Healthcare Facilities Network
The Healthcare Facilities Network podcast highlights the essential role of facilities
management in delivering high-quality patient care. Hosted by Peter Martin, this show brings you expert insights on the issues, trends, and solutions shaping the future of healthcare spaces. Learn from industry leaders and discover ways to drive positive change in your facility.
Healthcare Facilities Network
Unplanned to Purposeful: A Career in Facilities Management
Career paths in healthcare facilities management are rarely linear, and Steven Atkins’ journey is no exception. In this episode, we explore how Steven's diverse life experiences and unexpected opportunities led him to become a Director of Facilities Management—a role he never anticipated but fully embraces.
From twists and turns to pivotal moments, Steven shares insights into how each step along the way prepared him for leadership in healthcare facilities. Whether you’re exploring a new career or already in the field, this conversation will inspire you to see the potential in every experience.
Tune in to discover how unplanned paths can lead to purposeful careers.
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I try to let these guys know hey, man, there's not a lot of people your age who are diving into health care right now, who are diving off into all these different things that you can learn, and you've got a really, really wild opportunity to be one of the very few in the next five to 10 years. So if you can just work hard and learn a lot. Be willing to learn and work hard. The possibilities are endless in health care.
Speaker 2:There's a major crisis facing healthcare facilities management. We have aging employees, aging buildings and aging infrastructure. We've created the Healthcare Facilities Network, a content network designed specifically to help solve for these three pressing issues in healthcare facilities management. Thank you, our content, this is the Healthcare Facilities Network. I'm your host, peter Martin. I am happy and pleased to be joined by today's guest, stephen Atkins. Stephen is the Director of Facilities Management when Stephen, stephen Atkins, stephen is the director of facilities management. Where Stephen, there's a Methodist, le Bonheur Healthcare, memphis, tennessee. So Stephen and I practiced that beforehand. As I said to Stephen, as a guy from the Northeast the Le Bonheur I couldn't quite figure that out. So, stephen, thank you for jumping in and fielding that one for me. Sure, you know you have the big facility. What's the size of your facility, stephen?
Speaker 1:We're about 1.8 million of healthcare space and then maybe 3 million square foot. Total 26 acre campus, about six different buildings here.
Speaker 2:So you've got a big footprint.
Speaker 1:You're in a good size city.
Speaker 2:I like Memphis. We used to go there when Memphis was in Conference USA long ago and they played at the Pyramid we used to go to the Conference USA tournament. Had a great time in Memphis. But how do you? You've got a big place, you've got an important role, you have a growing family. How do you find your work-life balance? What do you do to stay centered?
Speaker 1:oh, wow, um, I'll tell you. It all comes back to the team that I work with here. At methodist university, I stepped into a really, really strong team with a lot of veteran guys who have really strong skill sets and have taught me a lot in my time here. Uh, and and having that team and that, that, uh, what I call I don't like to call them old, they get mad at me because we call them seasoned you know, um, but, uh, having that team really allows me to to to come and go and do the things that I need and rest assured that this place is being taken care of. You know the way it should. So, um, having a really good team helps a lot.
Speaker 1:And then I think, in the, in almost three years that I've been here, we've established really good team. Helps a lot. And then I think, in almost three years that I've been here, we've established really good processes. So those processes just kind of carry Right and if I'm not here, our team knows the process. We follow our protocols and move forward and there's less stress involved when you can do that I mean, this is health care. We have stress every day, but having protocols and processes has really helped us to kind of give me some ease of mind. And, you know, make it back home every day to my family. I'm two hours from work, oh wow.
Speaker 2:Two hours both ways.
Speaker 1:That's correct. Yeah, I'm up early like four in the morning. I drive to Memphis. I'm here by 6, 630. I'm up early like 4 in the morning. I drive to Memphis. I'm here by 6, 630. Try to leave here by 2 or 3 every day and back home by 5. So I couldn't do that if we didn't have the really really awesome team that we have and the processes that we have in place. So it's been a blessing to me all the way around.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that four hours certainly adds a lot of time to your day. Yeah, you must burn up the phone. I guess going home Does it bring you.
Speaker 1:I've actually been able to schedule a lot of calls on my drive home every day, which has been beneficial. So, even though my workday here ends at 2.30 or 3 every day, I'm typically on the phone until almost 5 o'clock every day when I get home. But that's, you know, that's okay.
Speaker 2:That's part of my role and I'm happy to fulfill those tasks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yes, so you know, one of the goals, as I said, for the healthcare facility network is to increase the pipeline of potential facility employees into the field and you, as you know, we were starting to email back and forth, or you have a really eclectic career path into healthcare facilities management. You know, I found that when I was just doing the recruiting with Gosselin Martin, before coming over to Cref, I'd always try to look at people's career paths and figure out all right, how did they end up where they got? You know, does it, and usually it's not linear, right? Usually there are twists and turns and curves and nothing ever goes really the way it's supposed to, or few things do. But even with that said, your career path is just interesting to me.
Speaker 2:I don't know that I've seen anybody with this one History teacher, HVAC technician, business owner for Atkins Construction, owner of self-serve laundromat and a car wash, and with all that and I think you might have a couple other things that I've missed a dad, a husband, With all that how did you end up as a director of facilities management? How did that turn into this?
Speaker 1:Man, like you said, it's been a very curvy road to get to where I'm at. But if I had to, you know, draw it all back to one thing, it's hard work and common sense. Those two things have paid off for me, they've prevailed, and everything that I've done. I grew up my family owned a local construction company in a small town and we owned a parts store for, you know, electrical, plumbing, air conditioning, and from a young age I worked for my dad in the in the parts store and age I worked for my dad in the in the parts store and then I worked for my dad in the service business doing construction, and I learned really early in life that you had to be a problem solver. You had to go out and figure things out. So while I worked in construction I didn't really like construction as a younger guy because it was I don't know I just wasn't where. I wanted land. I wanted to be a teacher and an educator and a coach. So I graduated from high school and throughout my college years I helped coach at the local high school. There it's like a graduate assistant Went to college, got a degree in education, I taught for two years and I was like golly.
Speaker 1:This is not going to support the lifestyle that I want to live. While I love kids and I love coaching, I got out and went back into construction. A few years into construction on my own, I had an accident working at a Cooper tire. I had a big machine that fell on my foot and cut half of my right foot off. It landed me in a light duty scenario where I was working for the company coming back off my injury. It was a staffing company and that staffing company actually had me going around making calls helping to help other people get staffed. While I was helping other people get staffed, I noticed jobs that were open and I happened to find one in a nursing home and when I got to that nursing home I walked in.
Speaker 1:One day I was going to interview and I was like, hey, you must be here to interview for the maintenance job. And I was like, well, no, I was coming to see if you had a job. She's like no, you're the guy, come on. So we walked in and I interviewed and I ended up getting a job. And that's kind of where my health care career began. From there I met some really good people at local hospitals and the health care coalition there who helped me get into the hospital world. And then, once I got into a hospital local in Mississippi a year or so in, I got an opportunity here in Memphis that I just couldn't turn down. And you know, like I said, that's a long, curvy road to get to where I'm at. But at the end of everything it's been hard work, common sense. Those two things have helped me prevail and I'm thankful for the years I had as a younger guy, my dad pushing me out there, making me do all the things he did. I didn't see it then, but it's really paid off here.
Speaker 2:You know, later in my career, yeah Well, your construction background certainly had to help transitioning into the healthcare facilities management, certainly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So we, we were in the residential world, you know, a lot of times in a small, small community, that's what you do, but it's base knowledge that I was able to apply, that I was able to apply and as I got into the giant world of hospitals and you know commercial and industrial type settings, I had a lot to learn, but I had enough base knowledge that I could, you know, continue to learn on top of what I already knew. So that was helpful.
Speaker 2:Yes, can I ask, sorry to hear about your foot? What machine?
Speaker 1:fell on that on foot. There was like a. We had a big um, it's essentially like a big bowl that that carried a big chunk of rubber up and down an incline. And we were working on the incline, uh, we, we locked it out and tagged it out. And when we, when we, uh, if you can see my hand right here, you know, kind of like that, we were standing there working on this, this bowl of sorts, when we took a bolt loose. There was a well broken around the bottom of the bowl. The bottom of the bowl slid out, even though we had it locked out. My foot happened to be on a track there. It was sliding on. We just kind of cut it off.
Speaker 1:Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that we waited on it to grow back. Hadn't they hadn't grown back yet.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe a little. Yeah, good luck. Good luck, because it's kind of trite. What do you say?
Speaker 1:I mean, yeah, well, to be honest with you, it's been an absolute, 100% blessing and a turnaround for me in my life because I landed in health care and, you know, regardless of whether the accident you know what it did to my foot I was I was kind of determined and hardworking and I wasn't going to let that kind of you know define my career trajectory and I was able to. I really have a passion for safety and making sure people are doing things the right way and you know so it kind of it steered me into a direction that I probably wouldn't be here today had that not have happened. So, you know, unfortunate at the time, but looking back on it, it's been a blessing all the way around.
Speaker 2:What a great way to look at it. And you know you're right. I mean, it just goes to show and you know people deal with it every day. You go to work every day, you can be be safe and do all the right things, but at the end of the day there's no guarantee, right?
Speaker 1:I mean it's sometimes it's just the unfortunate luck of the draw yeah, it takes you know, it really teaches you not to take anything for granted. You know, and uh, everything's an opportunity. You just got to look at it that way.
Speaker 2:Yes, yeah, did um so, did that, did that injury? Did that increase not your awareness, but that increased your desire for this type of a career?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah it did. I mean that was my first real touch of industrial type work. Like I said, I've always been in residential. I was learning a lot in the short time that I was there and then the injury was, like, you know, kind of a gut punch Learning a lot, things are going good and then you can't do it anymore because of your injury. So I kind of got hungry for more of it and wanted to learn more and wanted to know why things happened the way they did and understand more about it. And definitely that was part of the fuel.
Speaker 1:And you have a lot of people that are somewhat doubtful that you'll ever return or you'll make it back. You know, they told me it would be like two years before I would walk again and I was like, nah, nah, that's not me. So four months later I got a job and I was working. You know, so it's. It's just, um, you know, prove people wrong. And you know it was a. It was a momentum boost for me. As weird as that sounds, you kind of knock down, but it's to get back up and keep going. To be honest, most people don't know or can't tell. I don't limp or anything like that, so I just let it go and roll on. Life's been good to me ever since.
Speaker 2:That's great. Can I ask you I don't want to perseverate or say that, but so they said two years. It took you four months. Did you do that through will, through um? Did you have to go through PT? Like? How did you accelerate it to that extent?
Speaker 1:My foot stayed wrapped for three and a half months and they told me once it, once we were out there we could start PT. But it would take me a long time to get my balance back and be able to walk good, and as soon as I was able to do PT, we went to PT. And when PT was over I went to a walking track. I kind of taught myself how to walk again. And you know, there were lots of things you had to do to like desensitize my foot, so that it would, you know, so that the nerve endings weren't in touch with everything.
Speaker 2:You said hard work and common sense. There's a great example of hard work, right, most definitely, but common sense and interesting. You know, coming in to healthcare facilities management, you were a teacher so I'm sure you saw a lot of lack of common sense dealing with parents and some over-the-top reactions and all my wife's in education. So she tells me the stories that you can hear, but what's an example? Can you give me an example of something like within healthcare facilities? Because you did come in with a new eye? Was there something that you saw that just didn't make common sense? Because I think we lose common sense a lot these days and sometimes you need to take a step back. But is there an example of something that you saw that just didn't make common sense? Cause I think we lose common sense a lot these days and sometimes you know you need to take a step back. But is there an example of two, of something that you saw and you're like man that doesn't make sense to me? Why do they do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. So it's hard to it's hard to pinpoint one exact thing, but you know, you come into a lot of situations. For me, when I came into Memphis and this is a big place They've been running very well without me, you know. But you come in and you start to see, you notice different processes, that they're doing them. How can we change those? And I catch myself in a big room full of executives and we're talking about, you know, our emergency management plan and how we're going to roll out our response to certain things.
Speaker 1:And when I first stepped in, I questioned myself a lot, especially as a young guy early in health care. I questioned myself a lot. I was like I feel like I'm thinking the right thing, but sometimes I'm hesitant to ask it because I'm in here with such high level people and I feel like this is a common sense answer. You know, maybe we're talking about our communications and a lack of communications and and I'm like, well, why don't we have cell phones that we use? Why don't we have walkie-talkies that are already and available at all times? You know, just common sense stuff like that that we didn't have in place.
Speaker 1:You know, and I, yeah, I push, you know, I actually my manager here. His name is Kevin Rhodes. He's been awesome. He told me one day. He said Stephen, stop doubting yourself and just say it. He said you know what you're talking about, just do it. And so I caught myself in some of those high-level meetings where I'm like hey, do we have cell phones or communications that are prepped and ready at all times? And they're like no, we didn't think of that. That's an awesome idea, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's just, it's that type of yeah, when I say common sense it's that type of stuff is. I don't feel like I'm overthinking things. Um, to me it seems like a common sense approach, but once you get to such a high level and you're looking at things with a microscope, I feel like sometimes we just need to zoom out, yeah, and ask, ask the simple question and make sure we're doing the things, and then from there we need to capitalize and do a little more. The common sense questions are really. I think I've kind of established myself here at university. I'll just tell people, hey, hold up, let's just, let's take a bird's eye view at this and just think about it from that approach. Let's take a bird's eye view at this and just think about it from that approach. I've had a good response from it from our people here at this facility. I don't know. I tell my guys all the time common sense ain't too common Sometimes, just asking those simple questions and letting everybody's thought process go from there.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we heal very good results when we just start simple, yeah, and you know, as you were talking, I think part of uh, maybe part of the reason we can't always get to the common sense and you just said this is, you know, stop and sometimes take a look at the big picture. But everybody, whether you're a consultant, whether you're a director, everything has to be faster, and we've increased so much, whether it's construction or infrastructure or getting a new software, everything's got to be faster, faster, faster. And I think you lose the ability sometimes to take that step back and ask why are we doing this? Or see the big picture? Because everybody's under so much pressure to get things done and sometimes that's counterintuitive to getting them done correctly.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that's man, you hit it, that's exactly right. So you see that, I see it all the time. You know that's, that's exactly right. The systems that we, the way we work nowadays is hurry, hurry, hurry, let's get as much results as we can. And then we look back and we identify oh, there were gaps here and there were gaps here. We should have done this. And a lot of this is what we do from a facilities perspective here in Methodist.
Speaker 1:Le Bonheur is we try to slow it down and just capture everything we can on the front end. And we have to be from a facilities perspective. I feel like we have to be the one with the level head, because a lot of people want to really drive their part. Maybe it's a cardiac surgeon, they really want to drive their portion up right, or maybe it's your quality person who works in here and they want to drive just the quality.
Speaker 1:And we have to be the voice of reason that says hold up, let's slow down and capture everything in one, in one slow moving trajectory. And I think the hardest part of that is getting uh, is getting everyone to buy into it and trust your process with that, and that's know that's not easy to accomplish, especially in a large facility with a lot of people who have a lot of opinions and thoughts. It's not always easy to get everybody to just get on one page, and I feel like that's our role more than anything is to make everybody understand that we're in this as an effort. This is a group effort and at the end, when it's all said and done, the more we collaborate now, the better outcomes we'll have at the end.
Speaker 2:Was that difficult to institute, to instill what you just described there? Because, especially coming in as a new guy, if that wasn't the culture, was it tough to establish that as a culture?
Speaker 1:maybe I have a different response than those, but I had a lot of administrative support, the CEO that we had here at our facility. He hired me and we were a lot alike, we felt a lot alike, so he had my back. So if I, you know, I would run a lot through him and if he understood and agreed, nobody really questioned it because they knew we were in one accord together. So I was maybe I was just fortunate because I was in good standing with our CEO. Nobody really questioned it because they knew we were in in one accord together. So I was maybe I was just fortunate because I I was in good standing with our ceo and we saw a lot of things in the same light, um, so I didn't have as much trouble.
Speaker 1:I questioned myself more than others, questioned our processes, and that's where I say that you know, as, like you said, as a young guy coming in to a new facility, that I felt like I had no business being here. Yeah, you know that that was tough for me to overcome, but you know, once I, once I got to the part, that I felt like man, I've got administrative support. We can really make some changes and improvements here. Things really went smooth thereafter.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you you're at a big place and relatively, you know you've been there for a while now, what, like three years, but coming into healthcare that's usually a, that's a big jump. You know we used to do and it's all out the window now because people turn over so quickly and you know the average stay. I was doing just the straight recruiting. There was always kind of like a career progression that you would see, especially for folks who were new coming into health care and maybe and this is very arbitrary, but you'd say, you know, from zero square footage up to 200,000 square feet and then 200,000 square feet up to like 750,000 square feet and then 750, up to 1.5 million and then 1.5 million again. It's rough and you know, but you, you jumped right into the big league, the big leagues.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I came from about 200,000 square foot, yeah, amory, mississippi, which was a great start for me and I learned a lot there in my first year there. I worked there for a little less than a year before I accepted a position in memphis and that that's where I say you know, you come into Memphis, you come from a 200,000 square foot facility into a million 1.8 million in just healthcare. But you know, that's where to me, I think it's so important as a young guy coming into our field, to just you know. I remember when I interviewed they said what are you going to change in your first six months? I said nothing, absolutely nothing. I'm going to sit back for six months and watch, good answer, observe and try to learn. You know, and that's exactly what I did when I got here and was able to just kind of see what technicians are good at what and what processes are working, what processes are broken, and I think that was paramount coming into a new facility, because a young guy with little experience, there was no reason for me to come in here and try to make changes.
Speaker 1:I had to learn before I started trying to make any changes and I think without doing that I wouldn't have gained the respect of our team. And then, second to that, I absolutely love to work. I love it. So I wanted to get in there and work with tools. That's what I've done my whole life. So they had to kind of take that out of my hands and tell me no, you can't do that anymore, it's not your job. But I would still sneak off on a Friday afternoon and go with the guys and kind of work with them a little bit so to let them know that I know what they're doing, I know what they're going through and I'm here to support you and give you the things you need to be successful. I think that helped gain the respect of our team. And that's, you know, when you're coming in as a young guy in a big facility, you got to have, you got to have a good team behind you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and especially, I'd assume, probably you. You probably have some guys on that staff who've been working in that hospital maybe 25 plus years, 30 plus years, and you know what. You don't gain their respect overnight. I probably got eight or 10 that have been here longer.
Speaker 1:I've probably got eight or ten that have been here longer than I've been alive. That's a tough dynamic to manage but, like you said, earning that respect was paramount for me. Coming in man, the guys have responded great. I respect them so much too, because they've taught me along the way. They've not just done their job, but they've taken time out to teach me portions of their job that I never would have known if I hadn't had them on my own.
Speaker 2:If you liked this video, please like and subscribe to the network and, more importantly, share it with your colleagues in the healthcare industry. Together we can solve the aging crisis that's impacting all of us. You know there is no shortcut Like it's just. You earn respect by people over time because they see how you operate. That you can't. That doesn't happen in a day, it doesn't happen in a week. But you know, listening to you speak, I think two of the things that can make that happen a little more quickly, listening to you speak, I think two of the things that can make that happen a little more quickly is what you did. Number one, not coming in showing you're the boss, just make change for change sake, because there are people who do that. But then, number two, willingness to go out in the field. They know you've done their job before and you'll accompany them out there. Those are two things that can definitely shorten that road to respectability if you're able to pull them off.
Speaker 1:No, I agree completely my guys. They make fun of me. They know I want to be out there working, so you know they give me a hard time about it. But at the same time we do a lot of rounding here at our facility.
Speaker 1:We set up where we start rounding once a week and we go all over the facility and our vendors know we're out and we're looking. Our guys, that workforce, know that we're out and we're looking. We take photos and we mark those photos up and we'll send them out to, you know, clinical leaders. We send them out to our team and we say, hey, here's what we found today, here's, here's some of the trends we continue to see from week to week. You know, and we and we share that every week, and then our whole staff here has become accustomed to it. They know, you know, we better not just leave that halfway done, because they're probably going to walk by next week. You know, they're probably going to see it. So you create a standard and a culture there. But my goal was not to just make it, uh, not just a standard for my team, but let it be a culture for our entire you know system, so that everyone in the facility knows that we're out and about and we're here and we're available if you need us. And then and we see a lot of things that we can prevent, you know from. You know parking a med cart in front of a fire extinguisher or you know propping open fire doors. We're able to send those educational emails out with all those pictures and photos, weekly, you know, and we send it to the clinical leaders and say, hey look, we're trying to help you share this in your huddles with your team so that when we get time for d and b survey, we already know this stuff. We're already. We're building a culture where we won't do that, you know, without knowing.
Speaker 1:So, uh, and we push it a step further. We start including all that in our environment of the care rounds, our environment of care meetings. So we capture all the pictures and things that we do. We capture those in our environment of care meeting and we go over them at the end of our environment of care. We include that in our quality minutes to show that we're talking about these things each week and and part of our quality initiatives are to work on these things and the trends that we're finding each week in these rounds. So that's been a good culture trend for us and we hope to continue to expand on that, make it more interdisciplinary. Right now we've got security and EDS and infection prevention going with us. We've just started getting some of the clinical leaders going with us on those rounds of this. We've just started getting some of the clinical leaders going with us on those rounds, so it's growing into what it needs to be for it to really improve the culture of our facility and our environment of care for our patients and our staff.
Speaker 2:Well, I'll tell you, you know not just because you're sitting here or you're sitting there and I'm sitting here. You know a thousand miles, you sound like you've been doing this a long time. Thousand miles, you sound like you've been doing this a long time. You know you, really, you really do. And this next question kind of goes along with that. So I was talking to um a director, an executive director, and he was, you know. We were talking kind of like um generational differences, um, he's been a leader for a while and a very good one, but he was like he's trying to get his younger staff comfortable. He's a great mentor and he's not one of those people who's like this. He's more like he's a teacher, you know, he's an educator and he's trying to get his younger staff comfortable.
Speaker 2:Saying I don't know, right, cause we don't always know the answers. I mean, nobody can know and try to explain. It's okay to say I don't know, and obviously you go out and you find the answer and get them comfortable, because people think they always need to have that answer. Now you're coming in as a director of FM, like you said. You're sitting at the table with these executives who have been in healthcare probably many more years than you had You're supposed to have. You know the image we have is the director always has the answers. How did you like, were you comfortable saying I don't know? And and how did you approach that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, I re, I refuse to give someone, uh, just what they want to hear. You know I can't't do it. It's not part of my being. I wasn't raised that way. Um, so no, it doesn't bother me to say, hey, not real sure on that, but let me follow them yeah and that's one thing to me that's important.
Speaker 1:I think I hear that a lot, but it's I hear that people hear that for me a lot. But the biggest part of that is actually following up, yeah, and and with valuable information, not just hey, I followed up and not real sure about it. That to me, that you know those are broken promises.
Speaker 2:If I'm going to, follow up with you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to follow up with either code or data or something, a process that says, hey, here's the next step, here's where we need to go. This may not be the exact answer, but this is going to lead us where we need to go and I think follow-up is everything. Nothing wrong with saying you don't know. I tell our guys all the time and I live by this. I was at the Tennessee Healthcare Engineering Conference yesterday. I have been for the first part of the week and I told a guy yesterday. I said, look look at it, that networking that you do with those conferences and everything it, it goes back to it. I tell everybody all the time.
Speaker 1:You don't have to know it all, you just know who to call right, right and that and that's true, and everything that we do um because of the tennessee healthcare uh engineering conference and and the the association in general uh, the american society of health care engineers, that association, um, as long as you're a part of those and active in those, you're usually one or two phone calls away from any answer that you need anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in your hospital.
Speaker 1:So you know, just being able to know who to call, having those numbers in your phone and not being afraid to call and ask has been, you know, that's the key to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, you're, you're. It sounds like you're very comfortable with who you are and and you know what you're doing and how you're accomplishing it. I, you, you talk about the like societies Tennessee Engineering Society, ashe. I'm heading down to the Florida Healthcare Engineers Conference next week. You know, I think it's one of the things that separates this discipline. You know there's a healthy, there's competition between the hospitals at the hospital level, you know, because, listen, people have to stay in business. But at the director level, within state, without a state, you know, you guys are always willing to help somebody else out, whether it's you share a part that they might not have, or you give them information. The thing that I think drives a lot of the folks in it, that makes them good, is they'll always help out a cohort. It doesn't matter, you could be at a rival hospital, right, and your CEOs could not stand each other. But at the director level, that doesn't exist. Camaraderie exists.
Speaker 1:No man, that's exactly true. I was talking with I don't know if you know, mark Mochel. He works for Brightly Software and he's me and him were actually we met. We both are in the Ashley Leadership Institute. We'll be going to year two this year in Phoenix together and he was telling me he said, across America. You know, I know I'm kind of isolated to the southeastern United States, but he traveled all over the country and he said the same thing across America. There's like a brotherhood. You know, if there's something you need, we love to share what we know or what information or what parts we have to help the other side.
Speaker 1:I think it's all because we know we're all fighting an uphill battle. Our jobs are people's problems. People don't call us just to say, man, you did a great job on this. They usually call us with a problem, to be able to help someone who's in the same position as you out. I think that just speaks to the type of people that work in healthcare facilities management and the brotherhood that you know that kind of stretches across our country.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I, uh, I agree with you Now. You were um a history teacher. I love history. What, what did you teach?
Speaker 1:I taught history for seventh and eighth grade and my first year of education.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I was only a teacher for two years, so my first year of teaching I was a seventh and eighth grade history teacher, taught US history, and then I also taught special ed. In my second year I was a moderate to severe special ed teacher for the high school and that was awesome. I really enjoyed the special education program when I was part of those kids. I have a soft spot for them, yeah. Program when I was part of those kids, I have a soft spot for them, yeah. I used to joke with some of the guys I taught with and the coaches I coached with. I said, look, I just I just created the best lesson ever and we learned so much. It was wonderful, you know, and the kids were so engaged and and the next day they it's like we start all over, you know.
Speaker 1:It's like we never did anything the day before and that was kind of fresh, you know because it lets you realize that every day you've got to come prepared to really help these students engage and be engaged in their classwork. And it taught me to not just get comfortable with one steady lesson plan and and just lay it out there for the kids, and we do the same thing every day. You had to come ready to go every day to teach those kids and keep them engaged. And and some of those kids I see them now around town or I'll be, you know, I'll be out in the mall or something, and so I'm like hey, hey, coach, hey, and I'm like you said that, aaron, and it's been great. Education's always been a passion of mine. It's a passion of mine right now, so I'm working. I just reached out to someone from the University of Kentucky who has an educational program for facilities management technicians and managers there, and I have a pretty burning passion to build that type of program here in the Memphis, tennessee area for healthcare facilities management.
Speaker 2:Interesting. So, yeah, you know it's funny when you were talking about that, you were teaching kids with, you know, in some cases, profound disabilities. It's like healthcare, right, like your day isn't your day when you go into the facility because you never know what you're going to get hit with. And probably similar in in that type of an environment with with kids who are challenged in that regard. Right, I mean, you can schedule things, but if it's a bad day for one of those children or whatever, your schedule is off kilter, right. So you're constantly audibling, you know, for the coach and that's where I look back at.
Speaker 1:I'm highly religious, you know. I feel like I feel like god's been kind of preparing me for where I've landed, and maybe that was just a small portion of it. But you learn to just kind of be somewhat variable in what you do and always prepare for every little thing or things that could go wrong or may not go the way you plan. That taught me a lot about you know just being ready at all times.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, no, absolutely I mean because your day's not your own right, that's right, you know are there.
Speaker 2:Are there, but do you ever take like in your role and it sounds like you're you also probably have a pretty good degree of emotional intelligence that you use or utilize Do you take? Do you ever take any like history lessons into your work, your FM world, or lessons from history, things that went wrong, battles that went wrong, that that you kind of utilize? I do that a lot myself, like I look at situations and I'll tie them back and I don't go around telling people about it but I'm like, okay, you know, this has happened before. This is where you can get through these things. Do you ever do that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I do. I think it's more, like I said, I'm very highly religious, so a lot of times I spend me in my day and different situations to more. You know historical things that happen in the Bible. I guess myself you know drawing comparisons to those types of situations. So yeah, I do. I'm like you probably do it more in the quiet, when nobody's around and it just doesn't cross my mind. And then you know, and then someone calls and I'm back on work duty again. So you know that's right. But but yeah, I do that often I compare it to different scenarios that happened in the past and biblically and it's just in, you know, in history in general.
Speaker 2:So you know before I would. My kids are older than yours. I didn't. Maybe you know I would. I would often tell my kids some of these things Right, and as they get older, like dad, we've heard that before we don't want to.
Speaker 1:So there's, there's a shelf life, I guess. Yeah, I agree, my kids hit me up with that this last, my dad, he told us okay, okay I get it. Yeah, yeah, that hurts just wait, just wait, um, are you um? I'm not old enough for you to tell me that yet, but apparently I am.
Speaker 2:Just wait, just wait. Are you with your staff? Are you guys appropriately staffed? How many staff members do you have for 1.7 million square feet?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think we're appropriately staffed, but we manage what we have very well. We got 36 staff members here, oh, wow. Damn which is yeah, it's really low. Yeah, I think the industry standard is somewhere between 40 and 50,000 square feet per technician and we're pushing, you know, over 100,000.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2:They're all on campus, so you always look at those square footages and there are so many variables that you can take into account age of facility and roles and responsibilities. But however you cut that one like 36 for 1.7. That's a little low, but my question wasn't necessarily for that. But I was going to ask you know you like education, your background, it sounds like you're constantly learning. Do you try to provide your staff with those opportunities and do you find time to do succession planning? Or you know staff growth activities? Can you talk a little about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So, matter of fact, we've got an education that's coming up Monday. We've got our nurse call vendor that sets up Rolland and our Rolland responder nurse call system and they're going to come in on Monday and we're going to have a lot of our younger guys on second and third shift come in and they're going to spend about five or six hours Monday just gaining some education on that and what. I try to challenge our guys, especially our younger ones, that we need to be really hungry and learning and reaching out and striving for more. I try to let them know like this is a field that you can really grow and develop it. Make yourself a valuable resource in something If it's nurse call, if it's MedAir, medgas systems or if it's boilers and chillers, whatever it is. Pick you something and make it to where we can't make it without you in that field.
Speaker 1:So we've got two or three guys that we've already told them say look, nurse call class is coming up Monday. We really want you to pour into this. We need you to soak up as much as possible and I think that's what. Maybe I'm wrong and I guess I'll see that over the next few years is you know, but I try to let these guys know. Hey, man, there's not a lot of people your age who are diving into health care right now, who are diving off into all these different things that you can learn, and you've got a really, really wild opportunity to be one of the very few in the next five to 10 years.
Speaker 1:So if you can just work hard and learn a lot, be willing to learn and work hard. The possibilities are endless in health care and I think for the young guys, I think that's how we keep them moving. It's because they want to know they have the opportunity to grow. They want to know they have opportunities to, you know, to make their career become something more than what it, you know, just a job, you know. And I think that's how I try to approach it, Because I know for me personally, when I entered health care, I thought, oh, I'm going to be working in a nursing home as a maintenance man.
Speaker 1:That's a retirement job, it'll all be good, you know, and yeah, and, and. Then I got in and I realized how many different avenues there are in the health, healthcare world that you can go and just be. You can continue to grow and grow and grow and I try to preach that to all of our people like, where you're at now is only the beginning, if you can just stay the course, if you just listen to us and let us help you. So, like I said, I have a burning passion for education. I love I mean it's maybe biased, it's probably very biased really, but I love my story.
Speaker 1:I feel like my path into healthcare has been awesome and I want that for every young guy I see that comes in here. You know, I want them to understand that seven years ago I didn't even I never. The only time I went to the hospital was if someone was sick. You know, I didn't know anything about it. Yeah. So you know it doesn't take long to get where you're going if you just work hard and you devote yourself to it, and I want to share that with all the young guys on our team. I want them to understand it. Heck, the guy's my age. I want them to know like there's no limit to where you can go in this, in healthcare, if you want it and and that's. You know that's an education that's never stopping.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're right. I mean, it's a very compelling message, you know, because you're right. There's just, it's a people problem, there's not enough right.
Speaker 2:And so if you're willing to learn, there's that opportunity. That's part of the reason we started this network two years ago is just to kind of promote that. It's out there because the competition is stiff, right, and it's you got to find and locate it. It's kind of the irony of a hospital, right? You said until seven years ago, the only time you went to the hospital when you were sick, like we all go to hospitals throughout our life, yet how many people know this role exists? I mean, before I started doing, I had no idea. But you're always in a hospital, there's always these roles, but you don't know they're there. You know there's doctors, you know there's clinicians you know, there's.
Speaker 2:EBS workers. You see all those folks when you're there, but you don't see the guys like you and the you know the ladies like you. They're kind of down below or just doing their work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I tell our guys all the time like if nobody knows we're here, then we're doing a good job.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And that's the truth in what we do. But you know, a lot of people mistake like you said, exactly like you said a lot of people mistake health care facilities management as light bulbs and toilets. You know that's all we do change light bulbs and unstopped toilets. And, to be honest with you, when I, seven years ago, seven or eight years ago, when I was getting into health care, I thought the same thing. I thought, man, this is a retirement job, I'm going to sit back and it's going to be easy. You know, and boy was I wrong.
Speaker 1:But you know, like you said, nobody really sees what we do. I felt like that was a pain point for me. I want everybody to know what we do because it's impressive what our guys were able to accomplish and how well they do it. This last year, for health care facilities did tours and we took healthcare, we took our executives from the organization and here for our campus and nurses and therapists and surgeons anyone who wanted to go we offered tours through our mechanical spaces to show them the MedAir. You know what's how we do, what we do to make the MedAir stay. You know, working all the time, the generators.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Automated transfer, the generators, the automatic transfer switches, all of the air handlers you know, and just give them an opportunity to see some of the things that our guys do. I think that really empowered our team, because now people know what they do and how impressive it is and the skill sets that go along with it. We're not just there to patch and paint something, which is a job in itself, not to take anything away from our painters, but you know there's a lot of skill that goes into it that people don't realize and I want to showcase that.
Speaker 1:So we're, going to start doing that every year, you know, for Healthcare Facilities Week, and what I'd like to be able to do is let our guys start giving us tours Rather than me. Let our guys do it so that they'll be able to, you know showcase their knowledge as they go through there as well.
Speaker 2:What kind of a reply did you get as far as people taking you up on the offer?
Speaker 1:We had a system CEO came, the CEO of our campus here came. Our assistant chief nursing officer came, several nurses came and some of our administrative are like administrative assistants uh, some of our admission staff. So it wasn't. It wasn't the response I wanted. Obviously I'd like to have people lined up, you know yeah but? But I think a lot of people who did it this year were really impressed by it and they talked about it a lot and we publicized it on our website and and on our, you know, throughout our Methodist network.
Speaker 2:So I'm hoping that'll grow and that we can really start to, you know, grow on that and showcase our talents and our skills well, you talk about the painter and obviously you're not taking anything away from the painter, but people don't realize that behind that hopefully non-naked beautiful paint that's on a walk, there's a whole world that exists behind that wall and behind that paint. And that's what you guys keep going.
Speaker 1:Yeah that's right, you know, for our paint team here we built a big new, beautiful tower before I started here. We call it Shore Tower. It's beautiful but it's solid white. Everything in it's white. So our painters are just like you know, man. Why did we pick white? And all we do all day is go around and touch up. So our painters have. We have a really good painting here. They go around doing a good job. But, like I said, there's just a lot to take care of yeah, yeah, no, definitely.
Speaker 2:So we are um talking to steven atkins Stephen's, the Director of Facilities Management at Methodist La Bonheur. No, help me out, la Bonheur. La Bonheur, I told you there's a block, but I can say Memphis and I can say Tennessee. Those are easy to say. So as you come in, you know, as you're seven years in, you're three years there with your kind of varied experience that you've had as you look at your healthcare career, was there anything or is there anything that has was like an aha moment for you or was surprising to you as you've kind of advanced quickly? So anything about this career that you realized that you didn't necessarily know going into it, kind of like an aha yeah, um, real quickly.
Speaker 1:I learned that there's lots of codes. There's nfpa 101, there's nfpa 99, you know, there's lots of codes that dictate what we have to do, why we have to do it, and all of that is is handed down by cms, which cms is the one who basically get that's, who pays the hospitals right? So, without CMS, cms tells us what codes we have to adhere to.
Speaker 1:And I learned really quickly that you got to know those codes and you don't. You don't have to know them, but you need to know how to find them. You need to know how to dig through the code books to find answers. You know, I think early in my career I got the through NFPA. There was a certified life safety specialist certification. I got that and that essentially taught me how to read through code and find answers and get the information needed to come to the conclusions we need in our world of health care, and getting that helped me a lot.
Speaker 1:And then I learned that there was a CHFM, you know, the Certified Health Care Facility Manager. To CHFM, the Certified Healthcare Facility Manager, that's all about code and knowing the things that are required for us from a facility standpoint. It was code first and then it was some of these certifications that said this guy knows how to find the answer to these questions. Those two certifications, I think, kind of throttled my career to where I'm at. Without those certifications it's hard to get into a management role and I think I would have gotten there one way or the other. But the certifications definitely sped up that process.
Speaker 2:Yeah, did you have you know you talked about. You know you can always make a phone call one or two people away from somebody answering. You know involved in the Tennessee Healthcare Association, but you know, coming in and it sounds like you read the books and all, but did you have anybody else to help you, to help mentor you relative to the risk and the compliance and learning? Learning that you're a DNV hospital, right, you said, but did you have anybody help you along the way? Or was it kind of self-learning and then you start to meet people and you were able to advance your knowledge more quickly?
Speaker 1:There was some initial self-learning there, but it was more of just taking care of things at the beginning. When I got into the nursing home or skilled nursing facility, I got into emergency management for my facility there. I went to emergency management coalition meetings and I met a guy named Jason Lee. Jason Lee was the facility director at North Mississippi Medical Center when I was in that area. He now works at Cook's Children's Hospital in Houston. So he poured into me early and often hey, man, I'm going to get you a job in the health care world one day. You need to come work for the hospital. I was like, ok, yeah, let me know when you you a job in the healthcare world one day you need to come work for the hospital. I was like, okay, yeah, let me know when you have a job. And he kind of introduced me to life safety code and said look, this is your first step. You got to learn this. And uh, and I did. You know that I wasn't working at the hospital then, but Jason, uh, jason.
Speaker 1:No doubt uh was the single most imperative part of my growth in healthcare, so he helped me kind of get to where I'm. At once I got to memphis. There's a guy named jerry ferguson. Um, he's a long time. Uh, he used to be the president of the tennessee health care association and, um, he's managed to get. He's a wealth of knowledge and he poured into me once I got here in memphis. So, having those two people their influence on my career, uh, you know, I I questioned whether I would would even be in healthcare anymore if it wasn't for those two guys.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's awesome. So, Stephen Atkins' last question this hour kind of flew by. I enjoyed our conversation. Now, don't take this question the wrong way. I'm putting my recruiting hat back on for a sec. Right, although I'm doing business development, I still love the recruiting and the career stuff, and we've mentioned this. But what do you think they saw in you? Because you made a big leap. So obviously you trusted yourself, right, you have self-confidence, which you need that. But what do you think they saw in you to offer you that leap? Because, I mean, to be honest, like in the, the recruiting world, there would be some organizations I would say this person doesn't have the experience I'm looking for. Yet they did. Do you any idea why? Or or how did you convince them? Yeah, and I don't mean that in a bad way, how did you convince me? But you know what I mean. I mean it in a complimentary way. I'm trying to dig myself out of a hole, but no hole is intended.
Speaker 1:No, I think Jason. Initially, when I worked for him, I was a young guy in the healthcare world who didn't know a whole lot, but I wasn't scared to speak up and kind of say, hey, that goes back to that common sense part. I'm sitting in a room full of healthcare executives who have been talking about emergency management for years and I wasn't scared to just say, hey, are we thinking about this, have we tried this? And I think Jason probably saw that from there and wanted to pour in. But you know, outside of that I think myself included now I've learned is, if you find somebody who's hungry and wants to learn and has the ability to learn, those are the people you need to latch on to, and I think I try to exude that even today.
Speaker 1:There's one thing about health care is it keeps you humble. At no point in health care facilities management do you know it all and you're just ready to go. I don't see there's a way where you can get cocky in what we do, because it's a new thing every day. So finding somebody who is young or not necessarily young, but has the ability to learn and is willing to put in the work, um, those are the kind of people I would look for, and I think that's what jerry ferguson saw in me. Um, and I hope I've proved him right. You know it's.
Speaker 1:Even today, I question whether or not I'm doing all the things right or if I'm doing as much as I can do. So, um, you know it's, you're just looking for people who work hard and they're willing to learn, and I think I think that's. I hope that's what they saw in me and I hope I can continue to share that, you know, and and make people feel that way in my future as well. I'm not done so. I got a lot more that I want to accomplish. I tell people all the time I'm ambitious to the fault. You know there's still a point that sometimes I need to just say no and be content. But you know there's a lot to gain in what we do and there's a lot of opportunities for improvement and I'm just proud someone gave me a shot. You know forever thankful for Jerry Ferguson and what he's done for me here in Memphis, and you know health care has been a blessing all the way around.
Speaker 2:I think that's the you know, that's one of the ways to get out of this employee deficit that we're, in which you just described somebody who will work hard, willing to learn, willing to listen, kind of those intangibles that you're not going to see on a resume. It's not going to say that on a resume because you don't know that right. I mean, you can write it but you can't measure that. You can only see it by working with people and giving somebody a chance and mentoring them. That's right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I see inadequacies in the healthcare sector from facilities management and the way we hire those people in the healthcare sector, from facilities management and the way we hire those people.
Speaker 1:I think there's so many requirements for, you know, degrees and certifications and this, that and other. And, to be honest, if someone hadn't taken a chance on me, I wouldn't have any of those either, you know. So I could still do the work I'm doing today, but I wouldn't have those certifications if someone didn't have those. Have the foresight to be able to just invest in me and I think that's why I'm so passionate is because I see that in so many people and I want them to have that opportunity as well and I want them to know that they have that opportunity. And I don't see a program out there that's just a bona fide. Hey, here's your way to get into that. And when I'm out pitching health care, trying to hire people or trying to get people into our field, the one thing I use all the time is that when COVID came, or when you know, do you want job security? There is nothing, not a single job in America that's more secure than health care facilities management, because it's not going away. Health care facilities will shut down if we're not doing our job. So healthcare is not going away. People will always need it and I know there's advancements and things that can change and improve it. But for us it's such a consistent job, you know. We just need to create a platform where we're building a pipeline of people into this.
Speaker 1:You know my facility now has a school of radiology. Methodist has a. You know, methodist Le Bonheur has their own school of radiology. You know Baptist Hospital across town, they have their own nursing school, you know.
Speaker 1:So it's crazy to me that here in the Memphis area I think we've got eight or nine hospitals in this small what we call our medical district of Memphis. It's crazy to me that we're not starting or talking about or trying to develop some sort of pipeline to keep these hospitals running for the next 20, 30, 40, 50 years. We've got to start building professionals that can support and keep these systems running effectively and I have a passion to do that. I've reached out to the University of Memphis. I've been working with a couple of people from the University of Kentucky who already have somewhat of a program. So I have a burning passion to develop that program. I would use any platform I could to say if you know anything about it, let me know. I want to dive into it and see what our avenues are, so that we can give more people the same opportunity that I've had.
Speaker 2:Steven, I cannot say anything better than what you just said, so with that I'm going to say thank you for appearing. I really appreciate your time. Thanks for sending that email to me. I enjoyed our conversation. You sound like you've been doing this for 20 plus years, so great job.
Speaker 1:Thanks a lot. I appreciate you letting me be on. Like I said, I've learned a lot from your show and listening to different people on different avenues and the way they talk, and your show has been instrumental in my success as well.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you. No, I appreciate that and I love hearing those stories because it's all these unique stories that we got to get people in here. So my guest was Stephen Atkins, Director of Facilities Management, Methodist Labanere Hospital. Ah, that'll work. Memphis, Tennessee. Stephen, thank you for your time. Thank you for watching the Healthcare Facilities Network. We'll be back with another great guest like Stephen in the near future. Have a great day. If you want to be a guest on a future episode of the Healthcare Facilities Network, go to healthcarefacilitiesnetworkcom and let us know who you are and what you want to talk about, Because together we can solve this critical aging issue.