The most successful facility managers tend to talk in terms of “we” and not “me.”
Leo Bobadilla, a 2023 Facility Champion, embraces this philosophy with his team at Miami Dade College.
“The work we do would not be possible without a group of talented and committed facilities staff and the support of our executive leadership team,” says Bobadilla, the college’s vice-president, chief facilities management and operations officer.
Bobadilla leads a team of 120 employees who are responsible for the construction, maintenance and operations of more than 8 million square feet of facilities across eight campuses in South Florida. The staff is kept busy with a rigorous five-year capital improvement plan that has seen his team complete more than 70 major capital projects with a budget of $275 million through the first four years of the plan.
Dade College updates the five-year plan annually, so the ball is always moving forward for the facilities team. While working on the capital projects, Dade College has made a strong commitment to improving response times for work orders.
“We monitor this on a weekly basis in order to quickly know where we need to provide additional support if our response times start to increase,” Bobadilla says. “Over the last four years we have moved from having a backlog of work orders that were 30 to 60 days old to having an average response time of less than two days for routine work orders. We want to continue to see this trending in the right direction.”
Bobadilla’s team is also ensuring that Dade College’s facilities are safe for building occupants. During the last four years, the college has reduced its level of findings by over 97 percent.
“This means our facilities team is being responsive by planning for facility needs and being responsive whenever an unanticipated event happens,” Bobadilla says.
Dade College experiences many of the challenges facility staffs are facing these days, namely reducing deferred maintenance and finding qualified candidates to replace retiring employees. Bobadilla credits the college’s capital development plan with helping with the deferred maintenance questions. He looks to a newly created pre-apprenticeship program, launched this year within the facilities department, as a way to find new employees.
“It’s a win-win all around,” he says. “The students learn and earn a certificate and can take these skills to immediately enter the workforce upon program completion or they can continue their education. Our facilities receive additional support from the students and our master trade employees are enjoying teaching and learning by sharing their knowledge with the next generation of tradespeople. Hopefully some of our students will also decide to make a career with the college.”
Bobadilla says elevating the student experience is one of the ways he defines success in his job, and to that extent he is proud of the role his team played in the opening of three significant facilities on campus – the Student Success Center on the Homestead campus, the Honors College which provides entrepreneurial programing for small businesses and specialized instructional and support spaces, and a conference space that showcases art exhibits from students and local artists.
“This facility will serve the students in the community for many years to come with modern and state-of-the-art spaces that will help students obtain the workforce and business skills necessary to succeed in the job market,” he says.
Dave Lubach is executive editor of the facility market.
