3rd Marine Air Wing and landed up going out there and then did two more tours out there.

One was a 13-month tour, which was my last tour. Got back in 2009. Still was enjoying it, loving it.

Things in the area that I wanted, like I said, I wanted to be a drill instructor. So, I wanted to go and become a drill instructor. That was the direction I was going.

I did everything in the career path that they told me to do. Unfortunately, you know, there's what we call needs of the core. And at that time and point when I was trying to become a drill instructor, I was a sergeant at the time and I'd been in already for nearly eight years.

And they stopped accepting sergeants because stuff was going on. They switched over some stuff. Again, like I said, needs of the core shift on orders were going to change.

And so, still was planning to get in, but something wasn't sitting right. And I landed up getting orders to go back to North Carolina. I went to go talk with one of the leadership, well, with the leadership there and told them I was going to be inbound in July.

And they just said, when did you get back? I told them 2009. And this was 2010 timeframe towards tail end and let them know, you know, when I've gotten back.

And they said, well, don't unpack because we need to send you to Afghanistan. They had lost three sergeants out there and they needed to replace them. So, I just wanted a little bit of break in time.

So, I started looking around and I started looking at different federal jobs and landed up finding a federal job with the Bureau of Land Management in the state of New Mexico, up in Northern New Mexico. And it was a federal job and I prayed about it, landed up things working. And I landed up getting out thinking I was just going to roll over and do a federal job.

And 2011, budget cuts during that era. And so, the job I applied for and I did get at the time, landed up getting cut. So, I was out of the Marine Corps in 2011.

I enjoyed a little bit, almost like a sabbatical. And I was kind of stressing because I didn't know what to do. And I wasn't sure I was kind of still wanting to go back to the Marine Corps.

And I started shopping around or I shouldn't say shopping around, but looking for jobs and they kind of revert back to what you're comfortable and you know, and I knew maintenance and I felt comfortable with maintenance. And that's how I landed up getting back to maintenance. I actually applied though, to become an assistant manager because I wanted to go over to the office side and learn about leasing and investing and things of that nature.

The company at the time though, felt that I'd be more suitable and a better asset going back to the maintenance. And so, I landed up going to the maintenance and I'd been out of the maintenance game for eight years. I didn't feel too comfortable with it, but you know, you overcome and you adapt and you just take what's hold and that's what I landed up doing.

And I landed up coming back into the maintenance field. And that's where 2011, I was back in the maintenance game. A lot had changed from 2003 to 2011 and it was a big learning curve for sure.

But I had some great guys that now actually work for Fort Greystar and in my region and we used to work hand in hand together. And what's even interesting is one of the guys, Fernando, who used to help me a lot trying to get back in and refreshed and learn new things and being a maintenance, his son's in. And I remember when his son was, you know, this little kid and now his son's a supervisor.

So, it's a career. I learned that, you know, as I got back in and I left again too. I left the multifamily and went to the union side.

I thought, well, maybe I'll try my hand in the trades and thought about maybe opening up my own HVAC business once I started getting my journeyman's license and things like that figured out. And again, lo and behold, it sucks you back in and I'm glad it has. I'm truly glad that it has.

And so, that was essentially my stint and break in time from 2003 to 2011 and then how I came back into it. And then I've just kind of worked myself up into the position I'm at now.

[Adrian Danila] Was it easier for you to transition back into the civilian life?

[Jose Murillo] It was. It was really hard. You go from being a senior sergeant, a platoon sergeant in charge of 60 guys in a combat environment or even a section chief or the different roles that I've had through all these areas.

And it wasn't. It was a little bit different. It was humbling.

I actually used to have some of my Marines that would call me and say, hey, Sergeant Murillo, what are you doing? I'd tell them like, hey, you want to know what I'm doing right now? I'm picking up dog poop.

And as a sergeant in the Marine Corps, it's something that you're like, wait, what? You know, and so it was humbling, but it was needed. And I'm glad, you know, it was a good learning experience because there's nothing beneath, you know, myself or I'm doing what I expect us to do.

You know, these are what comes with that role, but it's that servant mentality that I think is ingrained in many of us.

[Adrian Danila] What was the year that you made the step up from being over one site versus being over multiple sites in multifamily?

[Jose Murillo] So that would be 2013, 2014 timeframe is when I had one property and my manager called me in with her regional or our regional at the time. And they proposed, would you be interested? Because it was two communities just a block away.

I kind of was taken back because I don't want to bet on that property for probably a year, year and a half. I have a highly respect for that manager that I had at that time. I used to even joke with her.

I said, you know, there was a pre-life, you probably were a Marine. I said, you know, she, just me and her really meshed very well and had a great team. And so, yeah, so 2013, 2014 is when I started to do some multi-siting.

[Adrian Danila] What are some things that I'll say key experiences and decisions that actually propel you towards multi-site and becoming a, you know, a corporate leader?

[Jose Murillo] Oh, well, going into a corporate, you're saying into the corporate team or multi-siting like...

[Adrian Danila] I skipped a step from multi-site, right? From two properties. What was next after that?

[Jose Murillo] Next after that was just going into a larger community, probably overseeing properties that were 500 plus, getting into that range. Right in between there, I had left and landed up going to the union and working for a trades company, but shortly lived and came back to the apartments, which I was very thankful for. And that's where I landed up going into a college type community, 500 plus units.

And then I also floated as well and assisted and became a senior maintenance manager, which at the time was Alliance, when I was with Alliance.

[Adrian Danila] And what was next after that?

[Jose Murillo] Next after that, I kind of bounced around in a sense where, you know, I shouldn't say bounce around, but I guess it's the best way I can put it. I landed up getting other job offers for managers that I had worked with before. I landed up going to Olympus, worked for Olympus for a couple of years, a year and a half or so.

That's where my mind, I guess my mindset really started changing. I started listening to a lot of different podcasts about investing and really just diving in and learning more about the apartment industry, not realizing the opportunities that I had. When I went over to Olympus, I landed up becoming a training ambassador for them.

They would fly me to California. I would go to Arizona, Texas, help in training, which they called a training ambassador. It was helping in and train new supervisors or supervisors that were new to Olympus.

And they had a training program that we invited by and kind of a career path and a path that you would follow. And so be guiding and advising in those areas. And I did that for a while.

And then I left there to go work with another manager who had reached out to me. But during my time at Olympus, again, like I said, I started really getting in to investing. I started opening up my own online business and wholesaling and things of that nature.

I was wholesaling wood watches and wood sunglasses and kind of a drop shipping company. I landed up getting to meet one of the owners to Olympus. And it was a huge eye opener.

I went on a couple of due diligences with him and his acquisitions team. And it made me really want to get into investing more. And from then I landed up also investing into Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad Poor Dad program.

And I landed up wholesaling houses right prior to the pandemic and did a few deals. Some good deals were profitable in that first year. We did really well in the pandemic.

And that really just shifted the market from my wholesaling on houses, the market. And also, of course, with bringing in materials or my wood watches, sunglasses, things of that nature, with drop shipping and bringing in our items out of China and other places. So kind of dabbled in a lot of different areas, doing a little bit of entrepreneurial on the side and doing side hustles.

From there, I landed up going over to Sentinel. I left Olympus because I thought I was going to go and open up my wholesaling business. But again, like I said, pandemic unfortunately happened.

And from there, I got reached out again from another manager. And it was an active adult community, went over there, landed up there and then found out that my predecessor was retiring. I went on ahead and put my hat and my name in the hat to apply for the regional maintenance position, which was three years ago and then landed up getting promoted.

[Adrian Danila] What do you think made you get promoted? I'm sure that you know you were the only candidate that your company was looking at at the time.

[Jose Murillo] It's kind of an interesting with that because I was with what we call the own asset side for Graystar, different areas. And I wasn't on the conventional side at that time and own assets was new to me. Active adult was new to me.

So I was learning on those areas. So I'll be honest, when I put my name in the hat, I really didn't expect, like you said, because there was going to be multiples that have been on the conventional side. You know, when I had my interview with my director, she was looking for some training, some other ideas, different things.

And I believe just within experience, the experience that I've had in the background, some of my military background, what she was envisioning and looking for. And I kind of just told her what I'm envisioning for the future, what I want to do, what the things that I want to bring to the table. And I think that was a big part of that.

And just the experience as well in this time frame, but not just as well, I think just the experience within probably my last 20 years where you go back all the way to 2001 and up.

[Adrian Danila] You have an amazing story, an amazing career. There's many out there, site level, you know, service supervisors that are looking up to you, to someone like you. They want to become POSE one day.

What are some pieces of advice that you have for them with POSE?

[Jose Murillo] You know, is go for it. Don't hold back. You know, if you have an interest, you know, reach out to those that are already in that position.

Find a mentor. That is the best thing. That's one thing that I learned from the Rich Dad Poor Dad program is having a mentor is essential.

It is key. You're going to learn from their experience. You're going to learn from their mistakes.

They're also going to guide and advise you on what directions to take, what paths in education and things of that nature. And then also invest in yourself. That's the biggest thing.

If you're wanting to make this a career, invest in yourself, find out about, you know, what certifications you can get, what other teaching platforms or instructor proctor certifications can you get? I wish I had known that, you know, honestly, probably at least 10 years ago, had I known that I could have just applied myself to becoming a CPO instructor and knew the route to take or becoming an EPA proctor, knowing that route to take, I would have probably, I think maybe advanced a little bit quicker and further. I just didn't know that path.

And the only way you're going to know those paths is by picking people's brains. Don't be shy. Be that annoying little nephew that I was asking, why this, why that?

You'll get those answers and you're going to learn. So if you have an interest, definitely just research it and reach out to those that are in those positions. If you, if you feel that, you know, Hey, I want to go into that regional maintenance manager position or a director of maintenance, or you want to go towards construction management, reach out to those that are in those positions already.

That's, that's probably the first thing I would advise and guide somebody to How many communities you're overseeing now? So in New Mexico right now, we've just had some transitioning now. We have pretty much 54 now.

I'm at, I think 49 to 48 with development.

[Dean Fung A Wing] This first customer, when we installed this solution for him, we installed on January 4th this year. And within like three weeks, the temperatures of the paddock had gotten below 40, immediately sent a notification to the key building engineer. They saw that the temperatures that night, according to the weather forecasts are going to drop into the twenties, low twenties.

Well, sure enough, the ambient sensor could tell that the attic was dropping very fast, like hours within hours down to 32 degrees. And that night it had gotten down to 20 degrees. Well, luckily for them, they went on Firewatch.

Once they saw the temperatures were opposing freezing, they could drain the lines of the system. And that way there was no risk to the asset. And they just had to pay for a little bit of overtime for somebody to walk the building every 45 minutes.

In the morning, when the temperatures start to rise, they could turn the system back on and go back off of Firewatch, right? This happened multiple nights in a row. And one of the nights they actually caught a crack in one of the lines, the leak sensor, they were able to detect that there was a small crack in one of the lines from it just being an old line.

And they only had to pay $3,000 for a specialized plumber to come and fix that line, but they didn't have any damage. Last year, over $300,000 worth of damage because of the apartment's flooding. Same building, same issue, the following year, zero water damage.

And the only difference was they knew what the temperature of the pipes were. And that's it, right? Once you know, then you can act and be responsible.

[Adrian Danila] What are some things that you know now that you wish you knew when you first started the job, the regional job, and you didn't? You thought they weren't so. You thought they were different than what you know today.

[Jose Murillo] Gosh, it's a good question and a hard one at that. I think wishing you kind of more of a direction or there was more a more career path. I think we're not, I shouldn't say career path, but kind of an area of like areas, like if you had somewhere that you can go to, right?

I mean, we have SOPs, we have a lot of these things, but they're very broad. And I think it's kind of hard because you have to kind of keep them broad because every, I mean, I'm in the state of New Mexico, the direction and areas that I'm like taking the state of New Mexico may be totally different as to what Nevada or Arizona might do or Texas, right? We have to go off of local municipalities and things of that nature.

So really preparing, I think is something that I probably should have done in certain areas. And had I done the research, reached out, looked for mentors, I think I would have already would have had some of those answers. But you kind of sometimes learn the hard way or it's trial by fire in some cases.

I don't know if that's answering your question as best as I can, but it makes it a little bit hard though, I feel, because again, like I said, going back, local municipalities, states, codes are different, you know, would be an example where we find out, you know, Arizona follows the NFPA where the state of New Mexico follows the IFC. And within those codes, you know, you have fire codes and things of that nature when it comes to safety, there's going to be some different things that Arizona is doing different than New Mexico or New Mexico has to do different than Arizona. So it's kind of a hard one to really dissect.

But I think for me, what I wish I knew is that I really reached out to those knowing I was going into this position more and more often.

[Adrian Danila] If you were to pick the two most important people that made the most difference in your career, in your life, who would those people be? Or maybe it's the same person that, you know, affected you equally in life and in your career?

[Jose Murillo] Wow, two people. That's a hard one because I've had a lot of impact in my life and in my career. I would just say the leadership that I received from the Marine Corps.

I can give, I can go on naming names that had some really good leadership, especially towards my tail end of career in my last seven years, probably six to eight year mark. I had some great officers and some really great Master Gunnery Sergeants that I have that were in charge of me and some First Sergeants that were in charge of me that really, I feel, helped me in propelling in my career, would help me as well had I stayed in the Marine Corps. I've got some great leadership that, you know, one that I would say would be probably Master Gunnery Sergeant Diaz.

He was just, he just emulated leadership and what you wanted as a leader from whether it was being stern or being fair across the board and then just mentoring. He just was really great. And then secondly, would be probably my parents.

My father who emulated what you did to work, the work ethic that he just consistently emulated day in and day out. And then the support from my mom, there being, she just constantly was supporting me throughout. As a kid growing up, I was a special ed student.

And so all the way, probably, I think it was from fifth grade all the way really till I graduated. But I'll be honest, in my high school years, I was lazy and I learned I could work the system. And my mom still would encourage and do as much as she could to support me when I told her I was going to the Marine Corps.

I mean, she thought like, well, this is a lot. It's the military and she worked for the Air Force. So a lot of people think that, you know, the Marines are just ground pounders and trigger pullers, but there's a lot that comes to it.

And I realized that laziness was huge. But again, going back though, those leaders that I had in the Marine Corps and then my parents.

[Adrian Danila] Most of the people, probably like 99% of the people I talked to in our industry, when I ask them, what's your story? How did you get into multifamily? It's a story of happenstance.

It's not something that they pursue purposely. Like they knew that this is a great industry they wanted to become a part of. It sounds like, you know, you're following just like I do.

We're following the same path. What do we do? What should we do as an industry to turn the tables on this narrative to actually make the industry a place where people actually know that our industry exists and actually have a desire?

We make it very desirable for them to become a part of.

[Jose Murillo] That's a great question. You know, and I've watched your podcast, Adrian, and a lot of the responses are great that I hear. And again, like you said, we don't just wind up waking up one day and say, hey, I'm going to be a maintenance supervisor, right?

No, I woke up and I watched a movie. And so that's what I want to do. I want to be a Marine.

But in order for us to really reach out and getting out there, I think it's getting out to our communities, going out. I know what we do is we do a lot of outreach. We get with vocational schools or Bowtech schools, local community colleges.

We have a great, great team here that supports us here in New Mexico. Our talent and acquisitions team, they're really great, especially Shelby, who works with us. She's kind of our direct that we use and she reaches out, connects again, like I said, to the Bowtech schools, community colleges.

We did a table session, a couple of table sessions at some community colleges and then also reaching out to the local high schools and letting them know what's out there. I think for us as an industry, though, we need to really take on the social media. And I think I've heard you say it time and time again, right?

LinkedIn and getting into social media. Thing is, is that high schoolers are not jumping on the LinkedIn, right? They're getting on the TikTok.

They're getting on the Instagram, getting on some of them. I know my kids will probably say, no, dad, I don't jump on Facebook, right? I think I even watched one of your ones.

You asked how many of you guys have Facebook, right? Majority of the younger demographic probably didn't, right? But I think we need to capitalize on those areas and start reaching out to those that are on TikTok, to the Instagram, and then hopefully channeling them over maybe into LinkedIn.

I think LinkedIn probably has a different demographic in areas of that, you know, we're looking for those onsite level, those, those ones that are just starting out and to get their attention in those areas. But again, we still are going to reach those. And I think as an industry as a whole, that's what we should capitalize on.

I don't see it happening quite yet. I know that there's some red tape as well, depending on what company you're with, and it needs to be monitored and who's, you know, monitoring those Facebook pages and what we're doing. But I think that would be one of the best ways and then going through YouTube.

YouTube is a big, big one that I know for sure that everybody is jumping on there. How do I fix this? You know, there's a lot of kids that are out there growing up in a single family home, and some of them are having to fix things, right?

And they're probably jumping on YouTube. How do I fix this? How do I fix that?

And those are the areas I think that we need to capitalize on, and those platforms. And I think if we did that, as an industry, why we really could really elevate and then, again, continue doing what we're doing, getting into the Bowtech schools, getting into the community colleges, reaching out to the high schools, the local high schools, and things of that nature, and job fairs.

[Adrian Danila] I love the fact that you are identifying the places where they live, right? I'm going to say quote-unquote live, where they virtually live, right? It's not a blanket thing to just blast all over all the platforms and just kind of like see what sticks.

I love the fact that you're identifying where your target population demographic lives, and then you're looking at targeting them on that platform right there where they live. So that's fantastic. I'm right there.

I've been a big proponent, and I've been speaking up for a long time now that we should take over like true content. We should make content that's specific, and that's actually appealing to people that don't know anything about industry, to get them to become interested in what we do out here, and eventually have them to come over to sign up for Multifamily.

[Jose Murillo] No, these other platforms, you know, and again, it's one thing that we've done where we're doing with training. We've signed on to Interplay, and they have the VR headsets, right? I feel like showing like how we train into one of those platforms, right?

You got VR, you know, this virtual reality type of learning, and we deem it towards how we're training and how you can learn these things, and then sell it as well, that it's not just a job. It can be a career path. I mean, we've had supervisors here locally from Graystar that were Graystar team members, and now they're our vendors, and it's a career path that can also lead you into an entrepreneurial state, and you can own your own company.

Not only that, the amounts of money that you could be saving or side jobs as well. I've heard you talk about the gig economy and everything as well, and that's a big proponent to it, and just adding it to those platforms that they're majority of the time on, I think would really help us.

[Adrian Danila] I'm glad you brought up gig economy. I'd like to hear your take on, do you think that at some point we will bring as an industry some of that gig economy business model into property management? In other words, would it be a platform that actually facilitates property needs or, you know, management company needs with the available skill that's out there that doesn't want a full-time commitment, doesn't want to sign up a full-time assignment.

They just want to work at various times. You know, it might be two days a week, three days a week, it might be an evening shift, it might be a morning shift, whatever. Do you think that that's something that's going to happen?

Do you see that happening in the future? Again, not as a replacement for a full-time. I personally don't think, but do you see a place for it?

[Jose Murillo] I don't know if I would say that. I think there's a place already there with it, right? When you have temp agencies, it's kind of what you're utilizing.

A temp agency is that gig, in that sense, a gig economy. To me, the gig economy is somebody who, let's just say for me, I've had ideas of when I'm cleaning out dryer vents and things like that, I'm like, shoot, man, how much can I charge for this, right? This is what we're getting charged here.

I can go ahead and probably charge this on a residential state and move in and start slowly but surely. I think the gig economy has affected us as a whole. For those that have become wise and say, hey, I can go out and create my own business doing, let's say, air dry cleaning or air vent cleanings and things of that nature.

I feel that it's in place already. Like I said, for us as a temp agency, I think temp agencies would essentially fill in that spot. For the future, I think it's kind of hard to really look and see if there's going to be a place.

I wouldn't feel comfortable with it other than in the sense that we're already kind of using a temp agency, right, to fill the gap because my teams are shorthanded and I got to fill these gaps. What do I need to do? I can't support them from any other portfolio or from my floating team that I float because they're already tapped.

We're kind of already using those temp. Now, with a gig economy or the gig asset, though, if there's somebody that has that skill set that you're saying, right, there's those things where they're not signing on full time. They might work if they're going into, I don't want to say centralized, but something that I do.

I float five team members under me and we dispatch them to fill in the gaps, right? If I've got somebody that's out because their wife, they had a baby that came, right, they'd the great benefits that we provide them. They're out for four or five, six weeks, what have you, or I've got somebody that is no longer at that property.

I'm able to fill that. That might work because it's a part time kind of mentality. In that case, I think that it could work in the future in those areas, but it's one of those ones that would be interesting to see how it would play out.

But I like the mentality as long as they have that mindset, but the skill set, right? The talent that they're able to go in their hookup gauges, they're certified, EPA certified. They've got the experience.

Yes, it's going to work, but if they're green, I don't feel it would work the best, because we're just going to have them doing quarter work.

[Adrian Danila] There's also ways in which you could actually sort them out and determine which ones are the right for the job. For example, having a system on a app, on a platform that you rate them. So at the end of the day, when they finish the assignments, the direct supervisor, the site supervisor could go or should go on an app and just leave a review.

I think that automatically that will just sort out the good ones from the ones that are not so great. I mean, who in the world is going to want to hire a technician that has a one-star rating? Why would you do that?

You flush out the non-talent or the non-skilled or the unqualified or the lazy ones. You flush them out just by creating that system of rating. If everybody rates them, eventually that's going to sort out very fast before you know it.

[Jose Murillo] You're right. And the laziness or that work ethic is going to weed themselves out as well. So if you have something implemented in place on how to vet these team members that are coming across, if it's coming from a third party, such as a temp agency in a sense, it's the best way I could refer to it as, they'll weed themselves out.

And if you have something to vet that, I think that yes, it would work.

[Adrian Danila] I think you're right about the model that exists with the temp agencies. I think that there's more friction with that because it's not such a frictionless process. The second thing is that you don't really have a way to vet.

I obviously worked throughout the years with various companies and then you would tell someone, a particular company, do not send this employee back here. And then they might send them to a sister property or they might go to a different company and come back with a different company. So it feels like, hey, you're back again.

So those are the things that I think with technology and very frictionless, without any type of bother, you could just go on a phone and just rate that person. You will flush out immediately the ones that are not desirable for your group.

[Jose Murillo] Yeah. And that's key is the vetting process and vetting out who's going to be desirable versus the others.

[Adrian Danila] We're facing probably the biggest exodus right now, not just our industry, but the entire society. The boomers are retiring, millions and millions every year. They had a lot of knowledge.

They had a lot of legacy knowledge. The Gen Xers are 50 to 60, pushing 60 years old. I mean, they're not going to be around for too much long doing hands-on work.

They might be doing something later, but for us, for purposes of serving multifamily, there's not a lot of time left. Once you lose the boomers, once you lose the Gen Xers, who is out there for us to replace the legacy knowledge with? That's the question.

How do you think we should approach this? I mean, we're not there yet, but every day that gap widens. As an industry, we don't seem to close that gap to say we did something and we're trying to close that gap.

It widens every single year and we're contracting more out. We're losing more and more legacy knowledge. There's not a whole lot left out there.

[Jose Murillo] As a nation as a whole, in the 80s and 90s, what did they push us towards? Did they even push us towards technology, which is great? That's where we're at, the information age.

They pushed everybody to look down upon dirty jobs, like the show shows, unclogging toilets, doing what we do, getting in digging ditches. That was looked down upon. We need to reverse that rule.

As an industry, we need to let everybody know that, hey, okay, it's a dirty job, but there's the few and the proud that are doing this. Kind of like the way we are in the Marine Corps, the few and the proud. There's only certain ones that are getting in there and wanting to do these types of things, but we have to really look at the marketing standpoint of it and shift and do opposite of what they did back in the 90s.

Because I remember when I went into high school, I signed up for shop for mechanics. When I learned how to work on cars, showed up, the budget was cut. We had no teacher.

Why? Because they wanted to focus us getting more computer skills. I totally understand the method and why they did it.

Then they also pushed us to go to college, which I have another thought as to some of those things, but we've got to reverse that and really start to shift. Again, going to those platforms where they're living, really, in a sense, romanticizing what's out there, the benefits that come in with this as a career. I can't remember what article I was reading or where I had heard it from, but the next millionaires are going to be those that are in the trades.

Those HVAC guys, the electricians. The thing with our industry is that we're not one subject matter expert. I love the saying, jack of all trades, the master of none, but I'd rather be the jack of all trades than the master of one.

I learned that when I was in the trades and with the union for that short span of time that I was with them, because I see me where I'm working on an AC or I'm working as an electrician or we're pulling wire and things of that nature. Now they send us out to do a call on an AC call because they thought it was an electric call and they thought that they had to change out a contact or a run cap or what have you. They sent us out there.

Turned out it was no, it was a refrigerant issue. I told them I can hook it up. I've got gauges.

I'm able to do that by us romanticizing that and looking and showing the capabilities and the opportunities that are out there really in shifting. It's a big marketing standpoint. It's going to be a huge, but it has to be done from an industry wide.

I mean, all of the different agencies, the national apartment associations, the local apartment associations, us as alerts, gray star Olympus, all these other companies that are out there. We need to really market it and sell it, but we've got to come together as a whole and then also push it over across as a because our nation itself is hurting for tradesmen as well. And we really got to push that across the board.

[Adrian Danila] The centralization is probably the top, the number one buzzword that I'm hearing this year at industry conferences. I don't think it's actually going away, fading away anytime soon. So I'd like to get your thoughts on main and centralization.

[Jose Murillo] You know, I know that we're, we're working in centralization and I know a lot of people are opposed to it. Some are for it. I think it's dependent on how it works.

You know, if I'm not losing a team member in order to maintain multiple sites, five sites, six sites, or what have you, how that looks, it can be challenging though. I still feel as well in dispatching technology is going to have to come into play and using platforms such as like maybe happy co or other platforms and things like that, where you can dispatch works. But I think it is, it's coming towards the future, but I still prefer, I think the team site level where you've got, you know, one per a hundred, you've got 300 units, you've got your supervisor, you know, a tech and the porter or lead tech and attack depending on, you know, the company, how they structure it.

I do see it, you know, coming about and happening and being tested, but I feel that, I don't know, sometimes I feel it's a buzz trend and it's going to go for a little while. They're going to go back to the way we've done the one per a hundred or what have you is kind of where I feel. I think centralization works in an aspect, let's say like what I do here in New Mexico, I've got five team members that float, I've got multiple floating supervisors and then multiple lead techs.

I think it works from that to help fill the gaps, fill certain locations that need, you know, help, additional help. I think it will work is exceptional from a preventative maintenance standpoint. If you can build a, say a centralization team for HVAC or skilled specific things where we know is high cost, I think it works there.

I think it would work there and you've got a team that can dispatch out. I think it works very well there, but centralization going from where we've got a certain team, depending on the size of how many communities they're going out to, there's usually still going to be a little bit of need because we're already in need in general in our industry and shortages that we have on just the community levels that we're running now. I think there's going to be even more shortages or there is just as much shortages, if not more, when we're running centralization.

Again, I haven't ran it and done it myself, so that's just my outside looking end view. And now a word from Sean Landsberg, co-founder, Appwork.

[Adrian Danila] Most prop tech companies are built this way. We're hiring people that could write code. We're hiring people that are selling the product, but the end user is nowhere in this picture.

How's Appwork different than the scenario just described?

[Sean Landsberg] Well, we're fundamentally different because we are the end users ourselves. We meaning myself. I am an end user of the product.

I use the product myself on a daily basis, but something that we're a little bit different, then I always like to look at us as we're almost like a community of people, us, Appwork and all of our clients, where we leverage everybody's feedback, collective feedback to help make Appwork the incredible product that it already is and to help continue improving it. So we're constantly innovating and all of our innovation, all of our pipeline really comes from the feedback and the ideas that our clients are giving us.

[Adrian Danila] You mentioned technology being part of centralization. What are your thoughts on technology? How is it going to affect our trade and then specifically to AI?

Everybody's talking about AI, is trying to look at different angles in which they could actually bring AI into their businesses. How do you think technology and especially AI will influence the facility side of our business in the near future?

[Jose Murillo] I think it's going to influence it huge. And I think it's kind of of the 90s, late 90s, early 2000s, the dot coms. I remember the old clip of, I can't remember, I think it was on Good Morning America.

They were like, what is this www.AOL? This is a trend. No, AI is the internet.

To me, it's the new internet. It's in that infant stage in a sense where it's just AI. It's another trend.

But we see where the internet went. And they had the pets.com and all that went under. We're going to have different platforms and different AI platforms, whether you're using chat GPT.

I can't remember what the other one is that I've used. And I went back to chat GPT. I think it's huge.

I think it's great. I think it's going to help us, especially in the industry and being able to help us troubleshoot things. I know it helps me on a weekly basis.

I'll come across something I've never come across. I'll type something up. I'll look it up.

And then I do some little bit of research to see if it's legit for it. And we've been doing this long enough that, yeah, these are the right steps. It seems like this is the next direction that we need to go.

Whether you're troubleshooting something from a clogged DXV to a clogged dryer filter, it's giving you those steps. And what I love about it is you can tell it to give it a sequence of operation. It tells you to start from right here at the thermostat and move yourself forward.

If it's an electrical issue or if it's a refrigerant state issue. So I think technology is huge. We're here in New Mexico.

And I know some of our other regions are using what's called Interplay, which is amazing. It pushed hard for us to get it. And we started using it this month.

We did a soft rollout. We're going to do a hard rollout going into January. And if they're able to tie it in with AI on, hey, I'm running across this issue, and then give you a video and show you steps and sequence of operation.

And I think that it will go that route. I really do. It's going to just enhance our skills and get us better.

We can cut the time in half on troubleshooting something because it's going to lead you into these steps of sequence. I've already did this step, I did this step, I did this step. So I can cut that out.

And then we also are helping our teams and saving money because we're not just having parts exchangers and they're just changing part by part, right? You know, they're just Oh, well, I'm gonna try the sequencer next. No, it's not the sequencer.

Okay, well, maybe it's the relay. No, it's not that they should have just jumped straight over to the first step and looked at their transformer. And that's probably what it was.

So I think it's going to help us huge. And I'm a big proponent for technology and helping us within our industry, because I feel it helps in shorten the learning curve. I think I heard you on another podcast about what's called micro learning.

And I think that micro learning is huge. And that's what I liked about Interplay is that I have a two hour module, but they do it in five minute to 10 minute increments. Attention span has changed for us.

I know I'm guilty of it, regardless of what generation I fall under, you know, constantly wanting to do things that I do see it across the board in the industry, no matter what the age is, because I do think our phones cause us to do that those platforms that we utilize at our attention span is maybe only 5-10 minutes. So that micro learning helps as well. But again, going back to answer your question, I think it's just going to really enhance us, especially we invest in it and research and invest ourselves in learning more about it.

[Adrian Danila] Jose, as we're approaching the end of this episode, I want to give you the opportunity to pull your crystal ball. And tell me what you see as far as the future, you know, future trends in the industry, when it comes to facilities, if you want to go outside of facilities, feel free to do so. But what are some future trends that you see 2025 and beyond?

[Jose Murillo] For 2025 and beyond, I think trend wise, again, going back to technology and AI, and it continuing embedding itself through what platforms are going to start to use more and more, I believe, and I feel from the maintenance aspect, along with not just the maintenance side, but just the industry in the whole, the AI platforms coming across, utilizing, advancing and instructors or things of that nature and how to teach me as a proctor and a CPL instructor, in a sense, could part of that job or part of my position be, you know, taken because they're using bots in certain aspects. Yeah, it can. But again, that's where I say where you need to invest into it to learn more about it so that you can also still be tied in with it and somehow, but I do think that the trends are going to continue with the information age as we continue to grow more and more technology is just going to be taking even in more and more, you know, as far as from robots and things of that nature, going in furthermore, I think things are going to be tested as well to see what can be fixed, I still feel the human element is still going to need to be there in order to fix things and go through certain things. But again, in the future, I think that there's going to be AI platforms or things of that nature, where it can be, you know, a work order comes through, it's vetted, it's read and said, these are the things that you need to check. And then it kind of goes there.

And it, if we invest in it still builds on us. And that's kind of the area that I feel that we're going to be going on into 2025. And then into the future is, again, a big proponent of technology and property technology, whether it's from leasing all the way into the maintenance.

[Adrian Danila] Jose, it's been great chatting with you today. Thank you for making time to be with me to be with our audience here today. What are some final thoughts?

Maybe you wish to answer a question that you know, you wish I would have asked I didn't or any final thoughts to wrap up this conversation?

[Jose Murillo] Um, you know, final thoughts really, is those one again, I want to thank you know, we've talked and we've emailed before just advocating for for maintenance just in general, I think what what you're doing is what we've talked about some of the questions that you've asked, how do we, we sell our industry right to make it more desirable and making a career into this. So again, advocating, I think is great what you're doing and continuing to do these things for those that are at the site level, what I say is take your blinders off, don't think that you're going to be stuck on site, you know, as long as you're investing in yourself, your community, your team, and reach out to you know, if you have an interest in becoming a regional maintenance manager or a construction manager, renovations manager, heck, if you want to go from maintenance and want to learn about office and going over into the to the management side, start asking, start going over there and start getting with those that are already in those positions to see if that's the direction you want. Encourage those that are outside, you know, of this industry, because again, like you said, as a whole, I think we're hurting and there's shortages across everywhere, right? And people are trying new things.

You know, a good salesperson grave, you know, somebody that's really great with their hands, let them know about our industry, the opportunities that are out there. And one big thing that I want to leave off is that, you know, in the multifamily industry, especially from the maintenance perspective, and from the leasing side, as you've kind of heard my story, I've done everything from doing side jobs from, you know, whether it's replacing a toilet, installing a toilet, doing tile work, doing backsplash work, all this maintenance stuff to where I've even invested and learned about wholesaling and have become an investor for some time in my career and doing this. So there's a lot of opportunities that's out there. So capitalize on that opportunity that is in front of you.

And learn as much as you can. And just continue to learn. Because if you're not learning, you're not growing is the way I see it.

And that's what they used to tell me in the Marine Corps. You're not learning, you're not growing. And you become stagnant.

You know, you get comfortable. I always try to not stay comfortable. Because again, one thing that the Marine Corps would say, when you leave the wire, and you're going into Fallujah, you're leaving your safe base, or you're leaving that line, it should be a huge sign that would say complacency kills.

Literally, it does. And it can when you get lazy, or you get comfortable, and you're you think you know, this is the 100th GFI that I replaced. And you think you know, which one's the line and which one's the load.

And because you're comfortable, and you've been doing this for years, you decide to not grab that multimeter just to double check, you can put yourself and somebody else in another situation that you don't want to be in. So you know, don't get comfortable and just continue to learn and grow.

[Adrian Danila] Was it once again, thank you. Great conversation. Great having you on.

Everybody want to thank you all for watching us today. Thank our sponsors from Kairos and Apple for making this podcast possible. This is another episode of Masters of Maintenance.

I'm Adrian Danila, your host, signing off right here. See you on the next episode. Take care.