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Facilities Asset Management
“A New Career Field for Construction Management
Graduates”
William W. Badger, Ph.D., PE, NAC
Arizona State University
Tempe, Arizona
Michael J. Garvin, Ph.D., PE
Virginia Tech University
Blacksburg, Virginia
Facilities Asset Management (FAM) is emerging as a potentially new career field for Construction
Management graduates. A recent study by a National Research Council committee generated
much of the substance of this paper. The paper will underscore the importance of multiple
initiatives from industry, government, and academia to support this fast growing career field. To
ensure that this field effectively develops to meet the challenges ahead, the writers recommend
that: (a) organizations recognize that the facilities asset manager be a senior executive to properly
oversee the integration of people, facilities and technology; (b) industry, government and
academia create the proper culture, mechanisms and channels to support the career development of
the facilities asset management professional; and (c) the institutional and academic communities
appreciate the need to initiate, fund and sustain research in the field.
Keywords: Facilities Asset Management, new career field, facilities leadership and management
Introduction
The federal government today owns more than 500,000 buildings, facilities, and their associated
infrastructures worldwide. These facilities, representing over 3.5 billion square feet, were
acquired to support agency missions ranging from national defense and foreign policy to
research and space exploration. The facilities’ portfolios span the spectrum in size from a few
human services buildings and structures to building assets that compare in size to a small town.
These public assets are valued in excess of $328 billion (FFC, 2001). At least 30 individual
agencies are involved with facilities acquisition and management, spending upwards of $20
billion annually to acquire new facilities and renovate existing ones. Additional expenditures for
facilities maintenance, repair, renewal, demolition, and security upgrades are not readily
identifiable but probably amount to billions of dollars annually.
Clearly, portfolios of this magnitude are complex and their management is a significant
challenge. Historically, a dependency on craft-trained professionals has existed to meet the need
for Facilities Asset Management (FAM) professionals. These craft-trained professionals usually
emerged and move into management positions via the traditional “on-the-job” training process
(OJT) without formal university education. However, on-the-job training (OJT) methods have
not necessarily provided the multi-disciplinary skills needed in the complex built environment.
As the requirement for a new type of FAM professional emerged, some federal agencies began
hiring retired military engineering officers to provide the requisite experience and leadership.
This has infused qualified outside people into the ranks. Nevertheless, this approach should not
be the only method used in acquiring senior leadership. Agencies must create their own
professional development programs to nurture future executive leaders. These programs would
optimize the critical capacity to integrate the development activities across the FAM function,
align these activities and programs with the overall mission, and provide for an environment that
rewards innovation and appropriate risk-taking. Moreover, the academic community needs to
appropriately respond to and support this emerging discipline and field.
Given these circumstances, it is not surprising that the Federal Facilities Council recently
requested that the National Research Council (NRC) appoint a committee of experts to undertake
a study to “help ensure effective federal facilities asset management (inclusive of property
development, financial and operational functions) in the next fifteen years.” This study, the
latest in a series of works by NRC, examined several dimensions of the federal facilities
management challenge. The study focused upon the outsourcing of management functions,
strategies for managing investments in federal facilities, and stewardship (NRC, 2000; NRC
2004; NRC 1998). The members of the committee studying the “Core Competencies for Federal
Facilities Asset Management, 2005-2020” are shown below.
The charge of the most recent committee was to identify and assess:
(1) Forces that will drive change in how federal buildings are planned, designed, built,
operated, and managed;
(2) The potential impact of new and emerging technologies on facilities management-
related processes;
(3) Organizational capabilities that federal departments and agencies will require to
effectively oversee a facilities asset management program;
(4) Individual skills required for effective facilities asset management;
(5) Development strategies, processes, and training to ensure that required organizational
and individual core competencies will be in place and sustained over time;
(6) Performance indicators for measuring progress toward organizational goals for
workforce development.
The committee’s working definition of FAM was: “FAM is a systematic process of maintaining,
upgrading, and operating physical assets cost effectively. It combines engineering principles
with sound business practices and economic theory and provides tools to facilitate a more
organized logical approach to decision making” (NRC, 2004). To accomplish its assigned tasks,
the committee met six times between June 2005 and July 2006. Committee members received
briefings and interviewed representatives from various federal agencies including the
Department of Defense, Department of Energy, General Services Administration, U.S. Coast
Guard, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Smithsonian Institution, U.S. Navy,
and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. In addition, representatives from leading private
industries were interviewed to define competencies.
The Unique Role of the Facilities Asset Manager
The FAM professional is a “connected integrator” of multiple functions. The roles and
responsibilities for this class of manager are unique among managers in the capital project life
cycle system. The FAM Manager must be connected to, empowered to integrate with, and able
to influence multiple functional areas. Of all the various parties involved in a project’s life
cycle, the FAM manager is the only one involved throughout the life cycle, serving as the
dominant player throughout the Operations and Maintenance phase, which constitutes over
90 percent of the life cycle work.
The FAM manager is challenged with leading an organization that possesses many subordinate
elements, all using differing technologies (construction, design, energy, engineering, electrical,
environmental, fire, forestry, historical, IT, janitorial, landscaping, maintenance, mechanical,
parking, power, safety, sanitary, security, space, traffic, and others). This horizontal spread
increases the likelihood that leaders are managing functional areas in which they have minimal
technical knowledge. The horizontal nature of the organization increases the challenge of
efficient and effective information flow and creates a condition where a wider range of core
competencies and training is needed. The reality is that the FAM manager must be more
directly connected to the agency leadership and be engaged when strategic, as well as tactical,
decisions are on the executive table. Indeed, it was the consensus of the NRC committee that the
FAM manager must be a senior level executive.
Typical U.S. University Academic Structures
Figure 1 illustrates the typical profile of academic disciplines for many universities and colleges.
It highlights the fact that few departments, schools, or colleges are currently addressing the FAM
field of degreed education. This lack of university graduates in the FAM field necessitates
recruiting entry level BS graduates from other disciplines. This also requires better marketing of
career opportunities to attract recruits and the need for increased facilities asset management
image building.
Figure 1: Typical Profile of Academic Disciplines
Current Status of FAM Professional & Educational Development
Executives in architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) initially receive their education
and degrees in areas of study with a technical focus. These graduates are then required to learn
new skills in FAM if they are to progress within their respective career fields. Where a dearth of
talent for FAM exists, this gap is filled through the additional hiring of talent possessing degrees
in less technical and more business-related areas of study. Nevertheless, the need for leadership
and management skills cuts across both the operational as well as the traditional AEC
community. This cross-cutting need for leadership and management skills is a critical facet of
FAM. It calls for a skill balance and a level of continuing education that will ensure both the
individual’s and agency’s success. For example, over time the need for people management and
leadership skills will take priority over the enhancement of technical skills. A professional with
a honed set of leadership and management skills will continue to progress whereas one who is
lacking such skills will likely reach a point of career stagnation. One effective approach to
ensure access to a pool of FAM talent is for universities and colleges to provide education,
certifications, and degrees in this field. In some corners of academia, scrutiny and serious
consideration are being given to this new field of endeavor in higher education. However, the
pipeline for new degrees in facilities asset management likely will not be producing such talent
in the near future.
While FAM programs are not commonplace within the mainstream academic community, that
does not mean that courses and programs do not exist. Table 1 presents a listing of FAM
education programs developed by Mr. James P. Whittaker, President, Facility Engineering
Associates, P.C.:
Table 1
Academic Programs
BS Degree Programs MS Degree Programs International Programs
BYU Georgia Tech Hong Kong Polytechnic
CSU – Pueblo Texas A&M FHS Kufstein Bild. (Austria)
Ferris State Arizona State University Hanze University (Netherlands)
Cornell University Cornell University United Kingdom (Various)
Wentworth Institute
North Dakota State
Facilities Asset Management Competencies
Core competencies should be structured to ensure that leader development efforts are focused on
the attainment of high levels of individual and organizational performance. They can also be
structured to be enduring even as resources diminish, demands increase, and priorities and
strategies shift. Competencies provide a basis and a common language for discussing
educational publications, doctrinal manuals, assessment and feedback tools, and ways to access
distance and distributed learning programs for self-development and lifelong learning. Figure 2
shows the balance between skills during career progression.
Figure 2 Leadership Developments for Engineering Managers (Farr et. al. 1997)
FAM Competency Literature Search
The committee conducted a literature search of competencies and skills required for facilities
managers. The research revealed that the core skills of facilities managers are wide ranging.
While there were varying responses to questions of whether FAM professionals require formal
education in facilities management disciplines, there was a consensus that FAM organizations
require skills at different levels, from the operational (entry level) to senior management
(executive level). Professional development at the various levels should include the
development of technical skills, management or business skills, and leadership skills. A
conceptual model of a potential career development track incorporating these competencies is
shown in the figure to the right.
The emphasis of the literature search was on FAM at a strategic level where practitioners would
be considered as having professional standing. Much of the published research was conducted in
the United Kingdom where the facilities management profession, some may argue, was
established earlier than in the United States. In the publication Facilities Management: A
Strategy for Success, Payne listed four areas in which facilities management professionals are
involved (Payne, 2000):
1. Property and built environment, requiring the professional skills of architects, legal
services, space planners, and quantity surveyors (i.e., real estate assessment, cost
estimating, valuation);
2. Workforce management of the built environment, requiring the input of human resources
professionals, building services (e.g., HVAC and electrical maintenance), and
environmental;
3. The technical expertise of maintenance staff;
4. Service-related processes within facilities, including catering, cleaning, security, mail
room, reprographics, and required input from practical operational management.
Developing Management Skills
As degreed technical professionals within the FAM arena progress within their careers, upward
mobility will be predicated upon their availability to develop and refine a management skill set.
The challenge for organizations and individuals is how best to ensure that this management skill
set is developed and maintained. Some organizations encourage the pursuit of an MBA degree,
joining professional societies, attending management seminars, and obtaining the proper work
experiences. Tuition reimbursement for university-based education and training to employees is
regarded as a good investment. Providing a series of personal development opportunities builds
professionalism within organizations. Participation in these opportunities should enhance and
improve the employee’s management skill set. When management is added to the technical
skills set, the balance between technical skills and management skills keeps changing with career
progression. The peak on the management element seems to appear at mid-career, before
leadership skill development, which takes a larger time allocation.
Promoting Leadership Skills
Leadership is a skill set that goes beyond management capacities. In essence, it is the ability to
influence beyond one’s authority. Self-education, seminar attendance, reading, observing life and
experiences, and having active organizational mentors can all serve the process of leadership
development. Mentoring appears to be the most critical component. The committee’s research
revealed that educating or promoting a leader is significantly more challenging than training a
manager. Consequently, the manager populace within organizations, in general, significantly
exceeds that of the leader populace. It is important to note that leadership skills may increase
over a career as the employee moves up the career ladder.
Organizations value these skill sets differently. Professional development programs should
address all four elements—technical, management, leadership, and wisdom—address the balance
needed at different levels as careers progress, and understand and appreciate why the balancing
keeps changing.
Figure 3 Competencies for the Army of the Future (Horey, J. 2004)”
Competencies are a means to define and communicate leadership requirements in
organizationally relevant terms. The competencies that are essential, or core, to all Army leaders
will focus their developmental efforts on attaining Future Force capabilities. Gayvert (1999)
argues that Army leadership “ought to be identified, taught and discussed as a function, or set of
functions, different from management, administration or command.” An Army leadership
framework shown in Figure 3 that incorporates core competencies provides a common
denominator for leader development. Like values, core competencies are portable across time,
levels of authority, levels of responsibility, and unforeseen situations. While individual
situations or missions may stress the use of different competencies, components, or behaviors,
leadership competencies as a whole are enduring across leader positions, assignments, and time.
Just as values shape the characters of leaders, competencies can be used to guide leader behavior.
The Challenges Ahead
If the FAM discipline is to evolve and grow as society, industry, and government will require,
then multiple initiatives are needed from industry, academia, and the government. Forming or
improving a career development program in the FAM field offers challenges and opportunities
for federal agencies, as well as other public and private organizations. Given the evolving, as
well as the “moving target,” nature of FAM, such a program will require continuous review and
update to ensure its effectiveness. However, this also provides federal agency leadership an
opportunity to shape the evolution of this career field, allowing for more control over its
direction and progression. Federal agency executives need to consider professional development
as a top value investment. Agencies should institute development strategies to ensure that
required organizational and individual competencies will be in place and sustained over time.
These strategies should address a comprehensive program that provides a long term plan for
professional development, education, and training for the workforce. It is important to note that
developmental strategies are more than just training. Training should be part of the development
strategy but should not be the sole focus of any professional development effort. A
comprehensive development program should include both new and current employees. The
establishment of such a program will require the creation and adoption of a recognized education
philosophy and a core set of values that underlie all of the respective development components.
It is vital that support be sustained with annual budgets and a focus on the development of the
agency’s core competencies.
Professional development education in the arena of FAM fundamentals is particularly needed for
agencies hiring entry level university graduates. The slowly emerging recognition within
government and industry of FAM as a formal career field requires agencies to educate new hires
in asset management fundamentals. This leads to the recruitment of “cross-over” graduates from
architecture, business, construction, and engineering at colleges/schools for a career in FAM.
This will require significant recruiting and marketing of future FAM candidates. Cross-over
candidates will require an understanding of the benefits of entering the facilities asset
management career field. Agencies can convey this needed understanding by adopting core
education, development, and training values.
Obtaining a Bachelor of Science degree usually focuses on the technical aspects of the academic
discipline. The graduate is hired to work in the functional area of the degree. To maintain his or
her proficiency of technical skills, the professional is encouraged to adopt a concept of “life-long
learning” to renew and refresh the technical knowledge.
Knowledge Development
Research is the cutting edge area of any growing field of endeavor. The knowledge developed
from such research activities serves not only the immediate community of professionals but also
those who are served by that community. For FAM to become a true profession, knowledge
development must play a significant, extensive role, with the results implemented in an effective
manner. The knowledge development process will provide a continuous improvement
environment for both the agencies and the individual professionals. Formal programs ensuring
such an environment need to be established.
Knowledge Development (Research) Model
This five-step model shown in Figure 4 serves as a guide for agencies to implement a knowledge
development approach. Knowledge development requires active participation of the leadership
team and an extensive investment in resource and time. The most immediate, applicable form of
knowledge development is that which is internally generated within the agency itself. It is likely
to have the most immediate impact. If an agency does not have adequate internal resources to
conduct extensive research, engaging an outside source of expertise can serve this purpose.
Externally generated and conducted knowledge development is often characterized as research
and is normally related to a broad spectrum of organizations rather than to a single agency. Such
studies may come from academia, professional societies, or from private consultants. In
conducting research, outside organizational utilization, in addition to providing personnel and
expertise, can also provide the “independent voice” needed for credibility. Most “breakthrough”
contributions come from such sources because of the “risky” nature of success of such
endeavors. Involvement of agency personnel is still desirable and needed to ensure proper
guidance of the research efforts. The embryonic and emerging nature of the FAM discipline
underscores the importance of knowledge development as a critical element in the improvement
of core competencies. Indeed, less “conventional wisdom” and “acknowledged best practices”
information are available for the facilities asset management profession than for the more
established professions where research is already commonplace.
Figure 4 Knowledge Development (Research) Model
Institutional & Academic Research
Some professional organizations do invest in applied research for this field, but few academic
programs in the university system conduct applied facilities asset management research. The
National Science Foundation (NSF) currently does not have a facilities asset management
category, nor does it provide funding for this field. Developing an extensive portfolio of
research activities across such diverse areas as represented by this field of endeavor will be a
major challenge but a challenge that can also derive great benefits.
Universities intending to develop and expand FAM research areas and add new areas of
discovery and investigation are starting with little recognition or support. The driver of these
new opportunities, in both educational content and research, would change the business practices
of facilities owners and provide an infusion of new technology in facilities asset management
practices.
Cultural Change - Education as a Core Value
A significant challenge for any agency’s leadership is to change the organization’s culture. A
first step toward achieving this goal is the development of education and training as a core value.
As each agency assesses its requirements for FAM, it may be necessary, and likely, that it will
develop its own value set. Both the individual and the organization must take ownership of the
core values that emerge from the “culture assessment process.” These values should serve as a
key part of the development strategy and be included as part of the performance evaluation
system. They also will serve the agency leadership as it creates talent-retention and succession
plans. Values should be interagency in design and coordinated among other federal agencies.
The committee’s research in the various approaches to professional development yielded a set of
what has been termed “truisms” (Rose, C. & Nicholl, M.J. 1997). These “truisms” can serve as
fundamental or guiding principles as agencies address and establish their own core values. They
are:
• Every person can learn;
• Individuals learn at different rates in different ways;
• Learning is a lifelong process;
• Every person wants to do a good job;
• Self-esteem affects learning; learning enhances self-esteem;
• Education and learning are shared responsibilities;
• The education process requires innovation, risk-taking, and the ability to manage change;
• Continuous improvement is desirable and possible.
Each agency needs to evaluate its own level of education and training capability. Adequate
subject matter experts will be needed at the different levels within the agency to serve as
instructors in an in-house capacity. Given the wide range of core competencies required in the
conduct of FAM functions, and considering that most new college level recruits will come from
degree fields outside this career field, it is likely that agencies will need to outsource education to
consultants and professional organizations in the near term. It can be argued that a degree in CM
may be a better entry level education than engineering or business.
Key Findings
To summarize, this paper, which was based upon an NRC committee’s recent study of FAM, has
introduced a number of key findings:
• The roles and responsibilities of FAMs are unique among managers in the life cycle
management system. The horizontal nature of the organization increases the challenge of
efficient information flow. It creates a condition where a wider range of core
competencies and professional development is needed.
• The recognition of the FAM position as a senior executive is paramount for agencies to
accomplish their mission in an efficient and economical fashion.
• The ability to attract and recruit high quality employees is essential for any organization
to achieve world-class status.
• Current FAMs have diverse backgrounds and education in disciplines not directly related
to facilities asset management.
• Universities are not producing an adequate number of FAM degreed professionals to
meet the needs of this career field in the federal space.
• Entry level FAMs will have to be recruited from “cross-over” disciplines (e.g.
architecture, business, construction, and engineering).
• Little university research information exists in the field of FAM and even fewer research
findings are being introduced or implemented within the federal agencies.
Universities are not producing FAM graduates and are conducting little FAM research. Such is
not the case in the more mature disciplines such as engineering, architecture, and business
administration. In the developing discipline of construction, universities are producing graduates
but conducting little research. In the future, as FAM matures as a profession, universities will
need to produce both degrees and FAM research deliverables. Preparing graduates to fulfill
exciting new leadership roles for the rapidly evolving FAM industry represents an educational
and research challenge as well as an opportunity. The challenge centers around the complex
commerce of facilities operations, which involves a diverse collection of companies and agencies
linked together through the common objective of completing particular projects.
Recommendations
In addition, the authors suggest the following:
1. Construction Management programs should develop FAM curricula, consider
establishing FAM degree programs, and move into FAM research.
2. Associated schools of construction should work with government agencies to:
a. Recruit graduates from cross-over disciplines and create an entry-level orientation
course to merge new university hires into the broadened life-cycle-management
career field of facilities asset management;
b. Establish a civil schooling program wherein selected construction career
professionals can obtain a master’s degree in related FAM functional areas;
c. Petition the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create a research grant
category in Facilities Asset Management and fund respective research annually;
d. Provide government funding for developing new knowledge (research) at the
same two percent level as the investment in education and training.
Indeed, this discipline continues to evolve and mature; additionally, the aging FAM workforce
will soon move on, necessitating the recruitment and development of new talent. These
challenges require a pro-active and multi-dimensional response to ensure the health of this
burgeoning field.
References
1. Atkins, B. & Brooks, A. 2005. Total Facilities Management, Oxford, UK. Blackwell
Publishing.
2. Badger, W. & Smith, J. 2006. Great Leadership Skills and Traits; 2nd Specialty Conference,
Proceeding page 141 to 152, Grand Bahamas.
3. Farr, J. V., Walesh, S. G. and Forsythe, G. B. (1997). “Leadership Development for
Engineering Managers”, Journal of Management in Engineering, 13 (4), 38-41.
4. Horey, J. 2004. Technical Report 1148, Competency Based Future Leadership
Requirements. Arlington, VA: U.S. Army Research Institute.
5. NRC. 2004 Investments in Federal Facilities: Asset Management Strategies for the 21st
Century. Washington, D.C.: National Academies Press.
6. Rose, C. & Nicholl, M.J. 1997. Accelerated Learning for the 21st Century: The Six-Step
Plan to Unlock Your Master-Mind, New York, NY: Delacorte Press.
7. FFC (Federal Facilities Council). 2001. Sustainable Federal Facilities: A Guide to
Integrating Value Engineering, Life-Cycle Costing, and Sustainable Development.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
8. NRC (National Research Council). 1998. Stewardship of Federal Facilities: A Proactive
Strategy for Managing the Nation’s Public Assets. Washington, D.C.: National Academy
Press.
9. NRC. 2000. Outsourcing Management Functions for the Acquisition of Federal Facilities.
Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.
