Happy Fourth of July 2015!

CBCA DFW offices will be closed on Friday July 3, but we are always on call and will take care of your buildings as if we owned them ourselves!

Enjoy your Independence Day Holiday!

Did you know??
Thomsas Jefferson and John Adams both passed away on July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after they both signed the Declaration of Independence

Carol Sosebee

An American in Belgium...and Hand Dryers

Even on vacation, I cannot stop seeing through the lens of property management.  Everywhere I went, could not help noticing hand dryers.  HAND DRYERS!!!

Ok, there's a reason.  When I was in Italy in 2011, I could not help noticing that the automatic hand dryers there were gentler on the hands, the blast of air did not deform your hands when you used them, as is universally the case in the US, and they did not sound like you're standing behind a jet engine at takeoff.  I chalked it up to the supremacy of italian design.  

Not so.  I went to Belgium in May for a very cool tour of Trappist monasteries.  Not, as you might think, because I am religious.  No, it is because my husband and I are avid Belgian Beer fans.  We joined 17 other people in paying homage to these wonderful beverages by traveling to their brewing locations and enjoying them as close as possible to the source.  And as we traveled the country, I kept noticing the hand dryers.

First, there was the Dyson V dryer. The first time I encountered this dryer, I had no idea how to use it, and pretty much just walked away with wet hands. Later I saw someone else wave their hands in front of it, and viola, two blades of air rushed from the sides of the V, and hands became dry as if by magic.









Then there was the Eco Dryer.  This one had lots of air holes inside, so that your hands were dried with gentle air pressure as you passed your hands up and down.  I liked this one a lot, I thought the multi-point air drying was a great idea. Of all I saw, this one did the job without the ear splitting, hand deforming downward single point jet of air I usually see here.


And finally, my least favorite, and most like whatI see in the Good Ole USA - the downward single point of air dryer.  This is the European version of the Xelerator jet dryer in the US.  It is, however, easier on the hands, and not so loud.

As I contemplated the use of hand dryers at Trappist breweries in Belgium (Yes, I know how strange that sounds), it occurred to me that I don't even see that many hand dryers in office buildings in the U.S., at least in the DFW area.  Why is that, I wonder?  Could it be because sub-consciously we all have the same reaction to the use of uncomfortable hand dryers we typically find in the US?

It inspires me to source one of those kinder, gentler hand dryer versions to install in the bathrooms of the buildings we manage.  Stay Tuned...I'll let you know how that turns out.      

Who Knew...? Water can be "Smart"

I have been watching the latest news from California, their water crisis is scary looking.  By happenstance I turn my attention to my own city installing "smart meters" everywhere.  I read in the Dallas paper about Wichita Falls contemplating a recycling effort of sewage water into drinking water.  Hmmm. what does it all mean?  What I'm afraid it means is that water is a more scarce resource than the price we pay really reflects.

One of our landscaping providers has been telling us for awhile about a new "Smart Controller" he can install that will, properly configured and managed, keep irrigation water use to the absolute minimum required to get the job done and still have the pleasing curb appeal at our properties our tenants and their guests expect.  Apparently in our case this can be almost half our current irrigation water use.  Yikes!

So this week that landscaper had their reps come in, buy us lunch, and explain how their system works.  We are a tough audience.

It's a pretty cool deal.  Think about all the irrigation controllers in office buildings that have to be accessed on-site.  With this system you access and manage the controller through a web interface, turn the system completely off when there's rain headed our way, fine tune the individual zones, and get real time data on how much water you are using.

The question is, how much does it cost, how long is the payback, and what is the value proposition to our owner clients to induce them to invest quite a bit to replace a regular controller that is not currently broken.  Like I said, we are a tough audience.  We do like the idea though, and think we know where we can try it out.  I'll keep you posted.

Roofing is the theme...and the meme

One of our strategies for getting preventive maintenance done is to come up with monthly "Themes" for the kind of routine maintenance that is often so hard to work into the schedule.

This month's preventive maintenance theme is roofing.  We partner with a company who does annual video inspections.  Video is great for those of us get a bit, shall we say, woozy, on rooftops.  Our vendor walks the roof with a video camera and uploads that video, along with their report and recommendations, so we can log in and compare this year to last year's inspection.

Our guys, in the meantime, focus on the things they can stay up with, like keeping the roof deck and drains free of debris, and checking for ponding after a rain.

Personally, I do get a little lost in the terminology. Bitumen, coping, scuppers, parapets, counterflashing...it does make my head swim, sort of like I feel when climbing up that ladder to the roof.

LEaDing the way on lighting efficiency

In our weekly property management team huddles, we have a periodic forum for hearing from a vendor with a new idea, new approach, new way to add value.  We want to hear from them, because everything we do is about adding value.  Property value.  For us it's not just adding value in the abstract, it's about adding real value to a real property.

So that's why we scheduled a visit from a local electrical contractor last week who wanted to tell us about how they can retrofit lighting fixtures with LED's.  That may sound simple, you can buy screw in LED's at Home Depot, right?  Right.  Think about this though:  what is the predominant fixture in an office building?  It is not a screw in bulb, it's a fluorescent tube.  And in many office buildings the predominant lighting is a T-12 fluorescent fixture, which is now obsolete, and those bulbs have officially gone the way of the dinosaur.  They are no longer being made, and are becoming scarce. So, think again about how nice it would be if you could retrofit that obsolete tube with LED and a minimum of fuss and muss?

That's what these guys are offering, and we are interested.  We are very interested.  We may just LEaD the way!

Can we talk...about disaster readiness?

As disasters go, this week's crash of a Germanwings jet by the co-pilot is so high on the OMG list that maybe I should not even talk about it.  I find it impossible not to though, because as Property Managers, we are ALWAYS trying to think about how to prepare for things happening we can't control, but must respond to.  

Our hearts and prayers go earnestly out for all the families of those who lost their lives Tuesday.  

The very next thought, and again, we cannot help ourselves, is:  What are our vulnerabilities?  How can we prepare for the unthinkable to happen?  

My team talks disaster preparedness through regularly at our weekly huddles, we play what if games, and do our best to come up with the best plan we can.  We then communicate it to tenants, and then we practice it.

Since that's where my head is at this week, I dug out this article from  Building Operating Management magazine, on disaster preparedness.  I hope it helps you if your mind wanders down the worst case scenario path like mine does.  It always helps me to shift from OMG to What Can I Do???

http://www.facilitiesnet.com/emergencypreparedness/article/Disaster-Response-Planning-Tips-from-Preparedness-and-Remediation-Pros--15750

Resilience and the Property Manager

I shared with my colleagues at CBCA today some training I received in a class at the SMU/Cox school of business back in January.  I am enrolled in a leadership certificate program through CREW Dallas at SMU and the learning I have been exposed to in these classes has been a good source of training for our own folks.  

Resilience training was just this kind of content.  I know that as Property Managers, if you are not resilient, you likely won't be a Property Manager for very long.  A couple of hallmarks of resilient people are Optimism, Solutions Focused, and determination.  Check, check, and check.

If you're a Property Manager, and you KNOW that toilets will run over, roofs will leak and ruin a tenant's copier, power will go down, the landscapers will break a sprinkler head, etc, etc, etc, and you come to work today anyway, what else would you call that besides OPTIMISM????

If you're a Property Manager and you have a tenant who needs parking for 100 people for a meeting they are having next week and you have 125 parking spaces in your lot, you find a lot within a block from your building to help that tenant because you are SOLUTIONS FOCUSED

If you're a Property Manager and you have a roof leak that keeps coming back after you a)replaced the roof, b)sealed the brick on the penthouse c)cleared the roof drains d)caulk the flashing AND the counter flashing, e)5 other things, and you have told the tenant you WILL find that leak, well, folks, you are DETERMINED

That is the Property Manager - Resilient

Contact me if  you would like to get my powerpoint slides on resilience training.