The department where ‘seldom seen’ is part of the plan
Facilities personnel from OneWorld and Seldin, the building management company, gather in front of the main Livestock Exchange Campus building.
OneWorld’s physical presence spans from a trio (and soon to be quartet) of buildings that comprise its main Livestock Exchange Campus in South Omaha, to satellite clinics and offices across the Omaha metro area.
Like patients, OneWorld’s buildings need routine care – and sometimes have emergencies.
Enter the Facilities Maintenance Team, a lean crew who pride themselves on working in the shadows to offer patients a clean, comfortable experience.
OneWorld Facilities Maintenance Manager Antonio Degante takes a phone call.
Antonio Degante is the kind of guy who answers your phone call while working on the roof of a building – on the first ring.
As Facilities Maintenance Manager for OneWorld, it’s not uncommon for him to be on a roof. But for a couple of weeks this summer, he and his team were pouring over the malfunctioning air conditioning units that sit atop the northernmost of OneWorld’s three Livestock Exchange (LSX) Campus buildings.
Inside the building, OneWorld leaders and staff sweated as Degante and his team felt the heat. The units are older, and concurrent issues interrupted progress. They’d even had two HVAC companies take a look – but no luck.
Until, eventually, success.
“At the end of the day when my team was able to figure it out and get it going, it felt really good, like a great accomplishment,” Degante said. “That was the whole team – the Seldin [property management company] guys, our guys – coming together to get that working.”
The OneWorld facilities team includes just Degante and technicians Keith Mayle and Daniel Iniguez-Cabrera. They are responsible for building maintenance across OneWorld’s main LSX Campus and satellite locations. At the main campus, they team up with Seldin’s crew to cover building issues that arise there. In other words, the Facilities Maintenance staff is who responds when things break down or need fixing.
The OneWorld crew meets each morning to plan their work on maintenance tickets that have come in. Yet, despite careful planning, surprises can and do arise. Emergencies pop up, from broken toilets to water leaks from neighboring units. Degante said no two days look the same, which means his team must always be ready to shift priorities while maximizing their time and resources.
Meanwhile, Degante, Mayle and Iniguez-Cabrera keep a low profile as they provide regular maintenance services and respond to emergencies. Degante said they work “in the shadows” to avoid attracting attention, though he’s quick to give his team credit for working hard to deliver on the OneWorld mission.
“We try to work behind the scenes quietly and try to be as invisible as possible to ensure that when patients come in, they feel comfortable and confident in the services that are being provided to them,” Degante said.
He added that a clean, smoothly operating building helps build trust – and that’s especially important for a health care facility. Patients want to feel safe on their way to a vaccine appointment, for example.
And while paving the way for a welcoming patient experience is a priority, the Facilities Maintenance Team works hard to ensure that their coworkers are taken care of too – like the staff who were affected by the malfunctioning air conditioning units over the summer.
“We try to work in the background to make sure that everybody’s comfortable,” Degante said. “Because to us, yes, our patients are our main reason why we’re there, but our employees also matter. If we didn’t have our employees in a comfortable setting, they wouldn’t be able to be as efficient in the work they do providing services to our patients.”