Hillary Frisbie — the Woman Behind the JOC Curtain
By: Darra Kubera, Director of Communications
November 15, 2022
Hillary’s passion for facility management oozes out of her, which is why I chose to kickoff our conversation asking why she loves the facility universe so much.
“It’s a funny story how I got here. I have a master’s in art and cultural management. Halfway through my thesis I was working on construction and facility management out of my campus theatre, when I really should have been doing strategic planning. After talking with some folks, they convinced me to go for my masters in facilities management, but it was too late to switch so after finishing my first masters I went for the second. After undergrad I worked in an off-Broadway supply house that simply didn’t have enough people working in electrical, so I started putting together lighting for them which I found interesting, as I had studied lighting design at Adelphi University. I then became technical director of the Pratt Institute; that evolved over the years as I became more involved in facility management.”
No stranger to hard work, Hillary grew up on a farm where she learned from an early age that hard work pays off. “I carried what I learned on the farm through my entire life. Every minute, every ounce of sweat you put into something, you’re going to get some payback for that effort.” Taking on new challenges seems to be built into her DNA, as Hillary tells me she went from Pratt to working for non-profit organizations. “Unfortunately, my education came strapped with student loan debt, and working in non-profits wasn’t going to help me pay those off, so I sold my soul and started working in facilities management for a corporate firm, which grew into a project management role.”
But at the same time, Hillary wanted to focus on the next generation of facility managers. Even today, the industry is in dire need of young blood, and current facility folks are retiring at a rapid pace. Hillary set out to work with local colleges to do outreach and build up mentorship programs in partnership with IFMA NYC (the international facility management association), an organization for facility managers and professionals in the New York City area that provides members with relevant educational programming, as well as networking events. “Mentoring is something that’s truly needed in this world. My love for facility management morphed from there.”
Currently, Hillary is an account manager for our team, so I ask what brought her over to the project management side of things. “At the law firm, they had me working large capital projects because pieces of that facility hadn’t been touched in a long time. I had to do all of their facility condition assessments, including all of their mechanical and electrical systems, and they had a ton of capital projects that had to be addressed. So in addition to my normal day-job of facility management and operations I got involved in project management.”
From there Hillary took a position with Fujifilm, as a project manager for facilities. She helped them develop a facility condition assessment and got a range of experience working across a variety of facility types — everything from research facilities to warehouses.
When I finally stop furiously typing and look up from my laptop, I notice the filled-to-the-brim bookshelves positioned behind Hillary. What follows is a discussion on where all of this passion comes from outside of her work experience. “I really push for equality and diversity with women in the workforce. It’s hard in this industry, but I really admire any woman that’s in facility management and construction. I tend to like the ‘women behind the curtain’ like the ones you can see on my bookshelf.” Hillary points out one by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an American writer and activist who was a leader of the women’s rights movement during the 19th century, who would write speeches for Susan B. Anthony. Hillary also shows me what she deems “a bunch of weird stuff,” including Creative Cursing: A Mix ‘n’ Match Profanity Generator, Leading a New Generation, and No Excuses the Digital Divide. I’m a bookworm myself so I find this mini show-and-tell delightful.
I take a deep breath before my next question, announcing this one has stumped my last few interviewees — what’s the best mistake you’ve ever made? Hillary’s eyes light up, “Oh I love mistakes! Here’s my true answer: there are no mistakes, there’s no wrong way to do things, only lessons you learn. You learn from any ‘failure’ or misdoings you may experience. When I was a manager, I always taught like that. I tried to instill that mentality in my workers; I didn’t want them to think anything they did was necessarily wrong.” Sounds like a good manager to me.
It's clear Hillary has had a positive impact on a lot of the people she’s worked with. I’m curious how she feels about her time at FOS so far. “It’s really cool to see how FOS is going to evolve. One of my biggest problems at previous firms was they couldn’t see past themselves. They stopped caring about their clients. I’m looking forward to helping FOS continue to grow and build relationships with contracts, customize our Simplebid® software to our clients, and generally helping further the knowledge of job order contracting programs across the east coast.”
It's a small world, but Hillary makes a big impact. I can’t wait to see what she does next.
