Facilities Unfiltered - The Built Reality

Grounds work is getting harder to staff—and the riskiest areas (steep slopes, roadside embankments, fire-abatement hillsides) are often the toughest to maintain safely. In Episode 22, Josh and Nic sit down with Neil Simons of RC Mowers to unpack how remote-controlled “extreme slope” mowers and full-size commercial autonomous mowers are reshaping the way facilities and contractors tackle dangerous...

Food service is more than menus and meal counts—it’s a massive, fast-moving operation that lives and dies by the facilities behind it. In this episode, Josh and Nic sit down with Thomas Arganda, Director of Child Nutrition for a large California district, to unpack what “asset management” really looks like when you’re responsible for hundreds of kitchens, thousands of moving parts, and the daily r...

What does a truly useful facility condition assessment actually look like? In this episode, Josh and Nic sit down with John Hajduk, VP of Support Services at Geisinger Health System, to dig into a topic that trips up both owners and service providers alike: the right level of granularity in an FCA, and what to actually  do  with that data once you have it. With 26 years of experience spanning both...

HVAC touches every corner of facilities management, and in this episode of Facilities Unfiltered, Josh and Nic sit down with Richard Boothman (Sales Director at Modine) to get practical about what actually matters in the field—sizing, fuel choices, and the maintenance realities that can make or break comfort, reliability, and budgets. Richard brings nearly five decades of HVAC experience (and Modi...

What's the number one thing every facility manager should know? Josh and Nic went digging — through AI, Google, articles, job postings — and the answer was so obvious it actually caught them off guard. It wasn't PM strategy. It wasn't finding the right CMMS. It was asset inventory: know what you have and where it is. Sounds simple, right? And yet only 25–35% of FM job postings even mention it as a...

Fire life safety can feel like a “set it and forget it” line item—until a panel dies, an inspector interprets code to the letter, or a proprietary system leaves you stuck on fire watch with no fast (or cheap) options. In this episode, Josh and Nic sit down with Mike Stratman of Firetrol to unpack the real-world risks and recurring oversights that trip up facilities teams, and why these systems—tho...

We've all been there: the 2 a.m. call, the overheating server room, the frantic scramble to save the day. In facility management, being the hero feels good — but what if that hero complex is actually holding your facility back? In this episode, Josh and Nic tackle the uncomfortable truth about reactive maintenance culture and the "cycle of abuse" that keeps facility teams trapped in firefighting m...

Facilities teams everywhere are approaching “the staffing cliff", and it’s not just about hiring more people. In Episode 15, Josh and Nic unpack why staffing shortages, turnover, and an aging workforce are colliding with the reality that most professionals don’t choose facilities as a career path—they stumble into it. With too few accredited FM degree programs and long hiring cycles for leadership...

Six years after COVID was declared a national emergency, Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet look back on how the pandemic reshaped facilities management—overnight. From the split reality of “essential worker” life versus remote work improvisation, they unpack what it felt like to keep buildings safe and operational while guidance, supply chains, and expectations shifted almost daily. This reflection digs...

In the finale of our AI Across the Lifecycle series, Josh and Nic sit down with AkitaBox product expert Dan Cooper to cut through the noise around “AI-enabled” facility management software. With AI suddenly everywhere—from IFMA show floors to CMMS feature lists—the team unpacks a crucial reality: not all AI is created equal, and a bolt-on chatbot that summarizes work orders is a very different ani...

Capital planning has always asked facilities teams to “predict the future” with tools that weren’t built to be maintained—binders, spreadsheets, PDFs, and one-time assessments that quickly go stale. In this installment of the AI Across the Lifecycle series, Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet get candid about why traditional lifecycle costing models erode trust (when the model says four panels but the buil...

In this AI Across the Lifecycle Series installment, Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet unpack where AI can genuinely help PM teams right now: accelerating calendar-based schedules by pulling from trusted sources like manufacturer O&M manuals and industry standards, while avoiding the “bad data faster” trap that comes from poorly constrained tools and questionable inputs. From there, the conversation m...

AI promises to help facilities teams do more with less—but only if the foundation is solid. In this second episode of the AI Across the Lifecycle series, Josh and Nic sit down with AkitaBox Director of Product Geoff Baron to unpack the unglamorous (and absolutely essential) reality behind successful AI in the built environment: data collection, structure, and cleanliness. From “garbage in, garbage...

AI is everywhere in facility management right now—but hype doesn’t equal reality. In the kickoff of our “AI Across the Lifecycle” series, Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet cut through the buzzwords to talk about what AI can’t do in FM, and why that matters if you’re trying to adopt it without wasting time, budget, or trust. They unpack the rapid acceleration of AI adoption, why so many AI projects still...

What does a Navy public works officer’s toolkit—whiteboards, logbooks, and mission-first decision making—teach us about the future of facility management? In this episode of Facilities Unfiltered - The Built Reality , Josh and Nic sit down with Kris Stoddard, CEO of GoldenWolf , to trace her path from military installations to global operations and unpack how FM has evolved from institutional know...

You want an FCA. But have you asked yourself  why ? Josh and Nic are joined by Brian Carlin from Partner Engineering — a mechanical engineer with 20 years and 10 million square feet of building assessments behind him. Together, they dig into the gap between what owners think they're buying and what they actually need, why chasing blanket accuracy misses the point, and what really determines whethe...

Ever wonder why a building that hasn't been touched in five years suddenly looks  better  on paper in a new assessment? Spoiler: it's not magic—it's a strategy problem. In this episode of Facilities Unfiltered the Built Reality, hosts Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet dig into the messy reality of facility condition assessments and why having data isn't the same as having a plan. They break down what hap...

When your irrigation system turns an athletic field into a mud pit, your janitorial team becomes collateral damage. In this episode of Facilities Unfiltered, hosts Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet sit down with Dave Scroggins, a 15-year facilities veteran who manages 250,000 square feet across two San Francisco Bay Area sites for Cushman and Wakefield. Dave shares war stories about chasing leaks with 20...

Capital planning sounds great on paper—data-driven forecasts, estimated useful life calculations, and impressive spreadsheets for the board. But what happens when theory meets reality? In this episode, Josh and Nic dig into the messy truth behind facility condition assessments and why that 20-year EUL on your chiller might be more fiction than forecast. From a 45-year-old furnace that literally ca...

Run to Fail: Oversight or Strategy? Is Run-to-fail a failure of planning or a smart, resource-driven choice? Nic and Josh debate the controversial practice of letting equipment run until it breaks, tackling how to strike the right balance by focusing on asset criticality, staffing realities, and the power of data. 

Why 'Value Engineering' is Creating Your Future Maintenance Nightmare In this episode, we dive into the dirty secret of value engineering—how cutting corners in capital expenditure creates future operational debt—and why facility managers are constantly left holding the work orders. More importantly, we outline the FM's Survival Guide to fighting back: how to demand a seat at the table, calculate...

Meet Facilities Unfiltered - The Built Reality What does "best practice" facility management actually look like—and why does it rarely match reality? In this podcast, meet Josh Lowe and Nic Guedenet as they introduce the theme of this podcast. We'll give you a hint: there's a gap between the FM lifecycle as it's taught in textbooks and how it actually plays out on the ground. Join us for candid di...