There is something about Tia Freiburger that just exudes confidence. As a self-proclaimed “passive learner,” she does her research and quietly listens before asking any questions. She has established herself as an asset on her team and the room quickly quiets down to hear what she has to say. This comes in handy in her role as director of facilities and operations at Under Armour, where she oversees the company’s global headquarters in Baltimore, Maryland.
One of Freiburger’s first undertakings was to centralize the campus, bringing it from two campuses with eight facilities to one campus with three buildings, an outdoor stadium and a track and field.
“I was told that there’s an opportunity for us to build a new headquarters and I immediately told them to sign me up,” Freiburger says. “I was able to do things that I hadn’t done before. I had dabbled in cleaning. I had dabbled in food services. I had dabbled in engineering, but I was never actually assigned to those groups. Once I got here, I was responsible for food service, the fitness center, the cleaners, shipping and receiving engineers and groundkeepers. What I love about the opportunity is that every day I learn something new, and I learn something more.”
This wasn’t Freiburger’s first time leading a major construction project. If anything, it has become one of her career strengths.
After obtaining her master’s degree, Freiburger set out for a career in aquatics — something that she had dreamed about her entire life. During her time at Florida Gulf Coast University, she managed an Olympic sized swimming pool, starting shortly after the facility was opened.
“I started after they had built everything, but they had purchased nothing,” Freiburger says. “I had to learn about chemicals. I had to learn about buildings. I had to learn about electric and plumbing – you name it, I learned about it.”
After transitioning to an associate director of operations and facilities position at Towson University in Maryland, she led a major renovation and expansion on campus. Freiburger was made point-of-contact during the construction, allowing her to sit in on every construction meeting.
“I would walk the construction site on a regular cadence to check that it was the right doors and the right windows,” Freiburger. “I asked questions that I didn’t understand. When the opportunity at Under Armour popped up, I knew I wanted to be a part of it.”
Upon taking her position at Under Armour, Freiburger’s responsibility was to move the old campus to the new Baltimore Peninsula location, a five-story, 280,000-square-foot building which opened in late 2024. This included moving all employees, office furniture, equipment and supplies while still fully operating. Once in the new facility, Freiburger was then tasked with activating all spaces, including teammate workstations, collaboration spaces and services areas such as the gym, cafeteria and shipping and receiving. Freiburger was also the lead in decommissioning the previous campus.
“The biggest challenge, but I like to call it an opportunity to master multi-tasking and organizational skills, was to complete the move in a very short period of time while being 100 percent operational and open,” Freiburger says. “It took the entire CRE team to work through the calendar and set moving milestones to ensure we didn’t miss anything.”
The new Under Armour headquarters was nearly 10 years in the making. According to a press release, the company first purchased a 50-acre site at Port Covington with the intention of creating multi-functional spaces to promote interaction and innovation. The consolidation of venues allowed the company to enhance operational efficiencies and innovation capabilities.
The campus includes an athletic venue featuring an NCAA-regulation track and field facility, multiple-sport playing fields and basketball courts to serve as testing grounds for innovation and product development. In addition, the athletic facility is available to Under Armour teammates and the greater Baltimore community through shared-use agreements. Already, the venue has been used for the Baltimore Ravens’ sponsored girls flag football championship.
“It’s so much better for us all to be on one campus,” Freiburger says. “It’s a lot easier to handle the requests, questions and any issues that arrive when everybody is in the same spot.”
While a career in facilities management may have found Freiburger, she continues to follow her passion for the industry, believing that it fits her personality.
“I just can’t get enough of it,” Freiburger says. “If I had to do the exact same thing every single day, I wouldn’t stay. Facilities management is both challenging and rewarding. I never get bored because it’s something new all the time. Yeah, it keeps me on my toes, but it keeps me excited about coming to work every day.”
Freiburger takes pride in knowing that she is someone that can be counted on. In her position at Under Armour, she nurtures relationships with team members, earning their trust so that they can win together. She helps each employee understand their role and priority on the team, and she is willing to change how things work when goals get misaligned. This approach allows the facilities team to be organized and effective, but also flexible and innovative.
“Tia has tremendous self-awareness, which enables her to be very effective at managing down, up, and sideways,” says Brendan Robinson, former Under Armour facility director and now director of facilities of Glenstone Museum. “She really keeps her team on priority and task. At the same time, she is effective at facilitating leadership decision making to help inform priorities and remove roadblocks. She takes the lead on collaboration with vendors and other departments to ensure that maintenance and events are well executed and coordinated from a holistic standpoint for the brand.”
Freiburger believes that she brings efficiency to the table in design and operations. For example, during the campus centralization project, she helped determine where light switches would go and where trash cans would be placed so that it makes sense for the people who are using them.
“Tia is a wealth of knowledge and her experience in the facilities and operations realm has greatly impacted me and our team of building engineers,” says Megan Vaughn, senior manager of facilities and corporate real estate for Under Armour. “She is positive and gives us the confidence needed to work in a fast-paced environment. Tia has redefined what leadership looks like in the world of facilities management. She does not just operate a building — she has built a team. A team that feels trusted, equipped, and empowered to take ownership of their work. That’s the legacy she leaves: a building that runs well, and a team that runs even better.”
Being a woman in facilities management is not for the faint of heart. However, Freiburger has earned the respect of her peers by approaching each project from the angle of operational excellence. Not only is she often the only woman in the room, but she has found herself being the only facilities representative. Her presence brings a different perspective that others may not have initially thought about.
Freiburger credits part of her success to “passive learning,” meaning she lets everyone else talk while digesting what is being said before asking any questions. This allows for one or two questions to be asked rather than 15. Freiburger also suggests that the way that a question is asked can help portray confidence and trust that people can have in you. In addition, she also pays attention to how people portray themselves nonverbally and shadows what has been successful for other people. Freiburger has found that this approach reminds people that they’re not naive, uneducated or unexperienced, but rather a problem solver.
“I don’t need to talk louder — I just make sure that when I’m talking, it is thought out, clear and concise,” Freiburger says. “I’ve noticed that when I was in my 20s, I was a little loud, and then in my 30s I got a little bit more polished. Now, I recognize in my 40s that I don’t need to raise my voice. I just have to find the right opportunity to speak up and if that question, statement or message I’m about to say makes sense, people will listen.”
Freiburger isn’t afraid to admit when she doesn’t have the answer to something, but she is always willing to figure it out. She explains that there are some sustainability features in the new Under Armour headquarters that she’s not well versed in, so during meetings she will take notes on what people are saying and then go back to her office and do further research on the topic.
“There’s definitely times where I don’t have the answer, and think it’s much more important to go and research and find the answer before just speaking up because whatever I would say wouldn’t be accurate anyway,” Freiburger says. “I learned that it’s OK to let people know that you don’t know.... I am lucky that I’ve hired all the right people below me. I expect them to be the subject matter expert and I’m the one that listens to it all and provides guidance.”
In her role as a director, Freiburger makes herself available to employees that want to talk about something, whether it is something as small as a scheduling issue or something bigger like a family emergency. She believes that the No. 1 trait for anyone in facilities is being able to communicate openly, making sure she is reachable during working hours.
“In corporate America, it (facilities management) is forward facing, and I recognize now how important that customer service aspect is,” Freiburger says. “Customer service is incredibly important, and it’s at the top of our list. We want to make sure that our teammates, our guests — pretty much anyone who’s on our campus – know that they’re important. That proactive communication is just so important, and my expectations for communicating back to me are so high, so I exemplify what I’m looking for from others.”
Mackenna Moralez is the associated editor and host of the Facilities in Focus podcast.
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