September 28, 2006
Kennedy to head facilities
Charles Kennedy, who is currently the director of facilities operations for the University of California, San Francisco, will become the UW’s associate vice president for facilities services, effective Oct. 2, Executive Vice President Weldon Ihrig announced.
“We are pleased to have attracted Charles to UW with his combination of experience and commitment to customer service,” Ihrig said. “Charles’ proven leadership skills, along with the professional quality of UW’s facilities services staff, create a potent combination for future successes.”
Since 2002, Kennedy has been at UCSF, where he managed a $40 million operations budget, an additional $14 million in rechargeable activities and $10 million in deferred maintenance activities. The UCSF campus consists of 6 million square feet of clinical, research and hospital space.
“Among facilities professionals, the position at the UW is known as a very attractive position, one of the most prestigious assignments in the country,” Kennedy says. “The UW has a reputation as being progressive in facilities management. It has been a leader in innovative practices and has demonstrated a high degree of initiative.”
The UW’s commitment to environmental sustainability is one factor that attracted Kennedy. “At the UC system we have made strong moves in this direction recently. Four years ago at UCSF we began a recycling program that has received awards for its consistency and ease of use. We’ve begun to branch into other areas, such as purchasing of post-consumable products and recommissioning some of our existing buildings.
“But when I examined the UW’s programs in this area, I realized how far we had to go at UCSF. We’re still in our infancy, compared to some UW policies.”
Kennedy says the next generation of “green” policies will require even greater ingenuity, including such steps as strategic procurement, in which vendors will be held accountable for certain standards in providing post-consumable products.
The core of Kennedy’s management style, he says, is an unswerving commitment to customer services. “Today’s facilities manager recognizes that facilities management is a service entity which exists to support the university’s overall mission. All of our customer relationships are structured around this principle,” he says.
Kennedy’s career in higher education began at Georgia Tech in 1995, where he was manager of operations and maintenance. He became associate director of facilities operations and maintenance at University of California, Davis, in 2000.
At UCSF, Kennedy reorganized the Facilities Division to cope with budget shortfalls without compromising on customer service. He also provided organizational support for a $1.3 billon expansion on the new Mission Bay campus and was leading the engineering process for construction of a $105 million 12 megawatt cogeneration plant for that site.
