De’Shawn Kelly is the Facilities Manager at Homeward Bound of Marin, a community nonprofit working to end homelessness by providing shelter and services for homeless families and individuals in Marin County, California. De’Shawn is a facilities maintenance professional with a history of working in property management, medical, senior retirement living, and homeless shelter fields.
De’Shawn is an exceptional leader and is highly skilled at improving customer satisfaction, team morale, property appeal, maintenance mentorship, and more.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- De’Shawn Kelly talks about his role at Homeward Bound of Marin
- De’Shawn discusses the challenges that come with finding volunteers for the nonprofit
- How did the pandemic impact homeless shelters in Marin County?
- De’Shawn describes his “battle-tested” attitude and how that helps him succeed in life
- What De’Shawn learned from growing up in Oakland, California — and how he got into facilities management
- How De’Shawn continues to educate himself and expand his skill sets
- How to build your career in facility maintenance
- Why does De’Shawn love the facilities management industry so much?
In this episode…
In Marin County, California, Facilities Manager De’Shawn Kelly is aiding the community in the wake of COVID-19 and the increase in homelessness that came along with it. In his role, De’Shawn is supporting the movement to end homelessness by helping individuals and families transition to housing. So, how does De’Shawn keep up with the challenges, and what opportunities are out there to begin your career in facilities management?
Since joining Homeward Bound of Marin in November of 2019, De’Shawn calls himself a “battle-tested” facilities manager. While working in a new position during the pandemic, De’Shawn learned how to quickly overcome unprecedented obstacles. Now, he has a fierceness to pursue any challenge that comes his way, and he’s here to share this knowledge with you!
In this episode of Watching Paint Dry, Greg Owens talks with De’Shawn Kelly, Facilities Manager at Homeward Bound of Marin, about the challenges and learning opportunities in a facilities management role. De’Shawn discusses what he learned on the job, the challenges that many nonprofits face, and how you can begin a career in the dynamic, diverse area of facilities management. Stay tuned.
Resources Mentioned in this episode
- Greg Owens on LinkedIn
- Katrina Stephenson on LinkedIn
- McCarthy Painting
- McCarthy Painting Contact No.: 415-383-2640
- McCarthy Painting Email Address: info@mccarthypainting.com
- De’Shawn Kelly on LinkedIn
- Homeward Bound of Marin
- Laney College
- City College of San Francisco
Sponsor for this episode…
This episode is brought to you by McCarthy Painting, where we serve commercial and residential clients all around the San Francisco Bay area.
We’ve been in business since 1969 and served companies such as Google, Autodesk, Abercrombie & Fitch, FICO, First Bank, SPIN, and many more.
If you have commercial facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area and need dependable painters, visit us on the web at www.mccarthypainting.com or email info@mccarthypainting.com, and you can check out our line of services and schedule a free estimate by clicking here.
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:03
Welcome to the Watching Paint Dry podcast where we feature today’s top facility managers, property managers and property owners talking about the challenges and opportunities of managing hundreds of 1000s of square feet of real estate and how to beautify and improve their properties. Now, let’s get started with the show.
Greg Owens 0:32
Good morning, everyone, or afternoon, or whatever the case may be. I’m excited here today with another podcast of Watching Paint Dry, where we’ve been talking to facilities, managers, business owners, property managers, and all the support network of people that support that entire industry. And it’s not a small industry. It’s massive, as we’ve been learning more and more about as we deep dive into these, and it’s so much fun to find out new and interesting. Businesses, buildings, corporations that are out there doing interesting stuff in the world of facilities. This podcast Watching Paint Dry is sponsored by McCarthy Painting it is my company was started in 1969 by my uncle Fred McCarthy. We are a small painting business located in San Rafael, California. And we service both residential and commercial painting throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. And some of our clients have been Chase Bank, Google, we were looking at facilities that are empty by Google right now that I think we’re going to be starting to paint some of those and doing a lot of that as there’s a lot of changes going on in the world. And it’s which is really good for painting business. Right when people are moving in and out of facilities, they tend to want to paint them before so to find out more about McCarthy Painting, go to info@McCarthypainting.com. And I am excited to have the De’Shawn Kelly, who is here in our hometown of centre fell Homeward Bound of Marin. And Homeward Bound I was looking it up is a place that helps homeless people sort of trans transition from being homeless to being into an apartment in a facility and then moving on from that. And you are the facilities manager for that institution. Is that correct? That’s correct. That is great. So how are things for you today here on on Wednesday,
De’Shawn Kelly 2:39
busy as all that doors I mean, just like currently, we’re in a process like right now, I got the overalls on, we have this little massive plumbing project that’s happening right on the second floor here, historical, you know, leaking issues and into a business. And we’re just trying to go that extra mile to see if we can permanently get that done. But, uh, that’s just the data like, you know, facilities manager, you know, so yeah,
Greg Owens 3:04
well, if somebody’s not, but you know, you’ve got some skills, right? So you mean your, these days, you don’t see that as much. It’s if you’re more of a rare breed of facilities manager, you actually get in there and like, okay, I’ll
De’Shawn Kelly 3:16
do the plumbing today. Exactly, exactly. So now, various, you got to, you know, you got to kind of pick your poison. So there’s only Well, there’s five of us have five technicians total. And we have two gardeners, the gardeners are used the space now in the bottle area, the big garden area at the admin administration campus. So I’m actually kind of working with the plumber, we did hire a plumber, because because we have sites all throughout Marin County, and if I get bogged down on the job, but one or two days, you know, we got 1000 things going awry. So just got to kind of pick and choose what now between me and enough the other maintenance guy here, we could probably tackle most things from electrical climbing drywall, but we don’t necessarily do everything. Most things we just have to bender out. And that’s just the nature is kind of the nature of the beast. Yeah, I
Greg Owens 4:08
find myself doing the same thing. I was learning all about the insides of an electrical panel. In the last couple of days. We were doing a demo, we get into some tenant improvement work. We were doing some demo work and I was helping your I was helping the guys do that work because it’s kind of fun, right? The knock walls down and have to be careful about it. Right, right. Yeah. And then but of course, you know, we yanked some wires out and so I had to go into the you know, so yeah, I mean then then I called the electrician because I cleaned it all up for him so that he could then come and show up and do his work and you know, Andy and understand it because we made it into a bird’s nest, you know, demoing a bunch of you’re absolutely, absolutely. I forgot to mention too. We’ve got Katrina Stephenson on the on this podcast also in Katrina works for McCarthy Painting and usually chimes in when And she has burning questions about facilities management and anything else that she hears. Sure,
Katrina Stephenson 5:06
I do. And thank you, Greg for the intro, and my husband is a plumber. So I’m hearing about the trades all the time. And all the all the things that he deals with with painters and electricians,
Greg Owens 5:19
that he just got his plumbing on. He just got his plumbing licence, too. So he’s he’s moving up to having his own business at some point, which is really beautiful. That is great. And so tell me a little bit more about all Homeward Bound. This is really interesting. Marin County has done a really good job with homelessness back like over the last two to five years. And but of course now with COVID, and all the challenges in that it’s it’s come back, you know, tenfold or something like that. Right? What is
De’Shawn Kelly 5:52
what is Tell me more about Homeward Bound? Yes. So to start, Mr. Owens, and Homeward Bound, of course, is a nonprofit that serves the homeless folks off about Marin County. I think they’ve been doing it probably since the 70s. The 60s. So probably one of the oldest, you know, companies as far as serving the homeless here in Marin County area, and I’ve only been here about a year and a half, and it’s just working. And the whole nine profit round was totally new to me, you know, I’m coming from property management background, you know, good engineering background was by far totally, totally different between black and white, different. And you mentioned that Marin County has done a good job as far as servicing the homeless folks the last several years, definitely. But the one the interesting thing is, when I first started working here, I’m like, I’m thinking about Marin County. And I’m thinking homelessness is like an oxymoron. Right? So, exactly. Yeah. No, no. And you grew up over you grew up in Oakland. Right? Yeah. Yeah. You know, there’s a different problem in Oakland. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. This is Country Club homeless. Right, exactly, that Ritz Carlton, Ritz Carlton homeless, but it’s definitely a issue still. Yeah, but I think, because I’ve accessed Marin County for the last 15 or 20 years, just going to the trails I can get. I’m an avid hiker, love to hang out, you know, camping into these mountains, kept in the mountains for several years. But the interesting thing is, I’ve never noticed any clue of homelessness, or that there has been an issue. So I believe that whole Marin county has done a great job of hiding the homeless, you know, by by and large, like you hit the freeways and whatnot, you don’t see it, you go to Oakland, you see it, it’s pretty evident that, you know, it pops up. But it’s just been a wonderful time, the last year and a half here, seven minutes, folks. And I’m still learning how to cater as a facility manager in this, this nonprofit, you know, if I miss it’s a different deal, but it’s, it’s, it’s been a hell of a stretch. But it’s been a wonderful stretch, you know, so you just got to kind of cater because I’m, for instance, we have crew, you know, there’s a crew of like two by five, there’s a crew of seven, a most of the folks from most of the staff, with the exception of one maintenance folks have come through one of the shelters at one time or another several years ago and in, there’s plenty of job opportunities, training, apprenticeship programmes that we have like a maintenance apprenticeship programme, where a person would come on board through the shelter, and we just, I just kind of spent time with them. They stand a truck with me, I try to keep them in truck with me most of the time, just pour, you know, just pour out just to get this skill set up. And then miracles happen. Miracles happen.
Greg Owens 8:50
That is that is great. Yeah, I think there’s a strong need out there in the world for more of that, right. And that’s one of the reasons we have been doing this podcast is just sort of shine the light on the different types of job opportunities that are actually out there. The opportunities are my mind are endless, but you but as a person, you need to become aware of that they actually exist. And yeah, a little bit of like, you know, going after it or somebody that holds your hand a little bit along the way and mentors, tells you Oh, this is a good. This is a good place. You can try this out, right.
Katrina Stephenson 9:26
Volunteering there. I know that homework has a lot of just keeping people busy and apprenticeships and volunteering.
De’Shawn Kelly 9:34
They do. Right. Yeah. So we run. I mean, we were like 100% on volunteers, you know, and we missed a whole lot of that this past year. So since because of the COVID thing, you know, because of the different safety protocols that comes up. Some of the volunteers just out of out of fear, but it’s nice to have them slowly trickle back in right now. But they are definitely lifeline. Like, you know, we need all the powers You’re told me rely on cloud services.
Greg Owens 10:03
Yeah, that, hear what you’re saying, this is an interesting transition to go from because I’m on the board of a couple of nonprofits, right and go from my everyday business corporate sort of working in this company, and then switch gears and switch the mentality to Okay, now we’re talking about a nonprofit. And, yeah, it’s a, it’s a weird transition, there’s a lot more conversations that seem to happen, you know, within a nonprofit organisation, before they spend money there, he, I tend to see it as like, they’re, they’re really trying to do the best job they can, you know, to make sure their funds go the farthest and into the best uses, they can. Absolutely, absolutely. One thing, for instance, is, like me still trying to,
De’Shawn Kelly 10:48
I’m still going through the process of changing my mindset and how I handle like the day to day tasks that come up, for example, we may have a property like back in the property management world, we may have a property that has, you know, we tree, you know, maybe palm trees need to be trimmed up or you know, we got some cedars is dying, or, you know, what our job was just to call the vendor and have them give us a, you know, give us a bid come in, and, you know, get the work. But now I’m just money, like, things like not to just kind of look at our resource. Look at our volunteer base. So we got volunteers, we got like professional opera, you know, that on average, there’s plumbers, professional Primus, electricians, and sometimes just talking with them. A lot of times, we have some new stuff come in and do work for us for nothing, you know, our, with minimum, you know,
Greg Owens 11:45
very low, very low prices. So, I’m just learning how to really go beyond kind of hard to slack. Because I hear what you’re saying. Yeah, cuz you’re, you struggle with like, you you want these people to, you know, it’s hard work. Being an arborist is incredibly hard work. And then you’re making an ask or saying, Hey, we don’t have the funds to fully pay this is there? Is there somebody in our community that’s open to supporting it? And then of course, you might get a volunteer that says, Yeah, I’ll do it. And then you’re then you feel bad, because you’re like, watching them work. And you’re like, wow, they’re not compensated for this. But you know,
Katrina Stephenson 12:22
even retired, like a retired arborist who’s like, has been waiting for this, you know, volunteer and give their time.
Greg Owens 12:32
Yeah. So if there’s any retired arborists out there, retired operators feel free gifts. Imagine a 70 year old arborist, right, like something in a tree, I could see it. Yeah. I’ve done some of that kind of work. And it’s, it’s mind boggling. Because not only are you dealing with heights, you know, and you’re cutting branches and trees off. But now you have a live chainsaw in your hand, which is probably one of the most dangerous tools that I’ve ever played with right? playing with it. Not exactly correct. being super careful with it, knowing that the damn thing can bounce on you at any second, like I have. So many people I know have gotten injured with those things on the ground or let alone like 60 dangling off a rope. You know that you can cut through in like Swiss cheese right?
Katrina Stephenson 13:29
ground arborists then retired ground art like on the right.
Greg Owens 13:37
People are people are done things longer. So that’s one of yours. You guys kind of like have to navigate those waters of, hey, how can we get this done? Maybe we can check in with our community of people that are out there that support and like what we do, right and then and then decide if their skill level is competent enough. They’re not going to get injured in the process. Right.
De’Shawn Kelly 13:58
Right. Right. Exactly. So this is interesting with Kathy, right.
Greg Owens 14:03
Katrina,
De’Shawn Kelly 14:04
Katrina. Okay, Katrina, Mr. Owens. This is a prime example. We had a we had a guy who had to work off, maybe get a couple of tickets, parking tickets. So you just had to do some volunteer hours. So he showed up. He’s actually a plumbing contractor. Right. So we said plumbing contractor. I thought about this one property that we have in downtown San Miguel. That is, I think, maybe an 1880s Yeah, so we had this, we had this leak that was happening. And so right away, I took them to this location. And he’s like, show me the leak. I busted out. You guys. I’ll pay for materials, labour. So he was able to locate that crazy mysterious leak and address it. So anyway, he could address that issue. And I just wanted to do it. He’s like, I didn’t know he got fixed it. And it just feels good, just from the depths of my heart to be able to do such a task, and that we would hire someone. Probably several Maybe maybe a couple grand actually a couple of bad to just issue that he that he took care of. So an example.
Katrina Stephenson 15:08
There’s there’s also the ones that do it for community service purposes and getting their hours in for like parking tickets or I don’t know what other else. Community Service public parking tickets.
De’Shawn Kelly 15:20
Yeah, right. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. They they’re, they’re just shocked that this organisation exists. I mean, and these folks that come in their marinites, you know, their native Marin County folks. And, you know, have enough You didn’t even know that. Such a place exists.
Greg Owens 15:42
Oh, yeah, for sure. Both Katrina, and I live in Marin, and also make fun of marine, because marine is a very special place for very special people, is how I like to frame it. But we’re part of that, and I’m part of this Yeah. I didn’t I fully I fully embrace it, too. I mean, and I make like the the girls down here at Whole Foods laugh all the time when when I when I mentioned those kinds of things, because, you know, they deal with dealing with these people all the time. Sure, sure. there’s a there’s a big challenge that I find with nonprofits too. And, and where sometimes it’s like, you want to just pay for the project to get done. Because you want you just want it to be done on a timely fashion. And I know we’re dealing with I’m dealing with nonprofits too. And sometimes they’re, you’re Wait, you’re like, Wow, this is great, this arborist is going to take care of these trees and get started and the trees have cut down and you’re like, Where is it? You don’t want to over bug them? Right? You don’t want to be that? Because they’re doing it for free. But at the same time, you’re like, the parking lot is like full of tree branches. Can we move down here?
Greg Owens 16:59
It’s a tough, it’s a super tough balance. I know. Katrina is involved in her church in a big way. And, and getting we’ve done some work for the church to and getting work done there and getting the committee to make decisions.
Katrina Stephenson 17:12
That’s that is what I was just going to mention, too, is so many people have so many thoughts and views, and you want to make sure you include everyone, you know, or they will include themselves. It takes a village right? That
Greg Owens 17:27
right? Absolutely. Right. Right. Yeah. So I would I could imagine that during this COVID time now that things are opening up, it’s feeling a lot better. How was it for you in the beginning of COVID, being in such a facility with with tenants now being not able to even go out look for work in a lot of ways, even if they had some particularly, you know, unique challenges just for your organisation? Yeah,
De’Shawn Kelly 17:56
I mean, yeah, we definitely did. And I think one of the first thing, so the wonderful thing is leadership over here got together. And we just implemented a whole bunch of safety protocols. It’s kind of a lie regarding the safety of the facilities. unusual thing happened, where a lot of people started, you know, housing voucher, we’re, we’re moving up, like this crazy way. But yeah, and it’s like, again, it’s something new to me. So. So that was that was also one. So we got to when people move out, that means their space, we have to come in and rent a turn, rethink change like this with switches or whatever, whatnot. So we were crazy busy this whole time. But which I am definitely grateful. We all have. But we’ve been we’ve, we’ve been running, running ever since. I don’t know exactly how to increase increase. I don’t want me Okay, people moving out of space. It just got got kind of crazy. But it was it was all controlled. I was able to service No. Yeah, no.
Greg Owens 19:16
That’s good. That’s great. Yeah. So so i can i can imagine that me. Whenever you guys have turnover, that means your job for everybody involved is it gets quite quite busy. Right. Like and you know, and then you’re then you’re having to deal with all the COVID safety protocols and all those kinds of things at the same time. Right? And what what type of what type of people were looking like, because you were you had you had people moving out, and I’m assuming that’s a in a lot of ways a good thing that they’re there that are that are moving out to find a better place or move or something in their life, something more permanent. Yeah. So what were the then you’d have new Coming in, that must have been challenging too, because, you know, you have COVID restrictions, and you don’t want to have some kind of major spread within a facility like yours. right and right, and super challenging or concerning.
De’Shawn Kelly 20:13
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, people, you know, people coming in, okay, we all aware of this pandemic. But when they come into the, they walk into the environment, and they see that the environment is under control protocols are in place, the planning, is there the sense of comfort, they’re considering, you know, this pandemic, this this Khurana brand. So I guess we will get a whole bunch of that, you know, I think, for the most part, they were pretty aware of, you know, all the different steps that we were taking to make sure that people were saying, buildings were clean, disinfected. I mean, there was constant meetings and flyers going around to inform everyone about change things, you know, that we have been doing new things that we were implementing, for the sake of sake. So, yeah, we, I think overall, we did pretty well, we didn’t have Okay, we got a couple of scares, we’re a couple of people who would test positive, but we even had, they already kind of figured out, they had protocols and systems in place to deal with such things. So we never experienced where I was watching on the news. During this time. There were plenty of homeless shelters that were getting crazy outbreaks, when we didn’t experience anything like that. Considering all the you know, all the facts that we have about counting. That was definitely a blessing. Definitely a blessing. That’s,
Greg Owens 21:39
that’s great. That’s great. I know for for my painting company. We had, as far as I know, only two employees that have got one early on, and then one just cut it right after his first shot like a week later, two weeks ago, which is right. I was like, wow, that’s That’s way better. Yeah. So. So right after getting his shot, which is, which is a rare anomaly, especially right now, since Marin County. I think it’s like 67% of the people here have been vaccinated, right? That he ended up gaining now, he ended up getting COVID, but no symptoms whatsoever. I mean, he was definitely tested positive. And then nobody around him was tested positive, which was great, including myself, which I was close to him, but I’ve also been vaccinated. I wasn’t terribly concerned. I still got tested to make sure though. But yeah, Interesting. Interesting times, right. Like it’s unprecedented year. And you you were you said you started with a Homeward Bound? About a year and a half ago, November of 2019. All right. So that was your Yeah. Right into this. Wow. Learning about this total baptism, like right off the bat right. Now,
Katrina Stephenson 22:56
I’m wondering, I have a quick question. I mean, do you feel like now that this has happened, that it’s like, Come on, Come at me, because what else cuz you’ve been kind of the worst with COVID. And it’s like, Okay, this can only be easy now.
De’Shawn Kelly 23:10
Yeah, exactly. That was my, my, that was my attitude. As we transition from 2020 to 2021. I’m like, I mean, in my lifetime, I don’t think I will see anything, like 2020. So I’m like, okay, so whatever, you know, whatever is out there. If I just hit it hard, you know, add a little bit of courage, a little bit of fearlessness, anything, you know, anything is possible, I can do anything. We can do anything, you know. And and that’s, that’s exactly. That’s exactly what that experience. This whole time has done. Yeah.