Stephanie MacKenzie (Dalhousie University, NS)

Stephanie MacKenzie’s career in asset management spans public infrastructure, planning, and leadership. Working at the intersection of strategy and operations, she has helped organizations make more informed, long-term decisions about the spaces people depend on every day. Stephanie shares insights on collaboration, the value of thoughtful planning, and why effective asset management is ultimately about aligning people, data, and purpose.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Telling Your Asset Management Story. Today we're joined by Stephanie McKenzie, whose career has taken her through the world of public infrastructure and into leadership roles where strategy, collaboration, and long-term thinking really matter. Stephanie has spent years working in the intersection of planning, facilities, and organizational leadership, helping institutions make better decisions about the places people rely on every day. In this conversation, we'll talk about how she found her way into the field, what she's learned along the way, and why good asset management is ultimately about people just as much as it is about buildings and systems.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

Hi, Steph. Thanks so much for joining us on this episode of Telling Your Asset Management Story. We're really happy to have you here with us.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Happy to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Excellent. So, Steph, we always start our interviews with a little bit of background, a little bit of uh, we'll call it origin story. So, can you tell us a little bit about how you ended up at uh at Dell in the position you're in right now?

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Okay. Uh so I've been with Dalhousie for about 10 years now. Um, my career kind of started in the provincial government around the finance world. And then in there, I kind of moved into kind of more of the facilities management and doing some renovations and moves within our department. And then I got into project management, which led me to Dalhousie. So about 10 years ago, I started as a project manager, um, worked in that area for about four or five years, and then I moved into the planning. So starting to plan projects, looking at our assets, what we needed to do. Um, and then a couple of years ago, I moved into looking at overseeing all of the planners at all of our campuses and being responsible for all of our assets and the data and figuring out what it was that we're gonna do for our facilities renewable plans each year.

SPEAKER_02 1:47

So that's awesome. And and and how was that jump from finance to facilities? Because that's such an important relationship in any organization, is is being able to talk to each other. So, how is your background, you know, your initial kind of starting point in finance helped you as you've moved into facilities?

SPEAKER_00 2:05

I think it's good just because knowing that the financial side of things and how it works and how you get money and and the blockages that happen when there's constraints and budgets, it's nice to have that background and also really helps when I'm budgeting just from a facilities renewal. Like, where do I go to find money when money comes and it goes and something costs more than it was supposed to, and all of that? So it's definitely beneficial to have that background.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Excellent. And I'm sure, I'm sure in your conversations with the finance department now at Dow, you probably speak their language more than some folks that haven't had that background. Has that been helpful for for you and your team?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah, I think so. Just because I do understand that side of it, it's I get it's easier to argue when that's easier to argue.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

That's funny. Maybe advocate, right? Advocate for facilities. Yeah, that's awesome. No, I I imagine that would be really helpful because I know in a lot of organizations there is sometimes some we'll say friction perhaps between facilities and finance. So you you having sat on both sides of that uh that uh fence, if you will, or that equation, I think must uh must be great. So that's uh that's excellent for for for you, for them, and for for Dow in general, I'm sure. So um can you just give us a little bit of background for our audience on Dalhousie University, your portfolio, kind of size, scale, campus, just any information that would be helpful for us to understand where you're coming from from an asset management perspective?

SPEAKER_00 3:31

Yeah. Uh so Dal Housie's been around for a little bit more than 200 years, um, starting in Halifax. Um, over the years, we've kind of purchased other smaller campuses. Um, so in Halifax, we have three campuses, um, right kind of downtown Halifax. And then back, well, I want to say 15 years ago, they purchased the Nova Scotia Agricultural College from the province, which is located in Truro. So in total, we have four campuses across Nova Scotia. Um, we've got over six million square feet um across just over 160 buildings. So um lots of stuff, lots of acreage. Um, with the Truro campus comes a farm in Halifax, we've got everything from engineering to we've got fish, we've got medicine. It's there's a lot.

unknown 4:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 4:22

How many of those original buildings from like you said, the the campus is over 200 years old? Like, how many of those original buildings are are still left on campus? I mean, I know it's a very historic campus, but just that must pose some really interesting challenges.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

I would say for the most part, all of the original like teaching buildings are there. Um, we have probably torn down some smaller buildings to build bigger buildings, but like, yeah, like the Forest Building is one of our original buildings built in like 1918 or something, like a very long time ago. Yeah, 19 years old, something like that.

unknown 5:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

That's a uh that's a lot, like having having those old historic buildings, plus I know you guys have continued to build and grow and and and expand over the years, it's uh an interesting uh dynamic for the portfolio, I'm sure. So plus the the ever uh interesting weather in in uh in Nova Scotia with uh hurricanes over the last number of years. Has that has that impacted your uh asset management program? Or have you guys how have you guys fared when some of those hurricanes have moved through the region?

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Not too bad. We have we have more issues probably around just the age of our building and the lack of insulation, and and then we've got like the hot the temperature never stays the same. Like we have 20 degree fluctuations in 24 hours, so you can go from like 12 degrees to like minus 20 in a day. So you get people opening their windows because it's hot and then moving them, and then pipes free. So yeah, those tend to be more problems, I'd say, than hurricanes hit us, but probably more our infrastructure with regards to power and things like that than it does our buildings. We we tend to definitely make our contractors very aware and all of our faculty to like tighten things up when we know a storm's coming.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

So oh, that's good. Yeah, it's good. It's yeah, preparation can solve a lot of those issues for sure. So, no, that's great. And so as you're as you're looking across the four campuses and the the old buildings, the new buildings you mentioned, uh the issues you have. What are your top three asset management challenges that you see and that you're kind of balancing or trying to juggle uh at DAL currently?

SPEAKER_00 6:41

Yeah, so our all of our data used to be housed in BFA. Um, our issue was when budget constraints happened, the person who maintained BFA was let go, and then the data stopped getting updated. So we'd been about 12 years without any updated data. Um and with Roth, we uh switched over to SLAM and we've done all of our building condition assessments on all of our 160 buildings this past year. So as we're reviewing data and merging it, it's going to give us that information that we desperately need to be able to make those decisions. Um, and then the next piece that we need to move to is kind of our linear assets, which have never been documented. Um, and not knowing the condition of those is starting, we're starting to see consequences of that. Like we've got miles of tunnels underground in Halifax that go between buildings and just all the stuff that's in that. So those assessments we'll do in the upcoming spring, and then we'll have that full picture of where our DCRM is kind of sitting and start to make those information-driven decisions rather than just ad hoc. We gotta do this because the roof's leaking.

SPEAKER_02 7:52

Right. Yeah. No, that's excellent. And and kudos for saying DCRM or deferred capital renewal and maintenance. I think, I think we need a gold star program for the podcast for folks that for folks that's in. So thank you, thank you very much. Um, and and and certainly that linear, that linear piece is important because I mean it's easy, it's easy to deal with the buildings because you walk past them every day, you have students in them every day. The stuff that's hidden, whether in tunnel or or or or underneath the ground, often can get can get um, you know, pay maybe ignored or forgotten about. But when one of those services fails, the consequences of that failure can be far greater than anything in in any one individual building, except probably your central plant building. So it's good to have a handle on those, uh, those as well. Anything else from the challenges uh uh from Dallas perspective?

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Yeah, I think uh two other ones we have is definitely one's budget constraints. Um universities, I think, are affected across the nation with declining enrollments, cost of living is going up. Like what we use, what we could do 10 years ago is double or triple the cost now, but our budgets really haven't increased. So that's having definitely a major effect on what it is that we can do, and then that constant need to drive home to our finance people that you can't take away our budget. Like, if anything, you've got to give us more because it costs more to do. Um, and then for us, I think at Dal Housie, it's just kind of determining those priorities. Like what are we focusing on? I know we're working on a new strategic framework, and what is it that makes Dow different and better than others? How do we get more people to our university? And the more that we focus on that and in getting our enrollments increased, the more that drives what it is that we need to do from an asset perspective with our buildings. Like what areas do we need to focus on? Are there buildings that maybe we don't need to focus on because the program's declining? Things like that.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

So certainly prioritization is critical when you've got more need than money, which is pretty much everybody. Um it's interesting you mentioned sort of the new strategic direction for the for the university. Um, how does how is facilities uh have a seat at that table? Is it part of the process, or are you are you just sort of are you just sort of observing and getting the information about what's important to the organization or how that evolves, or is is are there folks from uh you know physical plant facilities that are feeding into that uh that process?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, we met with our president just uh last week and she kind of gave us like the draft version of it, and it's kind of very open-ended versus limited in time and focused before. So, like we want to focus more on healthy buildings, healthy people, like getting people to our campus. So um FM has a big part of all that. Like we getting like making a making a building work well, getting them into classes where they're comfortable and they can learn, and then having outdoor spaces where people can go and relax and get away from the craziness of life at times. Those are those are big pieces of kind of what we're trying to focus on that feeds into the strategic. So I think like we have a piece, but it's very broad in that it allows each department within Dalhousie to kind of guide their own where is it that they want to go to feed into this framework.

SPEAKER_02 11:10

So oh, that's well, that's that's that's excellent. And I mean it's some it's good to be broad because then everybody can kind of find their own way to help uh further the goals and further the objectives. But I mean, I it's it's actually, I think it's really, really interesting that that, as you said, you met with the president. So you're having the ability to kind of get a preview or to provide some input into it. Because oftentimes, you know, unfortunately, in a lot of places, facilities are kind of after the fact, right? And they're not really thought of as part of the strategy or or a way to enable the strategy or meet the strategy. So it's great that your leadership at Dalhousie has has brought you guys into that that uh uh review process and to see it and and provide comment on it because it's uh, you know, again, the environment, the place, that's that's half of what attracts people to a university, right? The feel, the vibe on campus. And um that is facilities, open space, all those sorts of things. So that's uh that's great that uh that that you've had input or had the opportunity to to input into that process. Uh just one other question, you mentioned enrollment. Um, how how how impactful were some of the changes to the um international student uh uh requirements in Canada? Did they how like were you relatively insulated from that, or is that that had a huge impact? Because I know from institution to institution, it's from oh my gosh, it was you know multiple tens of percentages to not really that big a deal. So what was it like at Dow?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Um I don't have exact figures, but I know like when COVID started, obviously we lost major amounts of international students, and that doesn't have an effect on just that one year, it's the next three years past that. So our international student enrollment is definitely way down. Dalhousie has a huge deficit because of it, and we're trying to work our way through that. And um, Kim has been very open about it. Like we are, I think 75 million in the whole just due to enrollments, but at the same time, our enrollment is actually up from previous, but it's just more local students. But when you're they're not paying that same amount, it it decreases what your income is and then goes from there. But so enrollment's up, but majorly down on the international side, which is definitely affecting our budgets, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Interesting. And then it's it's it's kind of a it's almost a double whammy, right? Because you've got more students on campus, you've got to manage the that that that larger population with more impact on the facilities, but yeah, because the tuition difference, it's uh it's it's probably a little tighter. And is it is it across the board? Is it capital and maintenance that has been has been under pressure or one more than the other step?

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Um, I will say that the budget that I look after for facilities renewal hasn't been affected. We've been fortunate that we haven't had it taken away. Um, but like I said, we're doing more, it's costing more with the same amount. And we were, there was plans to have a constant increase in that budget, but since COVID, that hasn't happened. So it's kind of stagnant. So um operations always has difficulty doing what they need to do within the budget they do it in. So oftentimes we pitch in from facilities renewal to cover things that are above their budget. So I think the pressures are there on both ends, but much more probably from them on a daily operations than it is on us.

unknown 14:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

Well, well, and it's good, it's good that within the organization you have the ability to kind of help them out a little bit. Sometimes there's a there's a very big barrier between the two, and you can't, you know, maybe move that money around within an organization. So it's good that if there's a an emergency over here, that you're able to shift some of that, shift some of that funding around to to deal with it. But uh well, hopefully, hopefully uh with continued enrollment and things like that, um, you know, at a minimum you're able to keep protecting that budget, but hopefully get back to those annual increases at some point in the not too distant future. So um mentioning the future, how do you see at at Dell, how do you see facility and asset management? Not necessarily even just specifically at Dell, but how do you see the industry or the the needs of just uh facility and infrastructure asset management on a higher ed campus? How do you see that evolving over the next uh you know five to ten years?

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Um I think one of the bigger things is kind of new technology. I talk with about my team with this just because like with the drones and the IR cameras and building automation systems with all these sensors that notify you anytime anything goes wrong, like those are huge in preventing those big losses because we've had some very large ones with DAL and insurance over the years. So I think having that information that can feed into the data that we have from our building condition assessments just helps us like try and be a little bit more proactive rather than reactive. Um, I think that's one of the big things coming. There technology is advancing far beyond what any of us are mostly even aware of. And then someone presents something, it's like, wow, you can do that.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

Yeah. So I think that's definitely one big thing for sure.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Um other predictions for the future of facility asset management?

SPEAKER_00 16:25

I think for us, we're thinking of like kind of the integration of everything. So we're at the point where our condition assessments have been done, we're gonna have that data, but now we have to maintain it, but also we need to look at from a preventative maintenance side, like what do we need to do to extend that life expectancy of our assets because they're failing way sooner than what they're supposed to, um, which is a big problem. So we're trying to um we're we're switching to all new software for our for FM as well at the same time. We're supposed to go live with that in April. So all of that information is updated, and now we need to kind of pull our operations people together with our planning people for them to kind of update that data, get them to buy in, have access to it so that whenever they see something, they can document it within the asset. That lets planners know that this is becoming a problem. We need to maybe assess it or address it sooner. Um, and then there's also that kind of performance of our building. So we're working a lot with our sustainability people and like looking at why is this building using so much energy? Like, what can we do to make it operate better? Because if we can operate it better, it costs less for operations. It decreases what costs them, and then with any luck, it's less that we're having to do from a renewal. Um, so I think just that integration of getting everyone talking to each other instead of working in our silos, I think is uh my goal.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

Gotta get everybody to close those windows that they leave open when the temperature drops 20. That'll probably take care of uh at least a percentage of your of your uh energy and and consumption issues. But no, that that that's really interesting because um, you know, it's it's uh I think the idea, and you've kind of walked through the evolution from you know planning excellence, capital planning excellence through operational excellence on the preventative maintenance side and the performance excellence. So it very much lines up with that integrated approach. And I think that that's that's really um, you know, really uh interesting to hear because, as you say, kind of breaking down silos and sharing ideas and making better decisions and using preventative maintenance to extend the life of elements so that you don't need as much capital money so you can redirect it to other things. That's really where things start, like that's sort of the compound interest, if you will, right? Like if you look at it that way of the investment that you need to make. And and and again, in any limited funding environment, it takes time for the compound, you know, the first, you know, the compounding takes a little bit of time, but once you get it going, that momentum can really can really have a huge difference. So it's it's great that you're looking to that um, you know, that integrated state to try to address things over time. And um the fact that as an organization, you've got that long-term view, I think, is is excellent. Because sometimes everybody's just worried about next year's budget and next year's needs and all and all the rest of it. But uh that integration, that integrated look is uh is an iterative process. So that's that's excellent. Um so Steph, one last uh question for you. Um we, you know, where I have the pleasure to to interview a female leader in facility asset management on the podcast, I always like to ask, you know, is there anything if you could, if you could provide advice to to other women either earlier in their career or just at any point in their career that were looking to get into facility or infrastructure asset management, because it is still a fairly male-dominated field. Um, what would you tell somebody who was sort of looking and considering? Because I know, I mean, staffing is a challenge, I think, for everybody, finding good people. So, how what would you say to a young uh professional considering a career in facility management?

SPEAKER_00 20:05

I mean, don't be afraid or intimidated. I've it 10 years in this job and I've been one or two females sitting at a table with men the majority of the time. It it's never bothered me. Um, I've always felt respected by my peers. So I think I think that intimidation at first is just like, oh, but then I think as a project manager, I probably surprised a lot of people that I was more outspoken than what they expected. Um, but it also gained respect from people. So I think that part's good. But I also think there's so many opportunities for females today. Most organizations are trying to increase like the people that are working in those minorities, right? So the opportunities are there and you just kind of have to go for it. And I don't know, don't be quiet.

SPEAKER_02 20:57

No, that's that's that's awesome. And and and I think I think you know, uh anything, um, anything to help diversify the the workforce in in facility and asset management, because I'm not sure if you have the same pressures in in Halifax as a lot of folks do, finding and keeping good people is really, really hard. And so having a much big, you know, having a bigger tent that you're inviting people into, I think is is really, really valuable. So thanks, thanks for those uh comments as well. Any last minute uh uh thoughts or things you'd like to share with our audience, Dev?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

I don't think so. I mean, my goal is just to try and keep our data current now that we finally have it. So I think that's the good part, just to have those data-driven decisions so that we're and then I can make that case to finance as to why we need that extra money to do everything we need to do. So awesome.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Well, it's it's it's it is a it is a it is a lofty goal, but I think it's the right goal to maximize the investment that you've made in the in the data acquisition. Uh, and uh wish you all the best in that in that journey. Thank you so much, Steph, for sharing your story. And thanks for joining us on this episode of Telling Your Asset Management Story.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Stephanie, thanks so much for sharing your story with us. What stands out is how much thoughtful planning and collaboration go into making infrastructure decisions that most people never see. From strategy to implementation, your experience really highlights how asset management works best when people, data, and long term thinking come together. Thanks again for joining us on telling your asset management story.