What are the most common issues you encounter in the field?

"I think the most common issue is battery related. We have battery test equipment to do predictive trends analysis to see what needs to be replaced within specific parameters."

Why do you think battery maintenance and upkeep is neglected? 

"But, if you don’t do preventative maintenance on a schedule, you pay for that with emergency calls to fix a problem that could’ve been caught before it became a catastrophic failure just because facility managers are trying to keep costs down.

But it’s just deferring cost. You can never get away from paying for keeping your equipment. It's just like a car. If you don't change its oil, and you don't do any of the planned maintenance, it's going to fail and leave you on the highway at the most inconvenient times."

What advice would you give to a Facility Manager?

"I would recommend they have a scheduled preventative maintenance program that they prioritize getting done instead of pushing it off. Making sure it’s scheduled and performed and then reading the report so they know what can be done now before it becomes an issue later.

And to see it as an investment in their equipment instead of a cost that comes out of their budget with no pay out."

💡 What is involved in a preventative maintenance visit? Read more.

How does preventative maintenance reduce total cost of ownership?

"Paying for preventive maintenance is going to cut down on any emergency calls with equipment failure. The most expensive thing to do is repair something that's failed because you can have a catastrophic failure that begins a chain of events.

If you're able to change one component because you found it was a problem during your preventive maintenance, that's all you would change. If the component shorts or blows up or fails, then you have collateral damage that has to be repaired.

Additional troubleshooting gets very expensive, not to mention the fact that you're not having a planned event. At that point, you're in catastrophe mode trying to minimize damage and the potential of interruption to your critical load, which is one of the worst things that can happen."

How do you ensure the safety of yourself and those around you while working with electrical systems?

"Before any job starts, we do a job hazard analysis—basically looking at what our job entails and what hazards are present when we're doing our job. Based on that, we use the required PPE for the task at hand and take that seriously.

It’s in the name -PPE - personal protective equipment. It's there to keep you safe.

And on top of that, just being vigilant of the hazards around and following the methods of procedures available at the site or standard operating procedures to make sure that you don't deviate from it.

Because if you deviate from something that a lot of people have put time and thought into - the process of doing PMs or replacement safely - then that can be problematic.

That's why what I do to keep you know myself and everybody safe is let everyone know that everyone can stop work if you're concerned about safety. You pause work. You have a discussion. If it's valid, then you look to mitigate or change, and if you're satisfied with the explanation of why it's done and why it's safe, then you continue on.

But that's I think that's number one: Stop if it's a safety issue, because if you continue on and somebody gets hurt, then you know it doesn't save time for anybody."

What is something you pride yourself on during your UPS preventative maintenance visits?

"I pride myself on doing the best job. On every aspect of the PM, even the things that customers probably won't notice or won't see. You know you’re following a routine that is always looking at the details to make things better. Whatever I can do to get to a site and leave the equipment better than how I found it is my goal. Whether anybody notices or not or sees it or not.

I think that’s part of the culture here. We all have the same goal on the service team."

Where did you grow up? Where do you live now?

"I was born in Mexico, and I came over to the United States when I was two years old and moved to South San Francisco, which is close to the SFO airport, and I stayed there until I graduated college.

Then I moved to Fremont, CA, which is across the Bay from San Fran. And this is where I've been since 1990. I like it here. It’s been a good place to raise my kids."

YAY 👍 or NAY 👎 + WHY

What is something you are passionate about outside of work?

"I'm passionate about Jui jitsu and wrestling. I wrestled in high school barely because I didn't know about it until my junior year. And then my kids took to it. Both of them wrestled in high school. My daughter wrestled from middle school through college. They're both coaches right now for high schools. My daughter is an assistant coach for the women's wrestling program at a high school in San Jose, and my son is in his fourth year as the head coach of Willows High School up in Northern California.

I've been training jiu jitsu since 2010. I love it. It's great because it's a good physical workout, but you need to have strategy and think about what you're going to do next and see what reaction you get. So, it's really fun because you constantly are learning."

What is your favorite genre of music?  

"80s music. Rock, pop, or almost anything 80s. I went to high school and college in the 80s so I have good memories of going to school and listening to music. It sticks with you for the rest of your life."

What is the best advice you have received, personally or professionally?

"Professionally, the best advice I was given is to make sure that you do the best job that you're capable of doing because people can talk bad about you if they dislike you, but they'll never be able to disparage your work if you don't take shortcuts or deviate. The work speaks for itself.

Make sure that you do your work when nobody's watching you. Because if anybody comes in afterwards and opens up the work you've done, if it's bad, they can say it's bad. But if it's not then that's it and its objective.

Do it to the best of your ability and that way nobody can talk bad about your work. The UPS industry is such a small industry that if you mess up, or you are not good at what you're doing, or you cut corners—everybody within the industry is going to know in a short amount of time. It'll follow you."