FMANZ Foundation

He forwarded the email straight to his boss at DMFM, Janet McBain, who’d encouraged him to apply. Janet also understands that, when Dan is deployed to an emergency, he must drop everything at a moment’s notice.

The instinct to share the moment with the person who Dan says “really believed in me from the start” shows Dan being Dan. He is, at his core, someone who thinks about other people.

It’s apparent in the residential apartment buildings he keeps running, and in the Civil Defence team he trains with.

Dan grew up in Auckland before his teenage years took him to Malaysia, where his father worked as a heritage conservation consultant. For seven years, Dan accompanied him on visits to World Heritage sites and restoration projects, giving Dan “a lot of exposure to how other cultures approach FM in ways that are beneficial and detrimental to their properties, as well as innovative approaches to problems which are not commonplace in New Zealand.”

He came back to New Zealand and went into the trades, earning his NZ Certificate in Joinery and eventually working as a Site Manager in commercial interiors and construction.

Project after project, he watched builders hand over keys and move on, with no thought given to what would happen in ten or twenty years when the systems they’d tucked away in hard-to-reach places finally gave out. “It’s not a problem,” he says of the prevailing attitude, “but I knew it would be someone’s problem.” “I was,” he says, “really unhappy with how commercial construction and new builds were looking at long-term maintenance.” He wanted to solve those problems, so he made the deliberate move into FM.

He approaches these problems the way he approaches a flood response. Methodically, without panic. This echoes the advice given to him by a helicopter pilot during an emergency deployment. “It’s their emergency. It’s your job.” Keep your head clear, fix the problem, and don’t make it your own crisis.

Beside his job, and his role with Civil Defence New Zealand Response Team 3, Dan is completing his Diploma in Facilities Management, and spends his remaining hours tramping in King Country, and walking his rescue dog Gunner, who needs lots of exercise.

The scholarship, Dan says, gave him more than financial aid. It gave him confidence that residential FM belongs in the room too. “We are here,” he says. “We’re doing the work.”

He’s currently halfway through his second year of study. When he finishes, he wants to focus on business continuity and emergency management within the FM industry. Dan has seen first-hand that many residential properties and businesses are unprepared for emergencies, and he is now passionate about fixing that.

And we have no doubt he will.

Now serving as Asset Services Coordinator at Environment Canterbury, Jon is embracing his passion for facilities management and is enthusiastic about the ongoing learning and development the field offers. Having earned a Diploma in Facilities Management with distinction from Massey University, Jon is now setting his sights on the Graduate Diploma – an ambition made possible thanks to his Foundation scholarship.

This would be enough for most of us. Not for Vale, who also supports and tutors local high school children, through the church she attends. Some of the ākonga have already expressed an interest in facilities management after Vale has told them about working in the sector. And in her spare time, she enjoys training and playing with her netball team.

This dedication to facilities management and to her community has seen Vale win a scholarship from the FMANZ Foundation. Vale’s scholarship will help her finish her studies, pursue the Masters she has her eyes on, and realise the opportunities for her in the world of facilities management.

Today Vale has another busy morning. She’s sitting down to talk to FMANZ about the Foundation, and then dashing off to a radio interview to talk about facilities management alongside FMANZ chief exec Jo Duggan. She admits to having butterflies ahead of the radio interview but is very keen to use the opportunity to “get FM out there”.

Before talking to us, and talking to the radio presenter, Vale has been talking to contractors, and suppliers, and talking to the events team at Tātaki. “Lots of talking to lots of people,” she says.

Luckily Vale likes talking. “It’s the quickest way to get something done,” she says. “Plus talking is such an important part of facilities management because it creates relationships and understanding,” she adds.

Building those relationships, and helping to solve problems, is something Vale loves. “People in the industry look out for each other,” she says. It’s rewarding, and fast-paced, which is great because she likes being – here’s that word again – busy.

Sometimes Vale has had work late at night to balance her work and studies, and she now has a tight schedule she keeps. The FMANZ Foundation scholarship has helped financially – but in another way too. The award has, Vale says, “given me confidence. It’s given me that boost to go for it. It’s driven me to want to study more, and learn more about FM.”

Learn more about Vale’s story here

The first recipient of a re-energised FMANZ Foundation scholarship, Kamal impressed Foundation trustees with his drive to overcome childhood adversity and his passion for the facilities management industry. He displayed ambition and energy, alongside clear enthusiasm and affection towards facilities management in his application and in his presentation to the trustees.

“Despite the adversity I have faced throughout my life I always remain focused on my goals. For example, achieving strong results throughout school and university was very important to me. I have learned to persevere and how to adapt to my surroundings using my personal adversity to motivate myself to succeed,” Kamal said.

“Facilities management is such a large field and there is so much room for growth within the industry. I love that you can be creative and innovative in the way that you manage facilities in order to improve building efficiency by reducing energy consumption, improving sustainability and cutting costs,” he continued.

Kamal has already achieved a Bachelor of Property degree from the University of Auckland, and will continue his academic journey at Massey University, studying for a Graduate Diploma in Facilities Management. His last academic year showed a host of A-grades.

In nominating Yatin, AUT Professor John Tookey described him as a hardworking and committed individual who is really buying into a future in facilities management. “He is proactive about getting involved in the discussion around the future of the industry and I have no doubt that in the future Yatin will make an excellent career in the FM sector and be a credit to the industry.”

As well as achieving academically, Alice served as a student representative for the Faculty of Land and Property Management at Lincoln and acted as an informal tutor to other students. She also volunteered to participate in the Careers Expo, encouraging high school students to study for a property-based degree at university.