Robert Kimmel feels blessed to have a career that allows him to serve and improve the lives of others within his community. Throughout his career, he has helped many people realize their dreams and advanced the missions of several organizations in the South Florida region. In 2021, he earned his MBA with a specialization in 2021. With his new degree in hand, he can easily identify inefficiencies, implement Lean practices and execute countless projects.
“My career has been filled with meaningful impact, and I’m deeply grateful to my employers and our communities for these opportunities to serve,” Kimmel says.
As the senior manager of construction and facilities management for the Els for Autism Foundation, he helps advance the company’s core mission of building “a world of limitless possibilities for individuals with autism spectrum disorder and their families.”
Kimmel is one of eight facility professionals to be named to FacilitiesNet’s fourth annual Facility Champion award. The Champions play a critical role in ensuring the efficient and effective operation of buildings across the country, all while exhibiting strong leadership and pride within the industry.
“I consider myself fortunate to be nominated and recognized as a Facility Champion alongside facility leaders across the country,” says Kimmel. “As facility managers, our challenges present opportunities to improve lives and operations for those we serve. I am grateful for the support of management and my team—their dedication to our shared goals makes anything possible.”
Kimmel’s interest first sparked several years ago when he was exposed to Lean Six Sigma methodologies. Eager to continuously improve and leave the world a better place, he is largely motivated by the ability to improve the lives of people around him. He believes that providing a facility that enables clients, guests and coworkers to live up to their greatest potential is the largest driver in productivity.
“Several of my projects enabled me to identify facility improvements for Veterans, seniors, children, and persons with disabilities,” Kimmel says. “Having family members, friends, co-workers, and clients within those demographics, I set out each day to remove encumbrances from people’s daily lives. Everyone deserves clean, safe, and well-functioning places to live, work, and play.”
Like many people within facilities management, Kimmel finds the rising costs in labor and materials to be a challenge, especially for a non-profit organization. He relies on his team to do many tasks in house instead of hiring third-parties. To keep costs down, Kimmel has even worked during a campus closure to tackle many tasks on his own.
“Stuff will happen. Things will break. Systems will fail in new and interesting ways,” Kimmel says. “Prevent it. Maintain it. Correct it. Don’t ignore it. Bad situations do not get better with time. Learn from your mistakes. Better yet, learn from the mistakes of others.”
With costs rapidly increasing due to inflation, Kimmel knows best to secure bids from multiple companies before moving forward with a project. However, even the cheapest option is still too expensive. Kimmel took it upon himself to take a negotiation course so he would be better adept at working with vendors to negotiate lower prices. He also took a course so that he could provide a service that would have cost the company a significant amount of money if they used an outside vendor.
“The biggest challenge in the facilities management industry today is legacy systems,” Kimmel says. “Facilities management is often perceived as separate from revenue-generating programs. While plant, property, and equipment are assets that support wealth generation, it’s harder to reap what you sow with a dull blade.”
Many years into his career, Kimmel remains a dedicated who strives for excellence every single day. Since his first day, he said he wants to make people’s lives better, and he continues to exude the mission of the foundation.
“When I retire, I hope my legacy is simply ‘he made things better, we’ll miss him,’” Kimmel says.
Kimmel is the sixth of the eight 2025 Facility Champions who will be profiled on FacilitiesNet leading up to the webcast, “FM Innovation and Evolution: A Facility Champions Discussion” that will honor the recipients. The webcast will air on November 6 at 1 p.m. ET on FacilitiesNet. You can register to view the webcast here.
Mackenna Moralez is the associate editor of the facilities market and the host of the Facilities in Focus podcast.
