January 2020 FM Spotlight

Steve Georgoulis
Director of Facilities
TriWest

IFMA Phoenix:  Thank you for allowing us the pleasure of interviewing you for our January FM Spotlight!

Steve: My pleasure.

IFMA Phoenix: Where are you from?

Steve: I am from Lowell, Massachusetts. It’s about 20 miles from the border of New Hampshire. It’s the first industrialized town in the United States. Headquartered for textiles. It’s a city of around 100,000 and it’s a very blue collar city but a great city to grow up in.

IFMA Phoenix: Why did you join the Greater Phoenix Chapter of IFMA?

Steve: I joined the Greater Phoenix Chapter back in the early 2000’s when I was just laid off through downsizing. Our company that I worked for a number of years was bought out by another company and we were downsized. I had spent most of my time outside of Arizona, traveling California and other parts of the country. I didn’t really have a strong network in Arizona. I was aware of IFMA and reached out to Kent Miller who was the President of IFMA at the time. He welcomed me with open arms, invited me to meetings, he comped me to come to meetings. I thought, what a great organization. I felt like I had been embraced as a fellow FM, I felt like this is home. That was about 18 years ago and it has been a wonderful resource to me ever since.

IFMA Phoenix: What are your hobbies?

Steve: I don’t have a lot of hobbies, but I do have a boat that I take out to lake pleasant – I don’t necessarily drive around a lot, sometimes my wife and I will drop anchor and read a magazine or a book. Dive in the water every once in a while – when it’s over 85 degrees of course. Just enjoy a relaxing day. That is about the extent of my hobbies.

IFMA Phoenix: What is the craziest thing that you have experienced as an FM?

Steve: Well crazy and very interesting, classic FM story. I was responsible for several sites in the state of California and as we are all aware California experiences earthquakes from time to time. In the late 80s there was an earthquake that damaged several of our sites. One of the sites in Ridgecrest, California we had a field service side on the 6 story building and the entire side of the building fell away – luckily no one was injured – we had to relocate all those folks in short order. The surrounding buildings were also damaged to some degree. It was very challenging to find places for those folks to get back to work – this was well before the internet so working from home wasn’t even on the radar yet. It was quite interesting and quite challenging, but we managed.

IFMA Phoenix: What is fulfilling about being an FM?

Steve: Where to begin is the issue there. Everything is fulfilling about it – the people, helping people, getting things done, it’s learning. It’s a job where if you want continual learning you are missing the boat – you are really doing yourself and the people you work with a disservice. There is so much change going on in the industry and it is imperative that you continue to learn. It is interesting and I’m sure you have heard this on several occasions, the only thing that is consistent is change. You may be talking about something that is very high level at 9:00 and at 10:30 you are talking about something that is minuet, simple, simplistic. It is very challenging, interesting, and never a dull moment. It covers a broad spectrum of activity. From architecture to planning to basic maintenance to financial budgeting, it’s a great job and a great career path as well.

IFMA Phoenix: Why did you choose FM as a profession?

Steve: Well as most people will tell you, we didn’t choose it, it chooses us! It really is the way it happens. When I entered the facilities management environment it really wasn’t known as facilities management, it had multiple names. It was always an amalgam of different roles and it was sort of ill-defined. Some places people still don’t know what facilities management means. It found me for sure. My father had a small lumber company, so I was always around construction and I liked it. He owned some apartments and I was always involved in repairs – I kind of liked it. I like projects, getting things done. I joined a company after being in the military for some time – came out of that looking for a job before I went back to school. I took a position with a company; they had an ill-defined position in plant engineering at the time. I evolved from there, took on more responsibilities and really fell in love with it. Watched it evolve quite nicely from where it is today. Now it’s much better defined. There is educational programs and it’s a role a lot of people understand. We still need to do a lot more work to make it better known but we are getting there.

IFMA Phoenix: What is one interesting fact about Arizona?

Steve: Well as a New Englander this was only something that I read about in school. The wild horses in Arizona are still out there and they are relatively close to civilization. If you go out state route 87, the beeline highway, toward Saguaro lake you have the opportunity to see wild horses in their natural habitat, it’s absolutely a beautiful thing. Every once in a while, you will be driving by and they will be galloping along. It’s like seeing a page out of a history book – it’s really a beautiful thing.

January 2020 New Member Spotlight

George Steinbrenner
Proline

IFMA Phoenix:  Thank you for allowing us the pleasure of interviewing you for our January New Member Spotlight!

George: The pleasure is all mine.

IFMA Phoenix: Where are you from?

George: Originally from Cleveland, OH – lived there most of my life. Also lived in Ashville, NC, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Fredericksburg, VA, and that is where we lived when we moved here to Scottsdale - 4 months ago.

IFMA Phoenix: How do you support the FM profession?

George: My company, Proline Embroidering, specializes in providing uniforms and branded workwear like polo shirts with a logo on the left chest, hats, or even a duffle bag or backpack. Most of our business comes from facilities management or people that provide for the facilities management companies. We have a unique way of processing orders that makes it extremely easy for our customers which is why they are so pleased with what we do. Everything is done online. We setup a company store at no charge and no inventory is required either – our customers love that.

IFMA Phoenix: How long have you been in your industry?

George: I have been in this industry for 8.5 years

IFMA Phoenix: What IFMA event are you looking forward to most and why?

George: The WWP in October is going to be so much fun! I learned out it when we moved out here and I think that large international trade shows are so exciting. There will be people from all over the world there. I think there will be a lot of opportunity for my company and a lot of opportunity for IFMA members to learn a lot about what is going on in FM.

IFMA Phoenix: What is your favorite food?

George: Mexican is really moving up on the list for me since we’ve moved to Arizona – definitely Mexican food! 😊

IFMA Phoenix: What is one thing about you that most people don’t know?

George: Well and interesting fact from a long time ago is about my Grandfather. During WWI he invented a machine that was used to mass produce bullets which I have been told was significant for the WWI America war effort. It was contributed a lot to the effectiveness that America had over in Europe. They were able to get all the bullets they needed, and it was a tremendous boom for him and his family. The other thing that everyone finds interesting is my name is George Steinbrenner and if you are a baseball fan you know that name. I am from Cleveland, OH and the other George Steinbrenner is from Cleveland, OH and his father and my grandfather were brothers so that makes us second cousins.

IFMA Phoenix: What is one interesting fact about Arizona?

George: Before we moved here, we knew Arizona was a hot place. I thought the whole concept of a dry heat was a bunch of bologna – I didn’t believe it. When we moved here, we found out that when you have 7% humidity, you aren’t hot at all. That is what we have learned and it’s a true fact about Arizona.

IFMA Phoenix: What did you join the Greater Phoenix Chapter of IFMA?

George: My largest customer in Washington, D.C. had referred IFMA to me any times and when my wife and I moved here one of the first things I did was look into joining. I learned what an active chapter it was and I wanted to join right away. Then I ran into Stephanie Jones and she wanted me to get onto the Sponsorship committee right away and that’s what I am doing here.

IFMA Phoenix: What is the most challenging project you have taken on for an FM?

George: My largest customer in Washington D.C. area was a government services company that managed over 250 properties nationwide, they had a lot of trouble with their previous uniform supplier – they were going broke on inventory and what to do with leftovers, how to store it, and the fact that all the orders had to go through one person. When we setup our online store for them, each facility placed their own order under the control of corporate headquarters. Since we do not require inventory, they were very pleased with us and we turned the orders around in half the time as the previous supplier. So, the challenge was so many different locations with each location having their own logo and yet have every order come out perfectly – and to be shipped on time to the right people. We have created a service called apparel link which is our online ordering portal for our customers. It makes ordering so easy – 24hrs a day. The fact that we don’t charge to have this setup (unlike most of our competition) and we don’t charge to make changes such as bringing new garments on – like in the summer bringing in cooler things and, in the winter, warmer items. We just want to make it as easy as possible for our customer to work with Proline.

IFMA Phoenix: Favorite place in the world and why?

George: Probably my one single favorite place is pebble beach – I was very fortunate to play golf there. It was very special indeed.