Meet a Manager: Leland Nye

Partly It’s Mechanical, Partly It’s People

Leland Nye knows he’s doing a good job at Allure Waikiki “when everything is working as it’s supposed to.”

Leland Nye TITLE: General Manager, Allure Waikiki

Growing up on Bainbridge Island in Washington state, Leland Nye wasn’t raised specifically to become a building manager. But his father Raymond, who worked for the federal Environmental Protection Agency, and mother Rosemary, who worked for the National Traffic Safety Administration, certainly gave him a foundation to make such a career accessible. It started at their rental property on the island that from Seattle can only be reached by ferry.

“I worked on that house from the time I was young,” Nye recalls. “Painting, roofing, yard work, a little of everything.”

Then during summers, he headed

When did Allure Waikiki open?

2010.

Number of units: 291.

Amenities: Pool, gym, barbecue area, community room.

Do you have vacation rentals?

There’s a 30-day minimum stay.

Management company:

Hawaiiana Management.

down I-5 to Eugene, Oregon, where his uncle had a construction company and put Nye to work building houses.

Back on Bainbridge, “my dad and I worked on cars together. I always enjoyed the mechanical side. I just never thought I could make it a career.”

For college, he enrolled at Washington State University in Pullman, majoring in communications.

“I wanted to get into advertising and marketing, but when I graduated I heard that a job with Colliers in Hawaii had opened up. I applied and got it. That’s how I got into property management. It was a smooth transition since I already

had experience maintaining a property.”

When did you come aboard?

August 2016.

Do you live on the property?

Yes, I recently sold my house in Kaimuki and moved into the building. It’s me, my wife and two boys, ages two months and three and a half. It was surreal having a baby during a pandemic.

What are the advantages of

being here? Building closer relationships with the residents. I have been

able to get to know everybody a little bit better.

Number of board members, and

how often do you meet? Seven board members. We meet every quarter, sometimes more depending if we are working on large building projects.

Number of staff: 23.

Previous building management

jobs? Waikiki Landmark and Pacifica Honolulu.

Other jobs: Commercial property manager for Colliers, management executive for Hawaiiana Management.

Schooling: Bachelor’s degree in communication from Washington State University. Master’s degree in human resource management from University of Hawaii. I tell other managers the single best skill set I have is the HR side. With 23 staff, there are a lot of opportunities to follow HR best practices.

What do you like about building

management? One, working as a team member. I like working with the board, committees, staff and vendors. All of us are team members trying to achieve common goals. Completing goals gives everyone a good sense of pride.

Two, learning building mechanics/ engineering. I don’t have an engineering degree, but If I could go back to school, I would love to be a mechanical engineer. Every building has so many moving parts and understanding how they all work together is fascinating and challenging. I’m learning new things every day. I talk with a building manager, a long-timer, and he tells me he’s still leaning.

Three, when everything is working as it’s supposed to. I love it when a resident comes home at the end of the day, takes a warm shower, makes dinner, watches TV, there’s no interruption of people’s lives. And they don’t have a clue about all the moving parts behind the scenes it took to make that possible.

Most important qualities for a condominium manager?

1. Leadership. 2. Effective communication (be a good listener). 3. Well-rounded experience. 4. Be humble. (I don’t know everything, no one does, and that is OK. If you don’t know an answer, go find it.) 5. Problem solver. 6. Hard worker. 7. Good understanding of financials and human resources. 8. Good understanding of building mechanics.

How has the coronavirus

changed daily operations? Good question. This is the first day (June 1) that we’re reopening our amenities, other than the gym. And just today we’re enacting a new cleaning matrix. Every inch of the common areas has been mapped out for cleaning on a regular schedule.

And we were about two-thirds of the way through plumbing, air conditioning and dryer vent unit inspections when the coronavirus shut us down. We are tentatively going to resume inspections in August, which is now subject to information we receive from government officials. ❖

moved along. LHR provided scheduling and oversight of all common area repairs.

The relationship has evolved, and I am in constant communication with board president Lorinna Schmidt and resident manager Nars Domingo, both of whom have devoted countless hours to serve the association.

The lesson from Marco Polo is to always be prepared. Have a plan. Ensure fire alarms are regularly serviced and tested. The installation of fire sprinklers that is currently underway at the Marco Polo is a necessity.

Without the support, dedication, knowledge and understanding of the Marco Polo residents, board of directors, resident manager and staff, as well as Associa On Call and many volunteers, the rebuilding/repairs of the Marco Polo could not have been completed.

Jason Blinkhorn Fire Safety Contractor

Jason Blinkhorn of Dorvin D. Leis Co. Inc. is overseeing the Marco Jason Blinkhorn Polo sprinkler job. Trained in both firefighting and fire protection engineering, Blinkhorn is experienced in fire sprinkler design, fire alarm design, chemical suppression systems, as well as fire investigations, fire modeling, anything to do with fire science.

And he’s passionate about his work, including testifying at hearings on condo fire safety at City Council meetings. As Blinkhorn told BMH in late 2017: “I sat through a couple of meetings of the City Council with the Residential Fire Safety Committee. There was a lot of misinformation on what it actually takes to do this work.

“I’ve heard the argument that fire alarms are designed to save people and sprinklers are designed to save property. I heard that at the council meeting, a community forum, and it’s simply not true. Sprinklers are an early suppression method to allow people to get out of the building, to make sure it doesn’t spread to the point you either burn to death or die from smoke inhalation. It’s really to allow egress.”

Making Your Building 18-14 Compliant The deadline is less than a year away for condos to pass a life safety evaluation

In the wake of the Marco Polo fire, City Ordinance 18-14 became law on May 3, 2018. All condo associations should already be taking action to meet its standards.

The ordinance requires all residential high-rise buildings to install fire sprinklers throughout unless the building is exempt or it gets a passing score in a Life Safety Evaluation (LSE). Buildings are exempt if they are under 10 stories or have open exterior corridors. All buildings—even though exempt from installing fire sprinklers—must pass an LSE, an inspection by a licensed professional to determine that the building is relatively safe from fire hazards. The licensed professionals are required to record their findings on an Excel spreadsheet called “the Matrix” that was developed by the Honolulu Fire Department. Before negotiating a proposal to do an LSE, building managers should familiarize themselves with the Matrix by reviewing it or downloading it from the HFD website: honolulu.gov/hfd/resourceslinks. The ordinance has an initial deadline of three years to complete an LSE. Battalion Chief Wayne Masuda of HFD recently told BMH legal columnist Jane Sugimura that about 150 buildings have completed their LSE, but that the ordinance does not require the buildings or their licensed professionals to report their findings or conclusions to the fire department, as this is only an estimate. If that estimate is accurate, there are at least 170 buildings that still have to complete their LSEs, and they need to do so before May 3, 2021, less than a year away. Masuda also indicated to Sugimura that the fire department is not inclined at this time to extend the three-year compliance deadline, and would likely oppose any action to extend that deadline. The message to associations and other high-rise buildings on Oahu is that if you have not done so, you need to get a licensed professional to do the LSE for your building so that your LSE is completed by May 3 of next year. Completion of an LSE, however, is only the beginning, because few aging buildings will get a passing score on the first try. The LSE will identify discrepancies that will need to be addressed to get a passing score. Some “fixes” are relatively easy and inexpensive, such as installing smoke detectors in each bedroom and one in the hallway. Others, such as updating a fire-alarm system or closing vertical openings, can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The deadline for getting a passing score on the LSE is six years from May 3, 2018, or May 3, 2024, less than four years away.

The Marco Polo retrofit project has been a challenge to get through the local authorities’ approval process—it took almost a year for them to review and approve it, and our now-approved design has not differed from Day One. Needless to say, that delayed the project substantially.

I am, however, happy to say we have now finished the fire alarm portion in the garage, the building’s fire pump and standpipes, and we have mocked up several floors with fire sprinklers at this time.

That was before COVID, which delayed us several more months. As of June, we’re slated to start back up full production in the units and corridors installing their new fire alarm and fire sprinkler systems. Our goal is to be complete by the end of 2021. ❖