Stacy Watters (State of South Dakota)

Stacy Watters brings a public sector lens to asset management as the State Engineer for South Dakota. With a background in physics and civil engineering, she now oversees a broad portfolio of government infrastructure projects. Stacy shares insights on managing large programs with limited resources, building a single source of truth for project data, and the role of transparency and leadership in public infrastructure.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello and welcome to Telling Your Asset Management Story. Today we're joined by Stacy Waters, the state engineer for South Dakota. Stacy's career began in physics before moving into civil engineering and eventually public service, where she now oversees the wide portfolio of government infrastructure projects. Public sector work brings its own unique challenges, balancing limited resources, large project portfolios, and the responsibility of transparency in decision making. In this episode, we'll talk about building a single source of truth for project data, managing large programs with lean teams, and the role of leadership in public infrastructure.

SPEAKER_01 0:41

Stacey, thank you very much for joining us on Telling Your Asset Management Story here for season two. Really excited to have a conversation with you today. And I hope you find it as valuable as I know our guests will. We always start by talking about uh our guests' journeys, because one of the cool things about facility and asset management is the huge variety of paths that people took to get where they are today. And uh I haven't heard any one or two paths that have been exactly the same. So can you tell us a little bit about your personal journey, how you got from uh from where you were to where you are today?

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Yeah, absolutely. Um, and thanks, Bill, for having me on here. Um, I'm very excited for our conversation today. And uh like most kids, I wanted to be an astronaut. So when I first started college, I studied physics. And you know, it's really it's a clear path from physics to facilities management.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:33

A lot of people take that. So after I graduated, I just I decided I wanted to stay at the university and get my engineering degree. Um, because who wants to do physics for the rest of their life? So I was a civil engineer in private industry, and that was during that fun times of 2006 to 2008. I was out in Seattle. And so we had that housing market crash. So for a civil engineer, um, there was a lot of civil engineers getting laid off during that time. I had two young kids. I was pregnant with my third, and you know, just looking at that potentially being laid off, I decided that I wanted stability, you know, more than, you know, worrying about a large paycheck. And uh I've I've honestly I've been with the government ever since. And no one works for the government to get rich, um, but it is a really good work-life balance. So I started with the state of South Dakota 14 years ago. Um, it was, yeah. Um, so I started as the engineering manager for the South Dakota Department of the Military, and I managed that uh maintenance, repair, design, construction for about 26 National Guard facilities. And then uh eight years ago, the state engineer position was vacant, and I was offered that position. And so that's where I'm at now. I'm the state engineer for the state of South Dakota. Um, I always throw in a shameless plug, delete it if you have to, but the state of South Dakota is a great employer, and there's no state income tax here.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

No problem at all. I I shameless plugs are welcome here on our podcast. So um, well, and and Stacey, I know we you you and I met through NASFA, the National Association of State Facility Administrators, and I know you're you're uh play a major role right now as the as the current president and been involved in a long time. Can you talk a little bit about your journey with NASFA and and the importance of those industry associations and how it's helped you in your career?

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah, absolutely. Um, thank you for the shameless plug for our national organization, too. I appreciate that. And uh yeah, it was something that when I became the state engineer, I started, you know, sitting in on some of the committee meetings and listening to some of the webinars. And I had taken a somewhat passive role in our national organization right up until COVID. And when COVID hit, it was really important to hear what other states were doing, hear how other states were managing their assets. Um, we talked about everything from how are folks cleaning and making sure that their buildings um, you know, are going through some form of disinfectant or some form of just even notification. You know, if someone does test positive for COVID, how is that being notified without um violating any um HIPAA laws? And so it was it was really important to be involved in hearing how other states were solving some of those problems who who do have a much, much larger portfolio than, you know, little South Dakota.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Well, that was a that's a great segue because the next thing I really wanted to talk about was just give you a chance to tell our audience a little bit about your portfolio and and the different the different types of buildings and geographic range that you're managing, just to give them a little sense of of the the uh what you deal with on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

Yeah. Oh, that's um, I absolutely love talking about our portfolio. Uh so as a state engineer, I'm responsible for vertical construction for state-owned buildings. Um, so what does that mean? Um, that means we do all of the design, bidding, and construction administration for any new builds, any maintenance and renovations, maintenance and repair, any energy efficiency projects or even demolitions. Um life cycle. Oh, yeah. Yep, absolutely. And our threshold, I want to say we usually start around the $100,000 mark. So anything that's smaller than that, we just let the building owners, who's ever actually occupying the building, take care of that. But then anything over that 100K, that's when OSC gets involved.

unknown 5:36

Got it.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

So it's more the OM for the state individual agency that's responsible for the building, they take care of that small dollar value.

SPEAKER_02 5:43

Correct. Yeah. Okay, cool. And so the state we do own just shy of 21 million square feet.

unknown 5:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 5:50

Um, so we are adding a lot faster than we're demoing. Um, but we do occasionally demo or sell property. Uh, but the square footage, I mean, that that square footage is divided between our universities and higher education, our department of corrections. Um, I mean, our game fish and parks, they have campgrounds and fisheries that fall under that. Uh, Department of Transportation buildings, our rest stops, state fairgrounds, our capital complex. Um, you know, as a state, we have two state hospitals that people don't necessarily always think about, or we have, you know, wildland fire campuses because we've got the Black Hills here. And so we we do have wildfires that we have to manage. Uh, we have a state veterans home and a state veteran cemetery. Um, so yeah, when you encompass all of that, that's how we get to that uh 21 million square feet. But um honestly, the best part of our job is you're never gonna see the same thing twice. So you could be working in a correctional facility, replacing a boiler that runs 24-7, and you are escorted by a guard the entire time that you are in there. And then you could, you know, two days later be working on a solar panel project out at a fishery location, you know, in the middle of the Black Hills. Um, so and I always kind of joke, this is my favorite building. We did have to demo it, but it was the Building for Disturbed Women. That was a building that the state owned. So it's no longer on our portfolio, but we still have the Asbolt drawings.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Wow. My guess is they probably would have rebranded it if they kept it.

SPEAKER_02 7:22

So I am sure that there would have been a lot of rebranding, a little marketing on that one.

SPEAKER_01 7:29

I've I've had the opportunity to do some work in, we'll call them psychological hospitals. And certainly the names of said hospitals when they were built were were were not politically correct. And I'm not gonna I'm not gonna quote it here on the podcast or I will get canceled. But it's interesting as you're dealing with those, not just the diversity of the portfolio, but also the history to be able to see how different programs were delivered 50 or 100 years ago compared to today and things like that. That's that's that's that's uh that's gotta pose a lot of really interesting opportunities, but also challenges. Um what's been the what's been the biggest, uh, I mean, obviously you have your favorite building, but what what was sort of the the the the most surprising or unexpected thing that you got a chance to see in the in the portfolio over time?

SPEAKER_02 8:22

Oh gosh, I don't know if I could just narrow it down to one thing. Um, I don't even know if I can say this on the podcast, but you know, there was a military facility, uh, it was some barracks that we were renovating, and the up above the drop ceiling, we found some old beer cans hidden up in there that you know definitely should not have been in those milks.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

No. Um I think you're okay as long as you don't name the the folks that were in the bed below the ceiling tiles. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Yeah. Um, but then, you know, we've got some really old tunnels across across our campuses. And I think the tunnels are probably my favorite. Um, you know, we do have to spend a lot of time in those tunnels because a lot of our campuses um are yeah, you know, on like a central steam plant. Um, because that's what they did back in the day. We've got, you know, snow and sidewalks, and you have central steam plants, and you'll never have to shovel snow on those sidewalks as long as the tunnels are right below it. But there's uh there's definitely some history in those tunnels.

SPEAKER_01 9:28

That's neat. That's really neat. So um thinking about having such a diverse portfolio, geographically, asset type, user type, program type, and you know, maybe three is an unfair number, but what what would you say are the top three asset management challenges that you and your team see across your portfolio and how are you tackling them kind of today?

SPEAKER_02 9:50

Oh gosh, Bill, that's a great question. And I'm probably gonna get in trouble for saying this too, but Excel documents. When it comes to asset management, Excel documents, I as much as I love a good spreadsheet, they are the bane of our existence because they have served their purpose, but it is time to let them go. Um, I I couldn't tell you how many times a department has sent me an Excel document that has their building asset data on there and it's saved on one person's desktop. And then that department, their asset information doesn't match the Excel document that Rust Management has who manages our insurance program. And then that doesn't match the Excel document that our public safety has or our fire marshal has. And so it's the individualized documentation of the assets that's saved in obscure locations that only one or two people are even aware of. Um that's my number one, Excel documents.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:53

Uh so what is OSC and OSC Office of the State Engineer? Um, so what are we doing about that? We have recently purchased a software uh that can be managed and accessed by multiple agencies and departments, um, but then only updated by a small group of individuals. And that's their job, keeping that data updated. Um, because data is only, you know, as good as, or the software is only as good as the data that's input into it. Um, and it's just, you know, a pinpoint in time for that data. So just making sure that that's constantly updated.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

Uh and that you don't call the same building five different things in five different spreadsheets, right? Is as simple as it's it starts with as simple as that, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:36

So yes. Well, and I'm guessing there's other um facility managers who can relate to this, but a building that has changed names five times.

SPEAKER_01 11:46

Yeah. Or for sure. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:49

How many buildings out there are called Lincoln Hall? I'm sure there are thousands of them across this, you know, the nation.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Even in South Dakota, we've got multiple buildings that are called Lincoln Hall. Um, so yes, uh, having buildings, the the naming convention, because uh a building sometimes it changes owner, sometimes you know it changes its mission, and that name is constantly being updated, kind of like the disturbed women buildings.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

But now we can update it in one location on one software, no Excel documents.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

That's awesome. That's great.

SPEAKER_02 12:30

Um so that be, you know, that's that's OSC's solution, but we're only midway through getting all of our data into that software. I mean, 21 million square feet, it's a lot of data to get put in there. Um, but you know, how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:46

Absolutely, 100%.

SPEAKER_02 12:48

Yeah. Um, so that's number one. Sorry, that was kind of a long answer. You said you asked for three.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Yeah, no, no, no. No, look, if you can, if you only have three with a portfolio as diverse as yours, look, I'll even give you a bonus one or two if you want, because there's so many different types of buildings in there that uh I'm sure there's lots of challenges.

SPEAKER_02 13:06

Oh well, I I would say the Excel documents, that's the one I probably complain about the most. But um, and this kind of goes along the same lines too, but having the asset information in one place where everybody knows where to access it. Um, and it kind of comes back to that software again. And I'm gonna give you an example. So we had, gosh, I want to say this was back in 23. And I might get my years wrong. I mean, once you you get a little older, your years start to blend together. Um, but we had some, they call them straight line winds. Everybody who lived through it says it was a tornado uh that came through a part of eastern South Dakota. And we had some pretty extensive damage to our Dakota State University and also to one of our DOT facilities in Salem, South Dakota. Now, you know, Bill, when I ask you, do you know where Salem, South Dakota is? You probably don't. Most people, even in the state of South Dakota, might not know where Salem, South Dakota is. But even, you know, just knowing where the town is, where is the DOT maintenance shop? Right? There's no place for me. So they said, you know, Stacey, we're gonna put you on the state airplane. You need to get out there, you need to put your eyes on these buildings and see if we can still work out of them, or do we need to find a temporary location for these employees to work? You know, the damage was extensive enough to where we weren't sure if we wanted employees in these buildings. So I said, okay, well, I know where Dakota State University is. I can get, you know, there pretty easily. It's a large university, large campus. But I started asking the question, I said, Well, where is the DOT maintenance shop in Salem? And nobody could give me an answer. So what do I do? I jump on Google Earth and I'm sitting there on Google Earth looking for a salt shed. Yeah, that is not efficient, right? No, no, and I know I'm not the only one that does that.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Yeah, I I think it's just it's really important to have the correct data all in one location. Um, so we're we're using our software to, you know, have an address of the location, have the utilities listed in there. You know, if we've got some major damage, do we need to call, you know, MDU or a gas company? Are they a service provider? You know, if there's damage, do we want gas leaking into that space after a tornado? Um, or even just you know, listing at who's a point of contact for that building? You know, who do I reach out to?

SPEAKER_01 15:34

Yeah. So yeah, uh absolutely. No, that that that um single source of truth for we'll call it tombstone data on your facilities is you know, just what do we own? I uh, you know, I've worked with lots of folks and they give us an asset list and it looks, you know, about there's about that much overlap with the beginning one and the end one because there's a bunch of old buildings that are gone and a bunch of new buildings that weren't on it and everything else. So um, no, that's that's definitely um, you know, the uh an important baseline to build from.

SPEAKER_02 16:04

Um, I would say the last one here, uh, you know, that I was thinking about is that that concept of doing more with less. So I know I'm not the only one. We're not, you know, facilities management isn't the only one who's been tasked with this, but you know, in government, nobody wants to grow government. Um, yet our portfolio is constantly growing, um, which means, you know, every year we're adding more and more maintenance and repair projects to our portfolios because we must maintain these new buildings, but nobody wants to give us or give, I should say, the departments any more, you know, full-time employees to help perform that work. You know, when when when all of a sudden you've got a brand new prison complex, you know, put on your portfolio and we need to start maintaining those. Well, doing any of that design, bidding, or construction administration work, I mean, that takes time. And that's an employee. So, I mean, ultimately we have a choice. We can modify our procedures, um, become as efficient as possible with technology available, and or we could place those projects on a deferred maintenance, deferred maintenance list, and we get to it when we get to it. I mean, nobody wants to do that.

SPEAKER_01 17:21

Yeah, no, absolutely. And and I mean it's interesting because I guess because you guys sort of deal with the capital in your department and all the maintenance exists within the individual agencies, um, is there any synergy between the programs or is it really kind of hands-off, completely separate?

SPEAKER_02 17:39

Oh, there absolutely is synergy between um that's right. So, you know, we have what we call um, you know, facility managers who manage more of that day-to-day MR. Um, so if they need flooring replaced, um if they need a hot water heater replaced, something along those lines. But, you know, fortunately, $100,000 doesn't get you much anymore. You know so I mean, anytime if it's a roof, if it's major boilers, any of the major building components, all of that comes through Office of the State Engineer. Um so, but yes, when it comes down to you know, some of that smaller stuff, they'll still reach out to us for you know advice on some of the smaller projects as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:19

Oh, that's good. So, so with that many buildings, and that will say low a threshold, because you're right, 100 grand doesn't get you very much. How many projects do does your team look after in a year?

SPEAKER_02 18:31

At any given time, we have approximately 300 plus active projects.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

And how many people are managing those projects?

SPEAKER_02 18:39

There's 16 of us in my office.

unknown 18:42

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 18:42

And in that 16, there's only not all of those are project managers. So that's our support staff as well.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

Oh wow. That's that's a that there's must be a lot of spinning plates uh that are just off to the side of the camera there that we can't see.

SPEAKER_02 18:58

Well, I mean, honestly, our biggest project to date right now is we're working on a $650 million men's prison. Um, you know, so I have just one project manager who's managing that project, and she truly cannot take on anything else because of how extensive that project is.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Right. Did you call it the building for disturbed men?

SPEAKER_02 19:18

Is that I will suggest that.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Don't tell them I suggested it.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Well, you know, it's funny that you bring that up because everybody wants their name on the side of a new building.

SPEAKER_01 19:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Except for a prison.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:35

You know, we don't have any donors coming forward saying, hey, we'll donate money to the new prison project, and you know, we want our name on the side of it.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

We just I can't imagine why. Right? Oh my, that's funny. Well, yeah, I mean, you there's no way somebody could manage more than just that project. And I imagine some of your folks have dozens of small projects, which in some, you know, in some way, yeah, managing a big project is hard, but in some ways, managing a bunch of small projects can be even harder because you've got different things at different times and different parts of the program and everything.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

So yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

That's uh that's gotta that's gotta be be a frantic kind of place with that many projects going on. So um kind of looking to the future, um, and you sort of talked about thinking you're still gonna continue to have to do more with less and things like that, but you know, from where we sit today looking out the next you know five, 10 years, how do you see facility and asset management evolving or changing, not just in in the state of South Dakota, but just in general overall, Stacy?

SPEAKER_02 20:39

So, Bill, I have a wish list of where I would love to see AI go. And I don't know, maybe the right person needs to hear this and they can develop this for us. But I mean, in the grand scheme of things, MR funding is not gonna keep up with the demand and inflation, right? Um, so maintenance and repair dollars in general are usually a pretty high on the chopping block if if you know your funding is not as large as what you would hope it to be. Um so I think that many departments, along with private industry, are gonna try to consolidate their footprint to stretch those MR dollars and dispose of some of their least utilized spaces. And I could see AI being used to consolidate those department footprints. Um, but I could also see AI being used to select what maintenance and repair projects are the most critical. And if you use a tool like AI, that's taking that emotional aspect out of it, right? So, you know, when you have a building user who thinks that their building, their mission, their space is the most important and therefore should get the most maintenance and repair dollars. Um, and then having to tell them, you know, hey, we only have this much MR dollars and we have this many projects, you know, you've got that deferred list. Um, so using AI to say, you know what, these are actually your most critical projects. So it's taken that human aspect out of it. But look at how far AI has come just in the past six months. Um, honestly, five years from now, could you imagine putting on a pair of like metaglasses and walking through a whole building and allowing the glasses to catalog the condition of your building, including like make model serial number of some of your major equipment or like your major building components, or like using AI to scan your As built drawings and your technical specifications or your shop drawings, and then pulling out all of that pertinent data and just automatically uploading it to your asset management software.

SPEAKER_00 22:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:47

So I don't know, but for me, that would free up a lot of time for us, and that would help us eat that elephant a lot faster.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

That's awesome. Yeah, it's gonna be really interesting to see um what AI, because I I, you know, a lot of a lot of people, and and we're doing a bunch of stuff in AI, and when we first start talking about it, all of our staff are like, oh my gosh, you're gonna replace us all. And and our answer was no, we're not. We just want to do more with the same amount of people that we have, right? So, how can we use this tool to do things more effectively? Not to replace things that you're doing, but to do it more effectively. So instead of one X, you can deliver two X worth of productivity and work. Um, because people are getting harder to find and people are getting, you know, more and more expensive. And and if the technology can do some of the stuff that doesn't require intuition or experience and can just do the memorization and the, as you say, the reading and things like that, then it it poses huge opportunities, I think, to reinvent.

SPEAKER_02 23:49

So yeah, well, and it also takes out the human error of it too. So, like if you're going through a building and trying to upload data into an asset management software, you know, what if I mislabel some of the building components, you know, versus relying on AI to do that for us. And then we're just we're still there, we're we still have a job because we still have to fact check it.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

Yep, absolutely. Yeah, no, 100%, 100%. Well, and it's interesting the emotional piece you say you top to it as well, right? I find that uh in my experience, um uh K-12 schools are the most emotional, other than residential homes, which which is different, right? But um K-12 schools hold the most emotion in them, first of all, because you send your kids there, but also because, you know, like I've been in meetings and people are like, well, my grandfather went there and my father went there and I went there, and how dare you try to close the school? And it's like all but crumbling around the students, not not quite that bad, but but but yeah, when it's a when it's a human piece, it's like, well, why do you hate us, right? Why are you picking on us? Why, or why aren't you doing stuff for us? But but yeah, the ability to say, look, this is the you know, whatever the criteria are, defining that and applying logic to it, I think is is is a great way to um I I mean I don't think it's gonna eliminate the emotion, but I think it can help mitigate a little bit. But I think we're always still gonna face it when you know somebody's pet project or pet building doesn't get the attention they think it deserves, but hopefully it'll get it'll be a better, easier, a slightly easier discussion, but I doubt it'll ever get easy.

SPEAKER_02 25:26

Yeah. Well, and also it helps with transparency then too. You know, hey, we selected these top projects. You know, this is the M and R budget that we got or that we received. And this is what AI is telling us the most critical projects are. You know, we can get a few more years out of your roof, but this boiler no longer can be serviced. Like there are parts that are no longer manufactured, so we have to replace this boiler. Um and then we can be transparent about it. You know, this is why these projects were selected over your project.

SPEAKER_01 26:00

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Stacy, I I I want to ask you a bonus question if you will, uh, if you will. And um, you know, obviously, um, you know, as we're talking before the show, uh facility and asset management is still pretty male dominated. It's it's had some advances in the last, you know, in the last 10 or 15 years, but it's still very male dominated. And um, as someone who's had a really successful career, can you do you have any advice for for you know females earlier in their career that are looking at facility and asset management as a possible uh career plan? And and what would you what would you tell them uh uh as they were making their uh their their plans?

SPEAKER_02 26:38

Oh, Bill, that is absolutely a great question. Um, so I have five older brothers. So um you you're correct. This is very much a male-dominated environment, even still to this day. And like as you and I have talked previously, uh it has gotten better. Um, but for me, growing up, I still I have three older sisters as well. But um, you know, growing up with five older brothers, um, and then I went to the South Dakota School of Minds and Technology, which during that time, you know, for upperclassmen, it was like one female to every 10 males. Um, so you you kind of get used to that a little bit, especially if you, you know, go into the engineering career field. But the advice that I would give is don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to say, I don't know the, you know, like I I need help or I need to learn. You know, sometimes we let our ego get in the way and we don't want to say, like, I don't know this. Um, I I say that all the time. I don't have knowledge on this topic. Um, can you help me with it? And so I also spend as much time on a construction site as possible. And uh trying to just kind of normalize seeing a female on a construction site. Now I'm not picking up a welder and welding along with the guys, but I will walk up behind a welder and ask questions, you know, not while they're welding, because obviously I don't have the proper PPE on, but um, you know, just being able to see what they're doing, why they're doing it, asking questions, you know, being familiar with the schedule, um uh, you know, how scheduling works, how pole planning works, uh, just being cognizant of everything from, you know, the safety and OSHA aspect of it all the way through doing a final completion inspection, you know, you get so much knowledge from just being on site and actually seeing the work be done because sitting here behind a desk, you're not learning as much as you possibly could. Um but you know, the best part about it though is like if you go to a conference, there's never a line for the female restroom. So like that's one benefit, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:45

That's funny. That's great. Yeah, no, that is that having been to uh a few NASPA conferences, I know exactly what you're I know exactly what you're talking about. So um excellent. Anything else, kind of Stacy, from the perspective of facility or infrastructure asset management or or or advice to to folks earlier in their career that you'd like to share?

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Um, well, I guess you kind of alluded to it before, but just being involved in any national organization, you know, whether, you know, if you're heavily involved in K through 12 schools, there are national organizations for just about, you know, every aspect of facility management. You know, whether it's higher education um in universities, there's a national organization for that. If you are a little bit more involved in the procurement management for facilities, there's a national organization for that. And just being involved in learning about or learning from other states, you know, how did you solve this? I think goes so such a long way. Um, but then also the only other advice I would give, and I apologize changing topics, but is getting rid of your Excel documents.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Yeah, there you go. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's how to make that plug. That's what I'm gonna, I'm gonna get you a shirt that says just say no to Excel. That's what I think. Well, I think, I think one of the things that's one of the things that's uh come through, Stacy, in terms of you know, kind of right through from your your personal journey through to what you're facing now, through to even the advice, is is is be curious and collaborate. And I think that's that's great. That's a great, two great foundations for anybody, anytime in their career, and for all facility and asset managers, because honestly, um it's it's the the last 10 or 15 years has been pretty crazy. I think the next 10 or 15 years is gonna be even more, uh, is gonna rock our world even more than the last 10 or 15 has. Um, and that's even without a pandemic, knock on wood. Um, but uh, but uh no, I really appreciate uh the insights you shared. I'm sure it, I'm sure our audience does as well. I thank you all. I thank you so much for your time. And uh I I I'm sorry I won't see you at the NASFA conference uh next week, but do say do say hello to Mike uh for me and uh hopefully we'll see you in Austin in the in the summer.

SPEAKER_02 31:01

Sounds great. We'll see you in Texas.

SPEAKER_01 31:03

Thanks so much.

SPEAKER_02 31:04

All right, thanks, Bill.

SPEAKER_00 31:10

Stacey thanks for sharing your story with us. Your experience shows how important transparency, curiosity, and collaboration are in public sector infrastructure management. By improving how information is shared and decisions are made, teams can deliver projects more effectively and build trust with the communities they serve. Thanks again for joining us on telling your asset management story.