Facilities management continues to evolve and grow thanks to the seasoned veterans of the industry. Building Operating Management launched its Facility Influencer program to highlight these individuals. Maureen Roskoski, vice president at FEA, is a 24-plus year veteran of facilities management. In this interview, Roskoski discusses her passions for sustainability and resiliency, also even sharing her experiences in the industry.
FacilitiesNet: How did you get into facilities management?
Roskoski: I graduated from college with a degree in environmental Earth science and started out in the field in environmental consulting related to real estate transactions. So, I was looking at asbestos, lead and groundwater contamination for when people were going to buy a property. I had two jobs in that field that then led me to my current job at FEA, which started out doing the same sort of thing with the evaluations of buildings on the environmental side. Looking for all that stuff in buildings eventually morphed into sustainability and energy management in buildings. Ultimately, I have been at FEA for almost 25 years. FEA is a company that does asset management consulting work with facility managers and asset managers. I started to learn more about facility management technology, building maintenance and operations – that is how it evolved for me.
FacilitiesNet: How did you get into your role as vice president at FEA?
Roskoski: Since I have been at the company so long, I started out working on environmental consulting and buildings. I eventually started managing bigger facility condition assessment projects and long-term projects. I worked my way up through the company. There have been a couple of major things that I have done at the company. One was implementing a business continuity program that led to us becoming ISO certified in business continuity. That was really a company-wide effort to take for our very small company to get ISO certification. So, that just brought more of a leadership role within FEA.
FacilitiesNet: What do sustainable and resilient facilities look like to you?
Roskoski: Sustainable facilities would be facilities that are managing their operations consistent with the triple bottom line. That is, where they take into account the financial, social and environmental factors and work towards organization wide sustainability goals. As for resilience, I really believe that sustainability is morphing into resilience because in order to be considered resilient, we have got to maintain our planet and not do any harm to the environment.
Resilience also adds to it the ability to, as an organization or even as a building, withstand threats and being able to recover from them. For things such as resilient facilities, business continuity planning is really important. You could have physical things like how hardened your exteriors are and how your facility is secured. Ultimately, sustainability is morphing into resilience and eventually resilience will be the word that we use to encompass it all – that is just my gut feeling.
FacilitiesNet: Where do you see facilities management going in the future?
Roskoski: What I am more passionate about would be the workforce development side of facility management. One of the biggest challenges is an aging workforce and bringing the next generation of facility managers into the pool. So, we need to make sure that we have got a pipeline of people coming into facilities management that are being properly trained by those already working in the field. That is, so they can maintain these buildings that have become so technology dependent and technology heavy.
Jeff Wardon, Jr. is the assistant editor for the facilities market.
