PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
EARNING THE SMT
ENHANCED MY BUILDING’S VALUE By: Molly Looman
A building is only as valuable as the sum of its parts. By that logic, a building’s systems are only as good as their engineer. A Systems Maintenance Technician designation is more than a course. It can add real value to the career of a budding building engineer, but it can also add value to their buildings. Here is how the SMT can rake in big ROI.
MAKES GOOD ENGINEERS GREAT
Mark Gallman with Highwoods Properties was a good machinist when he entered the field of CRE. He had worked for American Standard, Lockheed and Amoco. When he began his second career at 43, he knew he needed more to succeed. “I knew a little about basic construction, but I lacked the key skills that a building engineer needed,” Gallman said. “Electrical work and HVAC were not what I would have called my strong suits. I knew that to get to a point where I could make a sustainable income and support a family, that I would need to be able to work at a high level in these specific skill sets.” The SMT course took the highly technical skills Gallman already had as a machinist and used them as a base to give him a greater understanding of HVAC, thus making him a more capable maintenance engineer. An SMT can take experienced engineers in your building and give them a more well-rounded toolbelt.
18 Insight
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Issue 1, 2020
