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What will be the future of facility management education? The question is both an academic exercise and critical question for the entire industry. The International Association of Assembly Managers and its Foundation have spent significant time, money, and energy developing relationships with various universities, student/faculty members, student scholarships, internship opportunities, and a host of other efforts to help generate academic credibility and develop our industry’s future leaders. How are these efforts working and how can we make our work more meaningful? This article will try to examine these issues and give some insight to the future of training our future industry leaders.

As coordinator of one of the three IAAM endorsed programs in facility management, I can testify first hand as to the value of IAAM’s efforts. When we were developing our program we had to examine areas outside sport management to make sure the program represented the broader facility management industry. This helped develop new courses in event management, facility financing, and crowd management. Other courses were broadened to include additional material focusing on facility management. Lastly, we made hiring decisions based on perceived IAAM needs, which helped us choose a new faculty member from a hospitality and tourism background to help teach our courses.

While we have graduated seven facility management students since the program started, they have not found work in public assembly facility management, but have been hired by professional sport teams and collegiate programs where they are involved in facility management and other activities. More “pure” facility management opportunities should be available when the industry has more openings that reward passion and book knowledge, when a candidate does not have as much hands-on experience. Through internship and mentoring opportunities we can try to help move these facility management students into available positions. The industry has to realize that it will take a number of  years for these trained students to hit the job market with solid facility management skills unless new students return to get their master’s degrees after working in the industry for several years.

Besides the lack of hard core experience, one of the issues we have faced in trying to grow the program is that so many people do not know about the facility management field. While we have several hundred inquiries each year for our M.S. program, few people know about the facility management area and career opportunities. We have developed an educational flyer to let people know what facility management entails and who some of the larger companies are in the field. After learning about the career opportunities available, some students transfer into the facility management concentration. Thus, the industry needs to promote the field more aggressively to the future generation of industry executives.

The IAAM has been working hard to educate students that there is a field called facility management and that this field can create a life-long career filled with tremendous joy for those working in it. This effort needs to be expanded. We have millions of patrons who go through our doors who can be the future leaders. Brochures, posters, newsletters, or other material can be strategically placed in a facility to educate fans about the rewarding career options available for those working for a public assembly facility.

Besides letting individuals know what the field is about, we have to pursue several additional steps to help grow the field:
• Having more industry executives serve as adjunct faculty members. This has been hampered in the past by busy and often hectic schedules, which makes it difficult for people to commit a set day/time for a 13-15 week time period. People can also volunteer to give guest lectures to help share their experience.
• Our students really appreciate when they tour facilities and meet with the executives who run those facilities. We regularly take our students to various facilities and seeing what a large HVAC system, a rigging system, or control room looks like is amazing for them. Also, meeting individuals who can explain what they do on a daily basis has a significant impact on students.
• Internships are critical for future growth. Students graduating with a focus on facility management will not find work unless they have some practical experience. It takes significant work to host an intern and I applaud anyone who has pursued such a mentoring position. For those who have not, please contact a local university and offer to provide internship opportunities (either paid or unpaid) so students can learn specific skills.
• Help train professors teaching facility management by inviting them to trail employees or otherwise learn through doing. As a lawyer and expert witness in some of the major cases in the industry, I have learned so much from the experi-  ence that helps infuse more real world knowledge into my classes. My research focus also has been impacted by such work from research into foul ball safety to crowd rushes, to my new focus on alcohol service practices.
• Larger companies such as Aramark, SMG, Global Spectrum, Centerplate, Delaware North, Sodexho, etc. could establish training opportunities so students can be trained for specific needs and then know they will have a possible job upon graduation. At the present time, most students go in not knowing where they are going to work and rely upon the chance application process. Larger companies can establish programs to help recruit students for entry/managerial level positions. Smaller companies and individual facilities can develop similar programs through training interns to fill future potential positions.
• Larger companies can also support current employees interested in continuing their education. Universities are often willing to develop customized programs if an employer has enough employees possibly interested in pursuing a degree. UNH has offered a number of specialized executive MBA programs at Bayer and Sikorski Aircraft when they had 15-20 senior employees interested in pursuing a degree. If an employer provides employees with job flexibility so they can pursue course work, it can make the prospect of obtaining a degree easier.
• While the industry can help enhance the educational process, universities also have to be able to provide the education needed. Are there new trends or issues that we need to add to the curriculum? Should we provide less businesses courses and add some hard skill courses such as how to operate HVAC systems, CAMM systems, or conduct a changeover? These types of questions and answers help keep a degree current and functional.

Universities also need to know if distance education is a viable option for a facility management degree. I have not pursued developing such a degree since there has not been enough expressed interest. We have received only a handful of inquiries for distance education programs in facility management in the past three years. I also do not know what would be the best way to teach a course such as facility management when it is so important to combine the reading and theory elements with actually touring facilities and meeting industry professionals. Thus, any insight by the industry can help make the distance education option more viable.

It will be hard to guess where facility education will go in the future. Will it become a program similar to cinematic directing or a number of other fields where having a specialized degree is nice, but jobs are based on talent or industry contacts and not necessarily a degree? With the greater financial investment in facilities coupled with the heavy focus on technology and service orientation, the industry will need to have specially trained individuals and the IAAM, through their various educational initiatives, are working to help provide this training..

Gil Fried is the chairman of the Management Department at the University of New Haven where he also coordinates the graduate program in sport/facility management, which is one of three such programs endorsed by the IAAM. He may be contacted at gfried@newhaven.edu.

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