Leo Bobadilla Establishes Team-First Culture at Junior College

10/2/2024

Even after 25 years, many of them spent working in educational facilities, the first day of school is like Christmas Day for Leobardo (Leo) Bobadilla. 

“I’m typically one of the first individuals either at a campus or a school site the first day of classes,” says Bobadilla, the vice-president, chief facilities management and operations officer for Miami Dade College. “I love to see the reaction from the students when they first walk into the space and see either the improvements that have been made to an existing facility or a brand-new facility we’re opening for the first time.” 

During nearly six years at Miami Dade, Bobadilla’s team has provided students with plenty of new facilities and improvements to existing ones. He oversees facilities at eight college campuses, covering 125 buildings which equals more than 8 million square feet. 

The capital projects include high-profile developments, such as asimulated hospital for healthcare students, working with Tesla to convert a warehouse into a training facility for future electric vehicle technicians and constructing artificial intelligence (AI) training centers for students to learn and develop their talents. 

Projects like these are the reason why Bobadilla has earned several awards during a distinguished career, including the 2023 Facility Champion Award presented by FacilitiesNet. While Bobadilla appreciates the recognition, he quickly defers the attention with a “we, not me” philosophy. 

“We work as a team to create a vision for the future and to create the necessary change to achieve that vision,” he says. “Our team strives to enhance the student experience in the work we do every day.” 

Blue-collar background 

Bobadilla is the son of immigrant parents from Central and South America and grew up in a working-class family in Chicago before moving to Florida when he was a teenager. 

Both parents were hard working and entrepreneurs. His mother owned and worked hands-on in a cleaning company and his father worked in an auto repair shop. Bobadilla would often tag along with his parents on jobs and learned early in life the value of hard work. 

“Certainly, having come up in a blue-collar family and having first-hand experience to see exactly the hard work both of my parents did to provide for my family set an example for all of us,” says Bobadilla, who has two sisters. “We saw that hard work was important and it was something that was expected. I’ve never shied away from that, and I think it has motivated me in life and also in the work that I do.” 

Bobadilla was the first member of his family to earn a college degree. This includes an associate’s degree from Valencia College in 1997, a bachelor’s from Florida’s Warner University in 1998 and his master's from Webster University in 2001 before getting his law degree at Florida A&M in 2005. 

While he pursued the law degree, a career in facilities, construction and business operations turned out to be his calling. Bobadilla worked an internship during the late 1990s that included working on an expansion at the Orange County Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. 

“The convention center was growing its footprint and that required not only expanding the building itself, but also the transportation, the infrastructure, everything that would be needed to support that large facility and the growth it would generate in the community after it expanded,” Bobadilla says of the third largest convention center in the United States at 7 million square feet. 

The project involved a significant expansion that included building pedestrian connector bridges over International Drive, a busy stretch of road that dissects the facility. 

“That was the largest public construction project in the state of Florida at the time, and it really exposed me to a lot of, not just facility areas, but other business operating areas that were required to put a project like that together,” Bobadilla says. “I feel very fortunate to have had that experience very early in my career, and that created other opportunities for me moving forward.” 

The law degree did not go to waste, however. Learning the ins and outs of the law has helped Bobadilla succeed in addition to the hands-on skills he developed in facilities and operations management. 

“Most of my career has been in service of educators and students. Utilizing that skill set has helped me in my career to better advocate for their needs and ultimately garner support for billions of dollars in funding to better support educators and students with improved business operations and facilities that support them,” he says. 

Bobadilla’s career took him away from home for more than a decade. In 2007 he was named the chief operations officer of Guilford County Schools in Greensboro, North Carolina, before moving on to the Houston Independent School District (HISD) in 2010 where he served as the chief operating officer/chief business officer until 2015. A three-year stop at Broward County Public Schools in Florida set the stage for his current position at Miami Dade, where he was hired in January 2019. 

Bobadilla contributed to the success of the public-school districts he worked in. In North Carolina, he helped the Guilford district develop new facility standards and educational specifications that were utilized in the design of school facilities for a $450 million capital improvement program (CIP). He also implemented a $2 billion CIP program at HISD that included guidelines for high-performance facilities that provide long-term energy and operational savings. 

Joe Hill worked with Bobadilla at both Guilford County Schools and HISD. Now retired, Hill was part of the interview team that ultimately hired Bobadilla for Guilford and later worked with him in Texas. 

In a letter-of-reference written on Bobadilla’s behalf, Hill cited his colleague's ability to work with people on all levels of facilities as one of the reasons he has achieved such great heights in his profession. 

“Leo possesses excellent technical, managerial and organizational skills,” Hill writes. “He knows how to maximize the talents of his team and is held in the highest regard by those who work with him. Communication skills are very important, and Leo is always well-prepared with factual data that is presented in a non-confrontational manner. Leo is very analytical in his thought process and seeks to evaluate all aspects of an issue before making a decision.” 

Working together 

Bobadilla walked into a challenging situation on his first day on the Miami Dade campus. Each year the college is subjected to a third-party inspection of its facilities, and the previous year had over 900 violations that needed to be addressed. One of his first tasks was to work with his team and other stakeholders to develop a plan and strategy to address this backlog.  

“One thing I always appreciated about Leo was his ability to be comfortable both with high level management and, if needed, get down and roll his sleeves up,” says Jayson Iroff, who was the chief financial officer and vice president of finance at Miami Dade before moving on to Florida Atlantic University.  

Bobadilla oversees 125 employees which include maintenance technicians, emergency management teams and the construction department across all the college’s campuses. Once he learned of the alarming number of violations, his team established a mission to drastically reduce the total and do it quickly. 

In just five years, his team working with each campus, cut the violations from 900 to zero. 

“I know for some folks that seems like an insurmountable goal to go from 900 to zero, particularly with the amount of facility space that we have,” he says. “But our team accepted the challenge, knowing it was important for the college and our students. With good planning and diligent work, we recently achieved our goal.” 

While making necessary system improvements was a significant part of Bobadilla’s introduction to the college, the “high level” aspect of his job that Iroff describes was also on full display. The college’s CIP was another area that required a team effort to develop a plan and strategy to identify the highest needs and to implement past projects.  The CIP is reviewed yearly, and the program has resulted in the completion of more than 100 major capital projects valued at almost $500 million dollars since Bobadilla joined the college. 

These projects represent much-needed improvements to existing facilities and new facilities that have helped the college to create welcoming and safe spaces while also elevating the student experience. 

Developing and implementing the CIP was no easy task, but Bobadilla’s the first to explain it takes a village to execute the plan. 

“I’m very happy and proud of the way that our team does that every year, because it’s a very collaborative process with all the stakeholders involved,” he says. “It’s not just a facilities person in a room coming up with the plan. Before we finalize our plan and bring it to the board for approval, we typically have somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 to 40 different meetings or workshops with various stakeholders including our executive leadership team to jointly work in developing our CIP.” 

Iroff worked with Bobadilla on a number of those capital projects and admired his colleague for his devotion to keeping costs down while showing dedication to Miami Dade’s students and staff to ensure they have the best learning and instructional conditions possible. 

Before he left in April 2023, Iroff and Bobadilla secured several energy management contracts and worked together to mitigate costs and develop non-traditional revenue streams to get projects completed. 

“Leo did a very good job of resourcing what he needed to do,” Iroff says. “From a finance perspective, we kind of call it more cash flowing. He knew he didn’t have enough resources on a macro level, but he was able to effectively cash flow year-to-year to take care of the things he needed to take care of. 

“We had millions of deferred maintenance that needed to get done, and we had nowhere near those resources specific to that. He spent the better part of my time there addressing that.” 

Leadership matters 

Strong communication skills and teamwork are two of the bedrocks of what has helped Bobadilla succeed.  

He takes great pride in stressing that every successful project completed at Miami Dade is a team effort. Bobadilla describes his role as facility leader as a coach more than a boss, always encouraging professional development and providing feedback to help his employees improve.  

As he describes his role as a leader, he allows his staff, “to do their jobs without micromanaging, but I’m always ready to help when they come across a boulder in the road.” 

“I would say that our challenges are our opportunities,” he says. “In my career, I’ve worked to champion for our support staff. Whether it’s HVAC technicians, electricians, carpenters, plumbers, security personnel, custodians, bus drivers or food service workers, all of them are important and valued members of the team.Unfortunately, sometimes much of what they do is behind the scenes, so I felt it important in my career to champion for these staff members, so they receive the recognition and support that they deserve. My philosophy is in line with our college president’s of fostering a culture of care for all employees.” 

Dave Lubach is executive editor in the facilities market. He has more than nine years of experience writing about facility management and maintenance issues.