IFMA Philly Newsletter Fall 2024
IFMA Philly Newsletter Fall 2024 Past Event Highlights, Upcoming Events, Learning Opportunities, FM Spotlight Highlights, and much, much more! Click on image to view newsletter!
Billy Osborne is the Director of Facilities and Workplace for Comcast Cable leading the building operations, project management, and design/planning teams across the national cable portfolio. He is responsible for unifying the core pillars of facilities management across the multiple teams ensuring productive outputs for his clients. In collaboration with business partners and resources he is dedicated to deliver superior facilities for his end users. He is also responsible for capital and operational budget development, LRP, SOW development, service contracts, and vendor management and relations to name a few.
He started his career as a union electrician out of local 654 in Chester/Delaware county going through the 5-year apprenticeship program. Moving into the facilities world as a Maintenance Technician to Facilities Coordinator to Manager & Sr. Manager positions and now as a Director he brings 15 years of experience within the facility management industry.
Billy continues to research the future of FM. Commitment to ever evolving technology to make our jobs in the industry easier and provide more in-depth data is a top-of-mind initiative for him. Being able to understand the tactical side of the business and also evaluate data to make decisions is critical to his success in FM.
How did you get into Facility Management?
Life comes at you fast! Back in 2008 when the economy wasn’t in great shape and work was drying up in the electrical industry, I took a layoff after a Comcast project ended. One of the facilities managers called me and asked if I wanted a temporary position doing maintenance items around the facilities. Again, this was supposed to be a temporary position until the electrical work came back. I instantly fell in love with FM and the rest is history.
Tell us about a favorite project.
Hard to pick just one. Overseeing the project management team, I’m lucky to engage with different projects on a regular basis. I would have to say one of my favorites has been building out a physical and environmental lab for one of our Comcast teams. This was a lab built to recreate different environmental conditions from temperature and humidity all the way to simulating earthquakes to field test our customer equipment in a lab environment. We got to engage with different government contractors for input on design and infrastructure and partner with multiple groups across the business to capture their testing needs. As different field conditions get reported we continue to grow this lab year over year so it’s the project that never really ends.
What is your greatest success story?
Coming from a very reactive, tactical environment with no real capex plan longer than 1 year I was able to gather all of our equipment across the portfolio, put it one place, and really dive into a LRP. Taking all the equipment and evaluating its life cycle, current condition, and previous maintenance repair costs/work orders I was able to develop a capex plan for the next 20+ years. This will always be an ongoing task to keep updated but a game changer for the Comcast facilities team.
Tell us about a challenge or obstacle that you faced in the Facilities field and how you overcame it.
In FM we face various different obstacles on a regular basis. I can’t pinpoint one in particular but dealing with multiple disasters over the years and being able to remediate quickly and develop a reconstruction plan has always been major challenges to overcome. Thanks to great vendors, who most of them I’ve found through this IFMA chapter I’ve always made it through. Having trusted partners that answer the call and show up is the key to success within our industry.
What is something that most people do not know about you?
I’m an introvert outside of work. Most that know me know I’m loud and sometimes crazy. It’s the ying and yang of me. I love being an extrovert around friends and making people laugh but when I get home to my family I just like to sit back and appreciate the world around me.
What learning experience would you pass onto future FM’s?
Don’t pass up an opportunity! As you grow in your career or look for change there’s going to be multiple opportunities that present themselves. From relationships to job offers don’t pass on any of it. Take chances and don’t be afraid to fail. Learn from your failures, it’ll ultimately make you a better person and a more productive FM.
Billy Osborne is the Director of Facilities and Workplace for Comcast Cable leading the building operations, project management, and design/planning teams across the national cable portfolio. He is responsible for unifying the core pillars of facilities management across the multiple teams ensuring productive outputs for his clients. In collaboration with business partners and resources he is dedicated to deliver superior facilities for his end users. He is also responsible for capital and operational budget development, LRP, SOW development, service contracts, and vendor management and relations to name a few.
He started his career as a union electrician out of local 654 in Chester/Delaware county going through the 5-year apprenticeship program. Moving into the facilities world as a Maintenance Technician to Facilities Coordinator to Manager & Sr. Manager positions and now as a Director he brings 15 years of experience within the facility management industry.
Billy continues to research the future of FM. Commitment to ever evolving technology to make our jobs in the industry easier and provide more in-depth data is a top-of-mind initiative for him. Being able to understand the tactical side of the business and also evaluate data to make decisions is critical to his success in FM.
How did you get into Facility Management?
Life comes at you fast! Back in 2008 when the economy wasn’t in great shape and work was drying up in the electrical industry, I took a layoff after a Comcast project ended. One of the facilities managers called me and asked if I wanted a temporary position doing maintenance items around the facilities. Again, this was supposed to be a temporary position until the electrical work came back. I instantly fell in love with FM and the rest is history.
Tell us about a favorite project.
Hard to pick just one. Overseeing the project management team, I’m lucky to engage with different projects on a regular basis. I would have to say one of my favorites has been building out a physical and environmental lab for one of our Comcast teams. This was a lab built to recreate different environmental conditions from temperature and humidity all the way to simulating earthquakes to field test our customer equipment in a lab environment. We got to engage with different government contractors for input on design and infrastructure and partner with multiple groups across the business to capture their testing needs. As different field conditions get reported we continue to grow this lab year over year so it’s the project that never really ends.
What is your greatest success story?
Coming from a very reactive, tactical environment with no real capex plan longer than 1 year I was able to gather all of our equipment across the portfolio, put it one place, and really dive into a LRP. Taking all the equipment and evaluating its life cycle, current condition, and previous maintenance repair costs/work orders I was able to develop a capex plan for the next 20+ years. This will always be an ongoing task to keep updated but a game changer for the Comcast facilities team.
Tell us about a challenge or obstacle that you faced in the Facilities field and how you overcame it.
In FM we face various different obstacles on a regular basis. I can’t pinpoint one in particular but dealing with multiple disasters over the years and being able to remediate quickly and develop a reconstruction plan has always been major challenges to overcome. Thanks to great vendors, who most of them I’ve found through this IFMA chapter I’ve always made it through. Having trusted partners that answer the call and show up is the key to success within our industry.
What is something that most people do not know about you?
I’m an introvert outside of work. Most that know me know I’m loud and sometimes crazy. It’s the ying and yang of me. I love being an extrovert around friends and making people laugh but when I get home to my family I just like to sit back and appreciate the world around me.
What learning experience would you pass onto future FM’s?
Don’t pass up an opportunity! As you grow in your career or look for change there’s going to be multiple opportunities that present themselves. From relationships to job offers don’t pass on any of it. Take chances and don’t be afraid to fail. Learn from your failures, it’ll ultimately make you a better person and a more productive FM.
IFMA Philly Newsletter Fall 2024 Past Event Highlights, Upcoming Events, Learning Opportunities, FM Spotlight Highlights, and much, much more! Click on image to view newsletter!
IFMA Philly Newsletter Summer 2024 Past Event Highlights, Upcoming Events, Learning Opportunities, FM Spotlight Highlights, and much, much more! Click on image to view newsletter!
Past Event Highlights, Upcoming Events, Learning Opportunities, FM Spotlight Highlights, and much, much more! Click on image to view newsletter!