Higher education facilities management: The view from both sides of the table

For nearly 21 years, I sat where our clients sit.

I was a senior administrator at Auburn University at Montgomery, balancing institutional priorities, tight budgets and competing demands from faculty, staff, students and campus leadership. Facilities management was always on my list. It just wasn't always at the top of it. There were enrollment numbers to think about, student outcomes to protect, broader strategic goals to chase. The buildings had to take their turn.

When I crossed over to the operator side and joined Sodexo's Campus FM team as a District Manager, I brought more than a résumé. I brought 21 years of understanding what it actually feels like to be the person across the table.

That perspective shapes everything about how I lead now.

Today I oversee a portfolio of 11 university accounts across eight states in the Southeast, representing tens of millions in annual contract revenue and hundreds of millions in managed facilities assets. I lead a team of Facilities Directors and support more than 1,000 employees. The scale is different from anything I managed as a client, but the mission is the same: create an environment where students can learn, grow and graduate.

Everything else is in service of that.

What actually triggers a university's decision to outsource facilities management?

In my experience, the trigger to outsource FM is almost always financial and operational pressure, and not necessarily a leadership change.

A new president or a retiring FM director can open the door to the conversation. But the institutions that are seriously evaluating outsourcing are usually already dealing with something more persistent underneath: pension obligations and employee benefit costs that keep climbing, skilled trades positions that are hard to fill and harder to hold, aging infrastructure that demands more than the budget can give, and regulatory and compliance requirements that keep expanding.

Facilities management is typically one of the largest operating expenses on a university's P&L. When those pressures compound long enough, senior leadership eventually asks a straightforward question: Can we achieve better outcomes by partnering with a facilities management provider than we can on our own?

That's the real question. And it's worth asking clearly before you pick up the phone.

What should a university do before evaluating an FM provider?

Before engaging any provider, I'd encourage every institution to do one thing first: understand your true cost of ownership.

Most universities don't have a complete picture of what they're actually spending on facilities. Costs are spread across multiple departments, budgets and funding sources: labor, utilities, maintenance materials, contracted services, capital renewal, deferred maintenance, compliance costs, project management and administrative support. Without pulling all of that together, it's nearly impossible to objectively evaluate whether outsourcing creates value or just shifts the problem.

I've seen institutions evaluate proposals without ever establishing that baseline. They compare provider numbers without knowing what their own number really is. That's not a fair comparison, and it usually leads to surprises after the contract is signed.

The questions universities should ask when evaluating FM proposals

Once the evaluation process starts, the question I wish more clients asked is this: What does your number actually mean, and what isn't included?

There's a natural pull toward the lowest proposal. I understand it; I had that instinct myself when I was a client. But every provider prices differently, and the real differences live in the exclusions: staffing model assumptions, self-performed versus subcontracted work, capital responsibilities, deferred maintenance impacts and service-level expectations. What looks like savings at signing can become a very different story once you're operating under the contract.

The best question a prospect can ask is not "Why are you cheaper?" It's "Help me understand exactly what I'm buying — and what I'm not buying."

The difference between an FM vendor and a true campus partner

Here's what I've learned from being on both sides: The difference between a vendor and a partner doesn't live in the contract. It lives in what happens when things get hard.

I recently had a candid conversation with a college president about past-due bills and payment cycles. I told her honestly what I needed from her team so that we could give her institution the flexibility and grace it needed during a difficult stretch. That kind of conversation only happens when there's genuine trust, when the client knows you're looking out for their institution, not just your own P&L.

I empower my teams to make business decisions that put the client's success ahead of short-term thinking. When our clients know we're thinking about student success and institutional outcomes, not just ones and zeros, the relationship changes. We stop being a vendor and start being a partner.

How does campus facilities management support student success?

At Pfeiffer University, the 2026 student valedictorian used her commencement speech to recognize two people who shaped her college experience: Greg, who works in maintenance, and Alan, from the dining hall. Greg was there every morning, mopping floors before 8 a.m. with, as the student put it, the biggest, brightest smile on his face, always willing to stop and talk. Alan, through small daily conversations, taught her to find joy and gratitude, and the importance of showing up and working hard even when no one is watching. Neither holds a title most people would call influential. But as the student told that auditorium: "Leadership isn't about a position. It's about how you treat people."

That's what we're actually doing here. Not maintaining buildings but maintaining the conditions for a student's life to unfold the way it's supposed to.

When I was on the client side, I used to take my office to the cafeteria for three hours a day, just to be where students were, to watch how they used space, to understand what they actually needed from the environment around them. My role is more strategic now and spans multiple campuses, but I'm still trying to protect that connection between the people doing the work and the students whose experience depends on it.

FM is often invisible until something goes wrong. But when it's working, really working, it's what makes everything else on a campus possible.

If you're a university leader evaluating your FM options, here's what I'd want you to take away: The right partner isn't the one with the lowest number. It's the one who understands what you're trying to accomplish and will still be standing next to you when things get difficult.

I've been that client. Now I'm working every day to be that partner.