Facility Rockstars

What does it take to lead people through uncertainty, change, and constant operational demands? In this episode of Facility Rockstars, Jay Culbert sits down with Maria Ruiz, Facilities and Operations Manager at UNICEF USA, to discuss the leadership lessons she's learned across healthcare, nonprofit, and corporate environments.

Maria shares why learning not to take things personally transformed her leadership approach, how succession planning extends far beyond retirement, and why empathy, mentorship, and continuous improvement are critical for building resilient teams. From managing difficult personnel decisions to creating trust through daily check-ins, Maria offers practical insights for facilities professionals looking to become stronger leaders while supporting the people around them.

Takeaways:

• Don't take challenges personally. Pause, seek context, and focus on what the situation can teach you. Maria emphasized that some of her biggest leadership growth came from learning to step back before reacting. By seeking to understand the circumstances, perspectives, and motivations behind a situation, leaders can turn setbacks and difficult conversations into valuable learning opportunities.
• Succession planning should account for retirements, leaves of absence, injuries, and unexpected organizational changes. Too often, succession planning is viewed only through the lens of retirement, but Maria highlighted the importance of preparing for any scenario that could create a gap in leadership or operational knowledge. Building processes, documentation, and cross-training into everyday operations helps teams remain resilient when unexpected changes occur.
• Observation is a critical leadership skill. Some of the most important processes are often undocumented and learned through listening and watching. Maria shared how paying attention to behaviors, workflows, and unspoken routines helped her understand organizations more effectively than any manual could. Leaders who take the time to observe their environment often uncover opportunities for improvement that others overlook.
• Knowledge sharing is essential. Information that stays with one person creates risk for the entire organization. Encouraging team members to document processes, communicate insights, and share expertise helps create a stronger and more adaptable team. When knowledge is openly shared, organizations are better prepared to navigate turnover, growth, and unexpected challenges.
• Regular personal check-ins build trust, strengthen culture, and help teams feel supported. Maria believes that effective leaders check in on people, not just projects. Simple conversations that focus on an employee's well-being can create stronger relationships, improve engagement, and foster a culture where team members feel valued and supported.
• Great leaders invest in coaching, mentorship, and continuous learning to identify blind spots and improve their effectiveness. Maria spoke about the value of having mentors and professional coaches who can offer an outside perspective. By remaining open to feedback and guidance, leaders can continue growing, challenge their own assumptions, and become more effective in supporting their teams.
• Continuous improvement is a daily practice that starts with asking questions, challenging assumptions, and staying curious. Rather than treating improvement as an occasional initiative, Maria views it as an ongoing mindset. Consistently asking "why," seeking root causes, and looking for better ways to work helps organizations become more efficient, adaptable, and prepared for future challenges.

Quote of the Show:

•  "We're behind the scenes, but always on the front lines, and the front lines are tough."

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaruiz814/ 
• Website: https://www.unicefusa.org/ 
• The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker: https://a.co/d/0j0d9AoN 
• Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin: https://a.co/d/07a90UL9 

In this episode, Nick Petrosino, Corporate Facilities Manager at Milton CAT, shares his winding path from Bridgewater State University to Massachusetts Maritime Academy to managing over a million square feet across six states. Nick opens up about the self-awareness it took to recognize he needed a different environment to thrive, and how Mass Maritime gave him the discipline and focus to launch a career he's now spent nearly a decade building with the same company. His story is one of calculated risk, intentional growth, and the kind of quiet drive that keeps buildings running before anyone notices a problem.

The conversation dives deep into the operational realities of managing a large, multi-location facilities team — from growing his department from three to eight people, to navigating vendor accountability, CMMS implementation, and the constant balancing act of day-to-day demands versus long-term strategy. Nick is candid about the challenges of training new staff, managing complexity, and why soft skills will always outlast technical knowledge. He also shares his passion for giving back to the next generation of FM professionals through his work with AFE's Young Professionals Committee, making a compelling case that future-proofing the industry starts now.

Takeaways:

• Doing your job well keeps you employed — going beyond your role is what advances your career. Clocking in and doing the bare minimum might keep you on the payroll, but taking initiative, creating value, and growing outside your defined role is what separates people who climb from people who stagnate.
• Soft skills are ten times more valuable than hard skills. Hard skills can be taught; communication, conflict management, and the ability to network and present yourself are far harder to develop and far more impactful in the long run.
• Vendor accountability starts with clear expectations up front. When scope, response times, quality standards, and communication expectations aren't defined clearly from the start, everyone interprets the agreement differently when problems arise — and they always do.
• Facilities teams that stay stretched thin leave performance gaps. Growing the team intentionally — as Nick did by adding regional facility managers and coordinators — reduces response times, builds closer relationships with local stakeholders, and allows leadership to operate strategically rather than reactively.
• A CMMS only creates value if people actually use it. Technology doesn't fix broken processes — it amplifies them. Before selecting a platform, map out the pain you're actually trying to solve, test real use cases, and prioritize adoption over feature count.
• Generic training only goes so far — situational judgment comes from experience. You can teach a work order system, but you can't easily teach when to escalate, when to push back, or how to prioritize competing demands. Building that judgment takes time, mentorship, and real-world repetition.
• The FM industry is one retirement cycle away from a leadership gap. Engaging and retaining young professionals isn't just good practice — it's a necessity. If the industry doesn't invest in the next generation now, institutional knowledge walks out the door and leadership roles go unfilled.

Quote of the Show:

• "Doing your job well keeps you employed. But taking initiative, creating value, getting outside your comfort zone, and growing beyond your role is what really advances your career."

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicholas-petrosino-cpmm-473b89a6/ 
• Website: https://www.miltoncat.com/ 

Recorded live at the 2026 VPPPA Region I Annual Conference & Exhibition in Portland, Maine, this special panel episode of Facility Rockstars brings together three leaders from Collins Aerospace's Windsor Locks facility, Matt Twardy (EHS), Jeff Houle (Facilities, RTX), and John Mullen (Fuss & O'Neill Manufacturing Solutions), for a compelling, real-world conversation on Human and Organizational Performance (HOP) philosophy. Host Jay Culbert emcees the discussion, which centers on five core HOP principles: people make mistakes, blame fixes nothing, context drives behavior, learning enables improvement, and, perhaps most critically, leadership response matters. The panel uses vivid, unfiltered stories from the plant floor to illustrate how shifting from a blame-and-punish culture to a learning mindset changes everything, from how teams communicate near misses to how contractors show up for conversations they used to avoid.

The conversation goes far beyond theory. Panelists share first-hand experiences, from a fired electrician whose termination exposed a broken system, to a plant-wide blackout at 2 a.m. handled with remarkable calm, to a trenching job that uncovered decades-old underground conduit and called for a tactical pause and new technology. Audience members also share their own turning-point moments, reinforcing the message that psychological safety isn't a program, it's a philosophy, and it has to start with the leader in the room. Whether you're in EHS, facilities, or operations, this episode is a masterclass in how the right response at the right moment can change an entire culture.

Takeaways:

• Leadership response is the most powerful culture tool you have. When leaders respond negatively to problems, teams get better at hiding them. When leaders respond with curiosity and calm, teams get better at surfacing them. The tone you set in the first five minutes of a critical conversation echoes for years.
• Replace "investigation" with "learning review." The language you use signals your intent before you say another word. Framing post-incident conversations as learning exercises—not investigations—opens the door to honest, useful information that actually improves your systems.
• Understand the gap between "work as imagined" and "work as done." Plans look clean on paper. Reality in the field is always more complicated. The goal isn't to eliminate adaptation—it's to understand it so you can build more resilient systems that help workers fail safely when things go sideways.
• Context is everything before you draw a conclusion. Before assuming a rule was broken, ask why. In multiple examples from this episode, workers who appeared to have violated safety protocols had actually done everything they were trained to do. The system failed them—and pausing to get context made all the difference.
• Psychological safety isn't built in a meeting—it's built in moments. Every time a leader chooses learning over blame, they make it slightly easier for the next person to raise their hand. One audience member described how a single calm response to a lockout-tagout incident became the catalyst that transformed reporting culture at an entire facility.
• Apply "tactical pause" instead of "stop work." The language matters. "Stop work" carries political weight that can shut people down. A tactical pause reframes the moment as collaborative problem-solving—and keeps the team focused on solutions rather than defensiveness.
• Invest in contractor relationships before the job starts. When contractors trust that they won't be blamed for raising issues, they stop hiding problems and start asking for help. Building that relationship upfront—through honest pre-job conversations and quarterly stand-downs—pays off in safer, smoother projects every time.

Quote of the Show:

•  "There's a small percentage of the population that will willfully do something wrong. You cannot go into any event thinking the employee did something willful. Flip the script—pretend your absolute best rockstar caused it. It changes your mindset and approach with everything." — Jeff Houle

Links:

• John Mullen 
  • Email: [email protected] 
• Jeffrey Houle
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrey-houle-4b56bb35/ 
  • Email: [email protected] 
• Matt Twerdy
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-twerdy-mba-csp-chmm-9661132a/  
  • Email: [email protected] 
• VPPPA Region I Website: https://vppregion1.com/ 

In this episode, Jay Culbert sits down with Tim Reynolds, a facilities manager at a growing manufacturing business who has built one of the more unconventional careers in the industry. Tim's background spans painting, computer information sciences, a bachelor's in classics and political science, special education teaching (including a master's degree and administrative licensure), and ultimately a full return to the trades. Now managing 52,000 square feet solo as both facilities manager and EHS officer, Tim brings a grounded, curious, and self-aware perspective to everything he does. At the core of his philosophy is something deceptively simple: keep asking questions, actually listen to the answers, and never stop learning.

From sourcing vendors through word of mouth to navigating safety in a machine shop environment, Tim covers real challenges with refreshing honesty. He also gives listeners a peek behind the curtain at some of his personal passions, including hand-carved wooden spoons and a Viking shield maiden costume he made for his dog.

Takeaways:

• Lifelong learning is a practice, not a personality type. Tim credits a genuine curiosity about how things work and why people do what they do as the engine behind his career. Whether it's a textbook, a YouTube video, a 20-year-old equipment manual he found on Google, or just a conversation with someone next to him, learning is always on the table.
• Ask for help — and mean it. Tim returns to this idea multiple times throughout the conversation. In facilities, there's never enough time in the day. Asking for help when you need it isn't a weakness; it's one of the most practical tools available. Most people are genuinely willing to assist if you're willing to ask.
• Face-to-face communication beats everything else. Tim uses email where it fits, but when something needs to be resolved, he walks directly to the person. Clarity, tone, and relationship all improve when you show up in person.
• Word of mouth is the best vendor sourcing tool you're not paying for. Tim inherited an outdated vendor list when he took his current role and has had to build parts of his network from scratch. His method: ask other vendors for referrals, lean on trusted relationships, and keep looking until you find the right fit.
• Safety requires designing for inattention. As EHS officer, Tim knows that people focused on getting work done aren't always thinking about safety in the moment. The job is to build systems and environments that protect people even when their attention is elsewhere. A personal injury early in his career, cutting a tendon in his thumb with a putty knife, drives this point home.
• Saying yes first is often the right move. Tim's career has been defined in part by accepting opportunities before he knew exactly how to execute them. His approach: say yes, then figure it out. He notes that at this point in his career, the only regrets he carries are the times he didn't say yes.
• The diversity of your background is an asset. Tim's path through painting, tech, the classics, special education, and now facilities management might look scattered from the outside. But each chapter gave him something: patience, communication skills, problem-solving instincts, and technical knowledge, which make him better at his job today.

Quote of the Show:

•  "Ask. Ask. And then more importantly, and I think this is the thing a lot of people forget, listen."

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/timothy-reynolds-99905b13b/
• IFMA Boston https://ifmaboston.org/

In this episode, Jay Culbert sits down with Colby Fillippelli, Senior Vice President of Facilities at JLL and incoming President of the Boston chapter of IFMA. Colby brings over 25 years of facilities management experience, having led operations for major organizations including Dunkin' Brands, Hasbro, and Novartis. Throughout the conversation, Colby shares how his career evolved from an HVAC technician responding to work orders to a seasoned executive overseeing national real estate portfolios, and what he learned along the way. At the heart of his philosophy is a simple but powerful belief: facilities is a people business that just happens to involve buildings.

From handling a middle-of-the-night fire at a client site while snowboarding at Loon Mountain to using metrics to shift his team from reactive to proactive, Colby offers hard-won insight into what it really takes to thrive in this industry. He emphasizes the power of consistent communication, the importance of staying current, and why paying it forward to the next generation of facilities professionals is one of his greatest priorities. His energy, honesty, and no-nonsense approach make for a conversation that is equal parts practical and inspiring.

Takeaways:

• Be honest and ask questions constantly. Admitting what you don't know and asking for help isn't weakness — it's how you grow. The most effective facilities professionals don't fake it; they ask, learn, and communicate openly at every stage of their career.
• Shift from reactive to proactive using metrics. Tracking patterns in your work orders and recurring issues isn't just good practice — it drives cost savings, reduces risk, and transforms how your team operates. If you're not measuring it, you can't improve it.
• Communicate early, even without all the answers. Don't wait until you have perfect information to update your team or clients. Timely, honest communication — especially during a crisis — builds credibility and keeps everyone moving in the right direction.
• Your vendor relationships are your lifeline. Know your vendors personally before you sign a contract. When something goes wrong at 10 PM, those relationships are what keep operations from falling apart. Invest in them the same way you invest in your team.
• Know when to defer maintenance — and when you absolutely can't. Deferring critical infrastructure like HVAC PMs, arc flash updates, or major MEP work is a risk not worth taking. A seasoned facilities leader knows how to make the case for doing it right the first time.
• Pay it forward to the next generation. The industry is losing decades of institutional knowledge as Baby Boomers retire. Those with experience have a responsibility to mentor, educate, and actively invest in emerging professionals — both inside their organizations and through groups like IFMA.
• Mindset and attitude are as important as technical skills. Showing up with energy, professionalism, and a team-first mentality isn't optional — it's what makes everything else work. As Colby puts it: you're not curing cancer, so bring some levity to the work.

Quote of the Show:

•  "Follow-through matters more than intent, and your reputation compounds over time."

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colby-fillippelli-cfm-8591097/ 
• Company Website: https://www.jll.com/en-us/ 
• IFMA Boston Website: https://ifmaboston.org/ 

In this episode, Matt Greenfield, Executive Director of Laboratory Operations and Facilities at Verve Therapeutics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Eli Lilly, shares a fascinating career trajectory that began at the scientific bench and evolved into executive operational leadership. With over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, Matt has led the design, construction, and move-in of more than 100,000 square feet of lab space, all while championing a culture built on partnership, data-driven decision-making, and genuine kindness. He opens with a disarmingly simple but powerful lesson: be a nice person, and then goes on to show exactly how that principle plays out across every facet of his leadership.

A central theme throughout the conversation is collaboration, not as a buzzword, but as the practical engine that drives results. From interviewing every scientist before starting a new role to building a safety program that eliminates excuses by giving people the tools and resources they need upfront, Matt demonstrates what it looks like to lead with empathy while still holding people to the highest standards. He also reflects on the greatest challenge of his career, relocating an entire operating pharmaceutical company, and what he'd do differently, offering candid, actionable advice for anyone facing a similar transition.

Takeaways:

• Be a nice person first. It sounds simple, but Matt credits this as his single biggest lesson learned. People want to work with you, partner with you, and go to bat for you when you treat them well. Kindness is a leadership strategy.
• Demand to contribute — from yourself and others. Push past discomfort and put your ideas on the table. Growth comes from being willing to be a little vulnerable. And hold others to that same standard by creating space for their voices too.
• Use data to drive decisions and resolve conflict. Whether it was proving a lab was too warm by citing equipment specifications or convincing leadership to make a key hire, Matt consistently turns to data to make an airtight case. Vague complaints don't move people — numbers do.
• Don't just do the work. Communicate that you did it. Operations teams often work quietly in the background and assume results speak for themselves. Matt learned the hard way that completing a task isn't enough — you have to tell people what you did and how to use it.
• Build safety programs that eliminate excuses. Rather than policing behavior, Matt's team invested in giving employees every resource they needed — prescription eyewear services, vendor demo days, and creative events like a "Safety Olympics" — so when standards weren't met, there was nothing to point to but personal accountability.
• Reach out to others who've already solved your problem. Your challenges are not unique to you. Matt encourages leaning on your network, especially during complex transitions. Someone has already been through it — find them and ask.
• Be proactive, not reactive. In a startup environment, reactive becomes a habit. Matt's ongoing goal is to make earlier, more decisive calls — and he advises anyone managing a facility move to get ahead of issues before they linger.

Quote of the Show:

• "I love the people. That's what drives me every day. It's solving problems, collaborating to come up with solutions that I know are gonna drive things forward."

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-greenfield-833a3277/ 
• Website: https://www.lilly.com/ 

In this special compilation episode of Facility Rockstars, host Jay Culbert brings together eight seasoned facilities and EHS professionals from the pharma and life sciences world — Bob Mack, Mike Rich, Harvey Handy, Dave Vansteenburgh, Tony Burke, Jeff Kaminski, Dan O'Connell, and Gabriel Budds — for a deep and practical conversation on what it really takes to manage facilities in one of the most regulated industries on the planet. From navigating FDA inspections and wastewater compliance to building comprehensive asset lists and managing lab buildouts, the guests pull back the curtain on the unique challenges that define life sciences facility management. A consistent theme throughout: the stakes are extraordinarily high, and failure simply is not an option when the work being done supports treatments for Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, schizophrenia, and other serious conditions.

The conversation covers everything from hiring the right team members (including a memorable story about spotting a future facilities tech across the street while heading out one day) to maintaining audit-ready environments year-round. The guests also explore the critical relationship between facilities and EHS, the value of cross-functional professional networks, proactive lifecycle and budget planning through CMMS systems, and why a "never say no" mindset is the foundation of a long and successful career in life sciences facilities. Whether you work in research, process science, or full GMP manufacturing, this episode is packed with practical wisdom you can put to work immediately.

Takeaways:

• Never say no — be a problem solver first. In life sciences facilities, your job description is always expanding. Approaching every challenge with a "we'll figure it out" mindset makes you indispensable and builds trust with the scientists and teams you support.
• Build your team before you build anything else. The right internal team — including lab ops, safety, and operations — is the foundation of any successful facility. Identify your core people early, establish your internal team, and let them be the filter between scientists' wants and actual project needs.
• Stay audit-ready every single day. Whether it's an FDA visit, a wastewater inspection, or a building code review, the best preparation is treating compliance as an ongoing practice, not a sprint before an inspection. Monthly PM checks, updated logs, and organized documentation eliminate last-minute scrambles.
• Asset lists and CMMS aren't optional — they're your financial crystal ball. Knowing what equipment you have, its lifecycle status, and when it will need to be replaced allows for capital planning, proactive budgeting, and avoiding the chaos of a break-fix mentality.
• The facilities-EHS relationship is your most important internal partnership. In regulated environments, facilities and EHS leaders are effectively co-signers on compliance. Building that relationship before a regulator walks through the door is non-negotiable — you need to be able to present a unified, confident front together.
• Dry runs save reputations. Practicing for regulatory inspections — ideally with a third party who can stress-test your team — is one of the most underutilized tools in facilities management. The more realistic the simulation, the more prepared you'll be when it counts.
• Invest early in people who want to learn. Some of the best facilities professionals don't come with the perfect resume — they come with curiosity, drive, and a willingness to adapt. Finding and developing those people (like the story of Nico, who went from lab tech at 18 to Facilities Operations Manager in seven years) is what sustains great teams over time.

Quote of the Show:

• "At the end of the day, safety comes down to just caring about the person who's working for you and making sure that they are going home to their families the same way they came in." — Dan O'Connell

Links:

• Bob Mack
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bobmack9/  
  • Website: https://www.korrobio.com/  
• Mike Rich
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-rich-cfm-00b06b19a  
  • Company website: https://www.cerevel.com  
• Harvey Handy
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvey-handy-100b5b28/  
  • Email: [email protected]  
• David Vansteenburgh 
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-vansteenburgh-a17ba821a/  
  • Email: [email protected]  
• Tony Burke
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthony-burke-1ba8a768/  
  • Email: [email protected]  
• Jeff Kaminski 
  • LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/jrkaminski/  
  • Website: https://eyepointpharma.com/  
• Dan O'Connell
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dano495  
  • Website: https://www.alnylam.com 
• Gabe Budds
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielbudds  
  • Fluor Corporation (Website): https://www.fluor.com 

In this episode, Vanessa Brady, Director of Global EHS and Sustainability at Charles River Laboratories, brings over two decades of experience across industries, including aerospace, life sciences, cosmetics, biotechnology, and oil and gas. A certified industrial hygienist and newly re-elected Secretary Elect of the American Industrial Hygiene Association (AIHA), Vanessa shares hard-won lessons on building EHS programs that are embedded, not isolated, within organizations. She emphasizes that success in safety and compliance almost always comes down to one thing: getting the right people in the room early.

Vanessa walks through some of the most persistent challenges she's encountered across her career, from management of change to contractor vetting, and explains why the US lags behind many European countries in EHS rigor. She makes a compelling case for prevention through design, the idea that the best safety solution is often to eliminate the hazard altogether, and explains how industrial hygiene, which deals with invisible, long-term exposures, is one of the most underappreciated yet critical disciplines in the field. Whether you're an EHS professional, a facilities leader, or someone who simply cares about workplace safety, this episode is packed with practical, experience-backed guidance.

Takeaways:

• Don't let EHS work in a silo: Safety and compliance initiatives fail when EHS tries to drive change alone. Engage stakeholders from HR, legal, procurement, and other departments early in the process. When they're involved from the start, they become advocates — not obstacles.
• Relationship building unlocks everything: Before you can push an initiative forward, you need to know the people you're working with. Learn about their roles, their challenges, and what matters to them. When the time comes to ask for support, those relationships make all the difference.
• Management of change is a universal vulnerability: Every organization Vanessa has worked with struggles with it. When new equipment, chemicals, or systems are introduced without a structured review process, hazards slip through the cracks. A cross-functional team approach before any major change can prevent costly — and dangerous — oversights.
• Prevention through design saves time, money, and lives: Rather than layering controls on top of hazards, ask whether the hazard can be eliminated entirely. Redesigning a confined space so it no longer meets the legal definition, or repositioning equipment to avoid roof access, can eliminate compliance burdens while protecting workers more effectively.
• Industrial hygiene is about what you can't see: A cut is visible; a chemical exposure that causes illness 30 years later is not. A robust industrial hygiene program — including baseline exposure assessments and repeat monitoring — is essential for truly protecting workers, not just checking compliance boxes.
• The answers are often already on the floor: Frontline employees frequently know exactly what the safety problems are — and how to fix them. EHS leaders who walk the floor, ask questions, and listen will find solutions faster than those who work only from the top down.
• Volunteer, mentor, and give back: For experienced EHS professionals, Vanessa's advice is clear: get involved with organizations like AIHA, ASSP, or the National Safety Council. Mentoring the next generation strengthens the entire profession.

Quote of the Show:

• “Don't allow environment, health, and safety to become isolated. Make sure that it becomes embedded with other departments.”

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessa-a-brady-ms-cih-csp-0096316/ 
• Charles River Laboratories Website: https://www.criver.com/ 
• American Industrial Hygiene Association: https://www.aiha.org 

In this episode, Paul Tedesco shares a compelling journey from marine engineering to executive leadership in facilities management. Starting his career at sea, Paul reflects on the demanding realities of working in ship engine rooms, where problem-solving, resilience, and accountability are non-negotiable. Those early experiences shaped his disciplined, methodical approach to leadership and continue to influence how he operates today. His transition to land-based roles wasn’t easy, but it opened the door to opportunities across power plants, life sciences, and large-scale facilities operations.

A major theme throughout the conversation is the importance of trust, communication, and adaptability in complex environments. Paul highlights the challenges of managing 24/7 manufacturing facilities, building cross-functional relationships, and delivering critical infrastructure upgrades without disrupting operations. He also emphasizes the value of responsiveness, strong networks, especially through Mass Maritime, and maintaining a positive, solutions-oriented mindset. Ultimately, Paul’s story is one of continuous learning, showing up every day, and doing the work to earn trust and drive impact.

Takeaways:

• Build trust before you try to drive change: In high-stakes environments, especially 24/7 operations, change doesn’t happen without trust. Paul spent months building relationships across departments before implementing major infrastructure updates. Take the time to communicate, align, and prove reliability—trust is what unlocks progress.
• Responsiveness is a leadership superpower: Paul prides himself on answering emails, calls, and requests quickly—even if he doesn’t have a full answer yet. Consistent communication builds credibility and keeps teams moving forward, especially in fast-paced, service-driven roles.
• Learn how to manage different personalities: From ship crews to corporate teams, Paul emphasizes that every workplace has challenging personalities. Strong leaders adapt their approach, stay composed, and find ways to motivate people without escalating conflict.
• Your network can shape your entire career: Paul’s transitions—from power plants to life sciences to real estate—were all influenced by connections from Mass Maritime. Invest in relationships early and maintain them; you never know which connection will open your next door.
• Embrace discomfort and career pivots: Leaving a nearly vested career at sea wasn’t easy, but Paul recognized when it was time for a change. Growth often requires stepping into uncertainty—trust your instincts when it’s time to pivot.
• Stay organized and on top of your work: Paul’s methodical, detail-oriented approach—shaped by his time in marine engineering—helps him stay ahead. Being proactive, structured, and disciplined ensures nothing falls through the cracks in complex roles.
• Bring the right attitude to work every day: Technical skills matter, but mindset and personality are just as important. Showing up positive, professional, and team-oriented makes collaboration easier and elevates the entire workplace.

Quote of the Show:

•  “Almost every day is a good lesson learned—every day is a different challenge.”

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-tedesco-786901a3/ 
• Website: https://www.are.com/ 

What does it look like when a career built on ditches, demolition, and diesel trucks leads straight to the cutting edge of biotech?

In this episode, Dan O'Neill, Facilities Manager at EvolveImmune Therapeutics, takes us through one of the most unconventional paths to facilities leadership you'll ever hear. From real estate appraisals and excavation work to genomic sequencing, nonprofits, and commercial trucking, Dan's winding road shaped him into exactly the kind of generalist that startup environments demand.

From there, the conversation covers how Dan navigated one of the most chaotic years of his career, simultaneously adding two new labs, building out a full office space on an IKEA budget, migrating out of an incubator, and upgrading the company's entire IT infrastructure to NIST standards. He also shares his stop-listen-inquire approach to emergency response, why saying yes to work outside your job description is the fastest path to advancement, and what it means to prioritize time over money in a startup. Outside of work, Dan is turning his garage into a wood shop, one hand tool at a time, and teaching his daughter the craft along the way.

Takeaways:

• Stuff happens; own it anyway. When something goes wrong, leadership doesn't want to hear who's at fault. Step up, take responsibility, and focus on finding a solution. That's the job.
• Your diverse experience is an asset, not a detour. A wide range of skills makes you nimble, especially in environments where you can't specialize your way out of every problem. Embrace the winding path.
• Say yes to opportunities outside your lane. Volunteering for work beyond your job description is how you grow your skills, increase your value, and advance your career. Worst case, it doesn't work out, but most of the time, it does.
• Stop, breathe, and ask questions before you act. In a crisis, the instinct to jump into action can make things worse. Slow down, assess the situation, and ask the right questions before picking up the ladder.
• If you're not learning, you're losing. Technology and environments change fast. Make continuous learning a habit, whether it's a certification, a new tool, or just staying curious about what's next.
• In a startup, time beats money. You're spending investors' money without a product yet, so speed matters more than cutting costs. Don't let being in a support role be your excuse not to dig in; if the company succeeds, everyone wins.

Quote of the Show:

•  "Just because an opportunity might be difficult doesn't mean it won't be a good thing." — Dan O'Neill

Links:

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-o-neill-19086ba5/
• Website: https://evolveimmune.com/