Features IHE

Jason Pafundi: Jack, you have been at Dataw Island Club for more than 15 years. What does your job look like today? Jack Aldrich III: My job is basically keeping the island moving. I’m the Director of Building Facilities and Maintenance at Dataw Island Club in St. Helena, South Carolina. We take care of more […]

A faded family photograph captures Kris Grey at two years old, gripping a hammer while standing beside his parents as they built their home in Selma, California. It looks playful, but it foreshadowed a career defined by construction, coordination, and a deep respect for how physical spaces shape human experience. Today, as Director of Capital […]

Catherine Barnes didn’t start her career with ambitions of transforming the facilities management industry; she began by decorating model homes. Drawn to architecture and interior design, she began her professional journey in Kentucky, where she helped stage homes for real estate developers. But what started as an eye for aesthetics quickly turned into a fascination […]

Momentum often arrives disguised as disruption. For Scott Respass, executive director of facilities for Presbyterian College, the first year on campus was defined not by a quiet transition but by $1.6 million in storm damage that tested both the infrastructure and the institutional resolve. Rather than viewing the crisis as a setback, Respass treated it […]

Tim Mueller has spent a career at the intersection of science, systems, and the built environment, shaping and utilizing research spaces that do more than house innovation. They enable it. As Vice President and Head of Environmental Health and Safety, Lab Operations, and Facilities for Prelude Therapeutics, Mueller brings decades of experience designing and running […]

Ashlyn Ours does not treat a healthcare building as a container for medicine. As director of real estate development and facilities for Tribe 513, she treats the built environment as part of the care itself, another set of hands in the room. Her work sits at the intersection of construction discipline and human dignity. A […]

Roy Manno did not plan to end up in senior living. After 27 years with Sodexo, his career was abruptly interrupted during the early days of the pandemic. What followed became one of the most meaningful transitions of his professional life. Five years ago, he joined Kendal-Crosslands Communities and found what he describes as his […]

Quiet reliability defines a great university campus. Classrooms open on time, laboratories operate without interruption, residence halls remain clean and functional, and thousands of daily interactions unfold in spaces that simply work. At the University of Florida, that consistency is engineered behind the scenes by facilities professionals who see their role as essential to the […]

Designing the environment for discovery requires a particular kind of leadership. At the Jeffrey T. Fort Neuroscience Research Building, part of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis (WashU Medicine), that leadership lives in the steady, systems-minded approach of David Lott, Executive Director of Research Facilities. His work is measured in continuity, precision, and […]

Drew Blazure’s relationship with the campus of The Society of the Four Arts did not begin in an office or a boardroom. It began in hard hats and work boots, during his time as a construction superintendent, helping build the King Library. The project gave him more than professional satisfaction. It gave him a sense […]