Like most people who work in facilities management, the industry wasn’t Anthony Gourley’s first choice. He started his career in residential homebuilding in the greater D.C. metro area, but he wanted to expand his knowledge base and work with systems on a larger scale and began his facilities journey with the University of Maryland at College Park in 2009. He is now the senior project manager, overseeing the department of residential facilities. However, he didn’t instantly feel the spark that most facility managers do when they start working in the field.
“I wanted to learn more about large scale building functions and construction processes and fell into an interest in facilities,” he says. “I would track my initial spark to the project where I installed my first Dedicated Outside Air System (DOAS) to a fraternity house. The amount of research and due diligence I had to perform to understand the system and install it correctly led me to become enamored with the best way to approach facilities and systems.”
Gourley is one of eight facility professionals to be named to FacilitiesNet’s fifth 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.
“To be nominated by a peer or colleague means that someone values your work and appreciates your efforts,” Gourley says. “To be chosen is validation that I approach things the right way and make an impact that others recognize. Any time you are recognized within your own industry I believe it is a very special honor.”
Gourley has always approached his career with three simple principles:
By following these simple rules, his direct team continuously sees consistency from him and knows he is someone that can be relied on.
“I feel that as a facility manager today you need to wear a lot of hats,” Gourley says. “It is not good enough to be just a great facility mind, you need to be a great communicator, a cheerleader and be able to have sound decision making skills. I think that expectation level has simply increased in every discipline. In our university setting it is paramount that good facility managers communicate everything effectively with all stakeholders, keep all associates on the same page and aware of the same expectations, and have a plan for repairs, preventative maintenance and contingencies as they arise.”
Gourley enjoys the process of finding solutions to complex issues. Most of the buildings at the University of Maryland date back to the 1950’s, with some of the oldest going back to 1914. He explains that the work to mitigate moisture issues or modernize areas involves a lot of creativity and effort to implement properly. Projects can take several months or years to design, so he and his team work to create the best solution that can be implemented in the shortest duration of time.
“With students residing at the university nine months out of the year, we rely on summer durations and small breaks to plan and work. Seeing the final product after the amount of time spent on planning, design and construction phases is very tangible and rewarding.”
While there isn’t one tangible moment that Gourley can pinpoint to when he became a champion in his field, he believes that his years of experience has helped him become more comfortable with decision making and understanding what it takes to be successful. For example, during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in the fall of 2020, he was part of a team that implemented a project to manage wastewater to identify cases of the virus before they spread between residents of the university. During that time, people depended on him to evaluate the university’s infrastructure and identify areas where the testing equipment could be installed to accurately get a sample that could be attributed to a specific location, like a floor of a residence hall. Results were published in a water environmental journal in 2022.
“It will always be a proud moment for me because I think the COVID-19 era will be etched in history, and I was part of a team that did what we could to prevent the spread of the virus,” he says.
As Gourley continues to collect institutional knowledge, he knows that it will only make his job easier in terms of assessing needs, communicating with groups and departments, and providing the correct service to maintain facilities. For him, the willingness to learn is a trait of any good facility manager, and if you are not staying in tune with every facet of the industry, then there will be no career growth. And even though the spark wasn’t initially there when Gourley first started in facilities, he found what intrigued him – and that made it easy for him to build a legacy career.
“The only legacy I want to leave is for my colleagues to appreciate and respect what I accomplished, and for people I have dealt with to say, ‘he did it the right way!’” he says.
Gourley is one of eight 2026 Facility Champions who will be profiled on FacilitiesNet leading up to the webcast, “The State of Facilities Management: Insights from 2026 Facility Champions” that will honor the recipients. The webcast will air on November 24 at 12 p.m. CST on FacilitiesNet. You can register to view the webcast here.
Mackenna Moralez is the managing editor of the facilities market and the host of the Facilities in Focus podcast.
