Gregg Clarke (University of Florida)

Gregg Clarke leads asset management for a large portfolio of facilities at the University of Florida, where campus infrastructure operates at the scale of a small city. Starting his career in the trades, Gregg has grown into leadership roles focused on long-term planning and renewal. He shares insights on managing facilities at scale, developing the workforce, and using data and technology to shift from reactive maintenance to a more strategic approach.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hello, and welcome to Telling Your Asset Management Story. Today we are speaking with Greg Clark, who oversees asset management for an enormous portfolio of campus facilities at the University of Florida. Large universities often function like small cities, with thousands of systems and hundreds of buildings that all need to operate together. Greg's career began in the trades and has grown into leadership roles focused on long-term infrastructure planning and renewal. In this episode, we'll talk about the challenges of managing facilities at scale, the importance of workforce development, and how data and technology are helping institutions move from reactive maintenance towards more strategic asset management.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Greg, thanks so much for joining us on Telling Your Asset Management Story. I'm really excited for this conversation and really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_02 0:51

So the asset management, we're our our story here is that we have approximately a thousand buildings with like 20 million square feet, a variety of academic research, student life, housing. We have a utilities. Our utilities consist of um water, wastewater, power, steam, chill water. We also have some satellite facilities. We have our IFIS, which is our institute of agricultural facilities and um science. That has we have places in every county of Florida. So we have, yes, so we have a multitude of um buildings and assets throughout Florida. Um our totals probably are about $2.5 billion in assets um on the main campus. Like I said, we have about a thousand buildings with 20 million square feet, and we um we spend a lot of time as far as trying to maintain these assets with the minimal funding that we have. And um we prioritize it, right? Um unfortunately, we know how resources are between labor and skilled skilled people. It's hard to get. Um there's a lot of uh there's a lot of competitiveness in this region as far as people go. Um who are your main competitors, Greg, if you don't mind me asking? So we have like we have hospitals, we have the VA hospital, right? We have the North Florida Regional Um Hospital, and um we also have Shands. So just with those, we have quite a few. And then we have a number of biotech firms out there out in Alachua County that has a big biotech park, and so they're they're competing for our people. So we're we're constantly going. And then just with the construction boom, there's you know, a lot of contractors will we play, um, we play swap them out all the time, right? Our guys go and then we steal some of their guys. And you know, it's it's a matter of, you know, what type of what type of work do you want to do? Do you want a work-life balance, which is what we offer, versus, you know, making a lot of money. And so a lot of the younger guys, they go and they make the money, and a lot of the older guys, they want the work-life balance so that they can spend time with their families.

SPEAKER_01 3:37

I I guess one of the upsides of that is the young guys cut their teeth and get the experience uh, you know, at somewhere else. And then as they as they get to that point, maybe you can pull pull some of those folks in once they've got a bit more experience.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

And it's funny that you say that, Bill, because we've all we've had a few of our employees where we've trained them, because we have a training center on campus where we put, we we have an apprenticeship program where we'll take our custodian grounds teams and develop them into like our trade mechanics. They start, they they get the training, then they leave because they see the better dollars on the outside, and then they have start to have families and they realize that hey, the insurance, I need the insurance, so here we go. Please uh please let me come back, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Yeah. It's a testament to don't burn any bridges when you leave somewhere, I'm sure, right? So that so that that door doesn't close in the future. That's awesome. Um, so so Greg, one of the things, one of the things that I find fascinating about folks in facility and asset management is that very few four and five-year-olds are running around going, I want to be in facilities, right? So I love to, I love to get uh a little bit of a just an understanding of the journey that that you took to get from that, you know, that four or five-year-old kid who probably wanted to be an astronaut or a baseball player or something like that to the University of Florida.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

So it's a unique journey that I had because I had started out, um my dad was an engineer, so he went he wanted me to go into engineering.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

And um like every engineer wants their kids to do, right?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Yes, yes. And but the the sad thing was is that he was working, he he would leave at seven in the morning and get home at like seven, eight o'clock at night. And I said, Yeah, I'm not gonna do that to my family. So what I ended up doing was I took a hard stance when I got out of high school, and I basically said, No, I'm not gonna go to college. Um, I'm gonna go in the military. So I went in the military into the Air Force, and then after that, once I got out, I decided that um I wanted to work with my hands. So I went to trade school for HVAC because you learned three basically three trades. You learned the plumbing, you learned electrical, and you learned the heating and air conditioning portion of things. And so I did that for a few years and opened my own business and had that for about five years and then hit a recession. So then I decided to do some project management for the VA hospital up in Connecticut. And uh I did that, and then they asked me to go in-house to manage their maintenance shops. So I went ahead and I did that, and I did their utility plant and that sort of thing, and managed a bunch of people. Well, then Yale University turned around and called me up and said, Hey, what do you are you interested in doing our building automation system, being our manager? I ended up going to Yale. In two years, I was brought up to an assistant director. And then I'd said to my boss at the time, Rick Mafey, I said, Rick, what is it gonna take me to get, you know, get a promotion? He says, You got to get that paper. I said, What paper is that? He said, Oh, you got to get a degree, you know? You're in a higher ed institution. So I decided to go back to school at 40 years old. And um that's awesome. Yeah, and then liked my liked the school, so I ended up going back two years after that and getting my MBA. And so then I stayed at Yale for about 18 years. Um was looking for something different just because it got kind of mundane, the same thing day in and day out. And so then uh I applied to four schools, got selected here in at UF, and um the rest is history. I've been here for 12 years now.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

So wow, that's awesome. What so your the business you started was it what what what business were you were you in before the recession kind of threw it?

SPEAKER_02 7:49

So it was HVAC. So I had a partner. Um unfortunately, my partner didn't like to put in the time that I did, you know. So and uh I I think a lot of people find that when they go into partnerships and stuff that you know sometimes it's not an equal equal effort. And so basically I asked him if I could buy him out. He wanted the business more than me, so he bought me out. And that's when I ended up going to uh the VA and just subcontract and project management.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Interesting. Oh wow, yeah. So it Dave Ramsey, I'm not sure if you listen to Dave Ramsey, but Dave Ramsey always says the only ship that doesn't sail is a partnership. So that's his that's his sort of uh his sort of joke there. Well, that's uh that's a really, really interesting journey. And I love first of all, thanks for your service, um, especially uh, you know, that this time of year. And and um your your journey and your going back to school, you know, late later in life. That's what a what a great story to tell to from you know where you were to to to where you are today. So I think that's hopefully uh uh inspirational to folks that are listening, and maybe some folks that came up through the trades but are now looking to make that that next step. What what was the hardest part about going back to school at uh, you know, I think you said you're around 40.

SPEAKER_02 9:05

Yeah, it was um the time commitment. So I worked all day and then I would go to school at night, right? And um minimal vacations because I had school and you know, I had kids that were in there, probably I think they were like eight or nine. And um, so they were they were doing sports, so it was you know, trying to get to the sports and also do the schoolwork and everything. And um, so it was interesting. And I I think the hardest part is um trying to learn again, right? Trying to get used to putting that effort in and understanding. But with that being said, I did end up with um like I I cum lade out of my bachelor's, and then I ended up having the highest GPA 4.0 with my MBA and got the um Wall Street Book Award for um yeah, for being top of my class.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

That's awesome. Congratulations.

SPEAKER_02 10:14

That was thank you. That was that was kind of an honor to get that. I mean, what it's done for me here, though, Bill, is it's helped me out with understanding like the guys respect me because they know I've been in the field. I can help them out. There's times that I come to work and I will throw a pair of jeans on, work boots, and a t-shirt and go work with the guys and show them some of the things that I learned in the trade. And, you know, we have a really good relationship like that. So throughout the organization, I'm able to have good conversations and um have conversations at all levels without creating any uh creating any heartburn or anything like that without with any of them. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 10:52

Yeah, there's no us and them because you're them with everybody, right? You're that that's really that's a really cool, that's a really cool spot. Um, so Greg, you talked a little bit earlier about kind of some of the asset management challenges, people and funding and things like that. Any anything else on you know, kind of those top three things that you're facing? And then how how are you how are you tackling them, uh, you and your team and and the rest of the the the UF uh group?

SPEAKER_02 11:17

So um, I mean, some of the challenges are we, you know, we have aged infrastructure, right? We have buildings from 1900s, and you know, we don't have the unlimited resources as far as funding and income, nor do we have like the contractors, all the contractors that can do all this work. So we're we're limited in the amount of work that we can do a year. Um, and unfortunately, there was a period of time from probably like 2017 until 2022 that we didn't really see much funding, you know, for any deferred renewal, deferred maintenance. And so it kind of hurt us because now we're just basically putting band-aids on equipment, keeping it running. I mean, we still have some equipment here that's from the 70s, air handler units that were still that are still operational. Um, sometimes I say the old the older the better, right? Because uh they seem to last a lot longer. Um, and you also have competing priorities, right? I mean, the institution's large, we have research. Um so going to our administration and saying, hey, we need this, and they're looking at doing, you know, some research, and you know, what what are we offering for the students? You know, we have to make sure the student experience is good. So it's a matter of doing a balance with with a lot of this um funding. I mean, some of the other stuff is like your, you know, your workforce capability, right? I mean, we have some older guys and we have some younger guys. Um the younger guys, they're good with data and everything like that. They don't have the past experience, right?

SPEAKER_01 13:06

So I mean, it's a bit of a trade-off, right?

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Exactly. In today's day and age, right, you have the equipment that the older equipment that doesn't really have the technology built in to tell you, hey, this is a fault, right? Here's your fault. It has a microprocessor, and I'll tell you, okay, you look here. Um, it's interesting because I had a uh refrigerator at my house, brand new um refrigerator, where a guy came in, I had I was having a problem with my ice machine, and what he did was he plugged in his uh device, and it tells him, here, this is what you need to look at, right? Just like that. Not, you know, it's where years ago you didn't have that, right? You'd have to take a multimeter and go around or thermometers or what have you and test this equipment. So um, so kind of that that's some of the stuff that we uh we have problems with. Now to overcome those things, you know, we we we've done a detailed uh condition assessment, right? For um checking out systems and making sure that we understand what the life cycles are. Then we take that data and we kind of compare it to our work order data so that we can evaluate what the equipment's doing, how much it's costing us to maintain, and prioritizing what stuff has to be replaced. Um and the other thing is that we we struggle with a little bit is just the change in programming in the buildings, right? Because there's been such a change in what they do in these buildings today that some of the equipment doesn't either is oversized, undersized, doesn't perform to where it was because it degraded over the years. Um, you have your building envelopes, right? Roofs, you have your, you know, 100-year-old buildings that need, you know, repointing and um leaks coming in from the outside. And then, of course, in Florida, we have the hurricanes, so that doesn't help us out too much with the horizontal winds and everything. And um, you know, so I think that from that from that perspective, I think that we're you know always working through and trying to strategize and come up with a plan long term to complete some of these problems, problem areas that we can, you know, address. And then so from the um then you talk about data systems, right? And and we've integrated a lot of stuff, but they're you know, we're we're involved in getting um a lot of dashboards going so that our our technicians can understand what they have to work on, what's a priority, what's not. We have um, you know, we do a lot of a lot of things with our mobile devices, right? We implemented them probably back in about 2010, and we've just wow. That's early.

SPEAKER_01 16:06

That's early adoption, that's great.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

Yep, and we continue to adapt that technology and give them more tools. Like right now, we're integrated. We have a what we call a pilot team, which is a performance improvement team that does data analytics and develops um a lot of AI platform for us so that we can do some analysis that way. And so these what happens is that they've created a dashboard where they they can allow the guys to take a look at how long previous calls have taken, what other people have done to those systems just by entering the asset number, right? We have QR codes on all our assets, and so they take a shot of that asset and it brings up all the historical data, whether it's work orders, type of equipment, when parts were replaced, so we can we can understand and they can understand what they need to do because from what we need to create efficiencies here. Unfortunately, you know, we're we're taking budget cuts. The state state funding is getting smaller instead of larger. Um and so we're also trying to be good stewards of the taxpayer dollars.

SPEAKER_01 17:23

Yeah. Absolutely. Well, and it gets harder and harder with with inflation and tariffs and all those other things, injecting uncertainty into, you know, how far your budgets can actually go. Um, one thing, Greg, I know you and your team have focused a lot on in the last uh number of years is uh utilities and infrastructure. Um, that's something that a lot of folks that I see on campus, it's sort of the forgotten asset class in some cases, right? Because people, you can't see it. The people see the buildings, people are in the buildings, and so they're they're um you know, they're getting uh more attention. Can could you talk just a little bit to folks about what what it was that that drove your focus on utilities? Because like I said, a lot of people just I want to say ignore them, but just seem to forget about them because they're out of sight, out of mind.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

So when I first got it, got to UF, we were basically um some of our utility plants were in pretty sad shape. We needed a lot of work. Um so we've basically what we've been focusing on is is both the underground infrastructure and the above-ground infrastructure to try and A, increase efficiencies and B, you know, make sure that we're not gonna hurt anybody or we're not gonna shut the place down because of the leaks and everything. Now, um some of our steam systems have been installed in the ground and our chill water for that fact, probably 75, 80 years, right? And so um some of these have been failures. And so when I first got the UF, there was uh we had steam and manholes everywhere, right? And so I was like, what is going on here? I said, we're in Florida, you know, this shouldn't be happening. And people were like, oh, well, it's been going on since the 70s, you know. And I'm like, I'm like, okay, there we go. You know, so we started doing some um GPR and we started checking to understand what line losses were in the system and everything, and come to find out we had a lot of leaks. I mean, we were only bringing back anywhere from probably 15 to 20 percent of the condensate off the steam systems across across the whole campus.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

Wow, that's expensive.

SPEAKER_02 19:43

It is so I mean you talk about just wasting money to pre-treat the water, right? For um to put them back in the boilers so you could create steam because we run 250 pound steam on campus. And so um we started doing some major infrastructure work where we're we're spending on average probably 50 million dollars to 75 million dollars right now. Um, we just finished up a $30 million infrastructure project that was maybe took care of um probably 2,000 feet of steam and condensate and show water and then you have all the other utilities, right? You have your water, right? You have your sanitary, we have reclaim here because we have our wastewater treatment, which we utilize the reclaim for irrigation. And so we're we're constantly having to either repair leaks or replace piping so that we don't have the leaks. And so we've we've I mean from our maintenance budget, we're spending anywhere from half a million to a million dollars just in repair leaks, replacing expansion joints, valve replacements. Um you know, we have so many manholes on campus that need work that you know we've addressed a lot of those by just replacing them, right? And and running parallel lines so that we can keep the old lines in in uh service until we can change over to the new. And um and we have a lot of backfeeds on campus too, where we can back feed a lot of different utilities just so that we're we're able to be a little versatile and so if we do have a leak, we can service buildings. Right.

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Well, no, that's that's that's well, I think that's that's really uh you know, it's really interesting information because as I said, a lot of folks, it's just we fix it when it breaks and and we're not we're not trying to get ahead of it. And and not only managing all that work, but then managing the disruption to campus. And keeping campus life going while all of this work is going on. I'm sure it's been a big challenge for you and your team, but well worth it in the long run from both the cost savings and a you know risk, risk management and planning perspective. So Greg, you already talked that you guys are already heavily investing in AI today. So looking from beyond today to the next five or 10 years, how do you see facility and infrastructure asset management evolving or changing, or even potentially how will it be the same as we move forward in the next decade?

SPEAKER_02 22:39

Well, I think, you know, partially, you know, right now in today's day and age, right, we're still in the you know reactive and preventative mode. I don't think that we've gotten, I mean, some schools may have gotten into some predictive analysis and things like that. Uh, you know, but that's few and far between, to be honest with you. A lot of the schools I talk to don't have that capability at this point.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

So a lot are still struggling to get the preventative done that they want to get done, really is what that's that's my experience. So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

And so I think that you know, going forward, I think as you know, AI advances and people start getting used to it and comfortable with it. Um, I've been doing a lot of speaking on AI at different conferences for APA and others. And um, you know, the the funny thing is is that after after I speak, people come up to me and say, well, where do you get started? Right. And so you have to kind of, and I tell them it's baby steps. You can't do it, you know, you can't flip a switch and you're there. You know, you just have to start doing it nice and slow, and you know, you're gonna fail at things, and you have to make sure that you just keep on trying because it it's not there's no secret sauce or anything for this. It's you know, it's trial by error for a lot of that. So, you know, and then the other thing is is like I I think from a data and systems integration standpoint, right? Um you know, you have a lot of, you know, a lot of uh schools don't have the CMMS systems or don't have their assets tracked, um, which you know, you have to you have to start to get to that point. You got to digitize your um your information so that it's electronic versus manual, right?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah. Yeah, AI can't do much without data, right? If there's nothing to analyze, you know, absolutely I know that's a great point. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

So I think that, you know, um I think at some point in time you'll probably see digital twins everywhere, right? Um, where people can wear the VR glasses and walk around. I've I've tried it a few times with people where they have these, these companies have glasses that you know you put on and you can see the mechanical room, you can look, walk around and check out pumps, and it'll give you all the data for that equipment, right? It'll tell you when the pump was installed, how old it was, the services that it was done. And so between, you know, talking, talking to, you know, a bunch of different vendors at this point, that's where that's where uh technology's going, right? Is is it's gonna be a virtual thing versus so much a physical thing.

unknown 25:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:28

And the best part is you don't bang your head on the duct when you bend down to look at the nameplate on the piece of equipment, right? There you go. Unless they start building that into the glasses too, but I hope not.

SPEAKER_02 25:39

Yep. But I think, you know, from a capital planning standpoint, I think that you'll start to see um, you know, data-driven modeling versus just your, well, I guess it's time to change this, right? Or taking, you know, you'll have a little bit, a lot more, I think, data and analytics to be able to determine what needs to go and when it needs to go versus right now, it's a lot of times it's reactive because something fails and then you're just replacing it instead of you know being proactive about it.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

Well, and it costs you two to four times as much to do it, too, right? Because you've got to do it like that. So it's uh which only exacerbates the budget issue. So, no, that's uh yeah, I certainly think that data, you know, the ability to aggregate so much more data efficiently is there. I think the challenge will be getting the data, right? Because as you say, a lot of folks are still working with stuff in people's heads or stuff on drawings and things like that. But it's it's it's definitely coming for sure.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

So the other thing is that like your workforce and the skill set, right? I think like we talked about earlier, is that we had said how the you know, you have your older guys that are old school that doesn't that don't really experience and don't like a lot of data and technology. Um, you know, it's interesting. I had when I when we did the uh when we went to the mobile devices, you know, a couple of my plumbers, they were like, uh, yeah, no, I got my fingers are too fat. They don't, that's not gonna work, you know? And uh, I mean, those were probably the guys that took me the longest, right? It took me like probably 12 to 18 months to really get them comfortable. And then once they were comfortable, it was like, hey, this is this is great, great technology, thank you. Um, but it took them that long where I mean you have the younger guys, they're growing up with electronics, they're growing up with these devices, right? These gaming systems that, you know, are phenomenal, that they they can, you know, you you put them in front of a screen like that and everything, they can they can make things work, you know. But they're also the guys that need those prompts to say, hey, go look at this point because this is your problem, type of thing, where they're not like the older guys that can go out and troubleshoot old stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:57

They just hear it, they just hear it, right? Or they smell something and they know what's wrong. That's yeah, that's and that's the stuff that AI is never going to replace, right? Is that is that intuition and that understanding and things like that.

SPEAKER_02 28:07

So that's a problem with us for us because of the type of equipment that we have. We have a lot of older equipment and we have a lot of newer equipment, so it's it's trying to create that balance.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Yeah, yeah, it's hard to have somebody who understands the same amount on the 1970s technology as they do on the 2020s technology, right? Because it's dramatically different. That's uh that's really interesting. So uh Greg, anything else you'd like to share with with folks? Any advice for folks thinking about getting into a career in facility or asset management or just anything in general about you know your situation and what's going on at UF?

SPEAKER_02 28:43

No, I think that, you know, I think a lot of people don't understand what what's really entailed in facilities management. And so it's getting the the voices out. I mean, I have um I talk to Lilit Argwal from uh Apple all the time, and you know, and I tell him we need to get that message out of what does facilities management consist of? Because it's not just it's not just cleaning and maintenance, right? It's a whole plethora of things where you have to, you know, be strategic about things, understand utilities, you got to understand buildings, you have to understand projects. Um and and you know, when you get into this business, it's not, you know, it's not where you're just gonna walk in and it takes years to learn everything, like especially an institution like the University of Florida, right? Oh my gosh, you're half the city of Gainesville, right? Pretty much. We tell and I tell people it's gonna take you all all of 24 to 30 months to really understand your job. And people will tell me, oh yeah, it's only gonna take me six months. And after they've been here for a while, they're like, oh my gosh, I didn't realize that this is, you know, you were true to your word when you say that. And it's, you know, but it's an exciting and it's a challenging um business that you don't do the same thing every day. I mean, if you wanted to be doing the same thing every day, you go to a manufacturing plant, right? Or you go to a restaurant or something like that. But if you want different challenges every day, you know, join us in facilities management because it's a great career. And you get to learn a lot of new people. You get to learn vendors, you get to learn network with people, and you can reach out and ask questions and they help you. And, you know, it's just an it's an awesome, awesome place to be.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

That's awesome. Yeah, one of the one of the one of the things that's always attracted me to, I mean, I've always been on the business partner side, not on the actual uh, you know, uh institution side, but one of the neat things for me is getting into the back of house, right? Because everybody sees front of house, and front of house is is is a you know is part of it, and it's a big part of whether it's a hospital or a university, but getting into the back of house and seeing how everything works. I just love kind of getting into to see some of that really neat equipment in those places you wouldn't see, and you know, in labs and things like that, being able to see all the different equipment that's supporting the program. So it's it's like you say, it's it's like, you know, two, no two days are ever the same. Well, Greg, thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate you sharing the insights, telling folks a little bit more about what's going on at UF and sharing your asset management stories. So thanks so much, Greg. Really appreciate your time. Thank you, Bill.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Greg, thanks again for sharing your story. Managing infrastructure at this scale takes a combination of technical expertise, leadership, and long term thinking. Your experience highlights how asset management is evolving into a strategic function that helps organizations make smarter decisions about their buildings and infrastructure. Thanks for joining us on telling your asset management story.