Photo credit: Erica Vazquez. The image shows the Onboarding Strategic Team members standing together
and smiling.
On Friday, January 30, 2026, Facilities/Construction Management (F/CM) hosted the 2025 Strategic Teams’ final presentations. This event, the fourth held in 12 months, was an exciting showcase of the hard work the teams poured into their assigned projects.
Assembling the Strategic Teams
Each year, F/CM senior leadership creates three-to-four Strategic Teams, selecting
members across all F/CM units. F/CM senior leadership decided to draw members from
across the department to ensure democratic decision-making, increase the shared pool
of experience and creativity, and break down siloes between units. Being part of a
Strategic Team is a point of pride for many team members, as teamwork is crucial and
the department will review every proposal thoroughly.
Strengthening the Department
All teams have one common purpose: Improve department operations. F/CM senior leaders
assign each team an operations process in need of improvement. In turn, team members
must research the problem and brainstorm solutions. Each quarter, teams present their
research, the solutions they’re developing, and lastly, their final proposal for the
department to adopt.
Leading the 2025 Strategic Teams
Deferred Maintenance
- Team Leader: Jennifer McPhail
- Team Champion: Christa Rieck
The Deferred Maintenance team addressed the need to standardize the triaging of deferred maintenance projects.
Emergency Response
- Team Leader: David Geis
- Team Champion: Ahmad Shareef
The Emergency Response team addressed the need to improve communications, procedures, and trainings for how F/CM handles weather events.
Onboarding
- Team Leader: Glenn Serdar
- Team Champion: Nick Merry
The Onboarding team addressed the need to mitigate staff turnover rates and increase staff morale for new hires.
Policies & Documents Library
- Team Leader: Erica Vazquez
- Team Champion: Jennifer Rea
The Policies and Documents Library team addressed the need to improve operational efficiency regarding how staff organize and standardize access to files.
Presenting for Success
The Teams compete to present their proposals in the most compelling way, with one
team taking home the Team Coins prize. However, the teams must keep their presentation
under 10 minutes, with the purpose of practicing for an executive audience. After
each presentation, there’s a follow-up segment in which senior leads offer constructive
feedback to the team. Each event ends with all attendees voting for the best presentation.
The competition was close, and this time, it was the Onboarding Strategic Team that
won.
Looking Ahead to 2027
F/CM senior leadership has assembled three new teams to meet in 2026, with the deadline
to present finalized proposals in January 2027. The three teams are Asset Management,
Project Recognition, and Value Engineering. Facilities/Construction Management looks
forward to seeing these Strategic Teams collaborate on solutions that will benefit
the department, and in turn, the UH community.