Lawrence Melton learned how to lead change and innovation across one of the most complex real estate portfolios in the world. As Facilities Manager of the White House during September 11th, 2001, his leadership was tested as he transformed their operations to deal with terror threats and technology adoption that was secure and reliable in an age of rapid innovation. After only a few years, Melton was promoted to a Senior Executive role where he was responsible for more than 350 million square feet of Federal real estate for the General Services Administration’s Public Buildings Service National Headquarters. During this period, Melton assembled an innovative and experienced leadership team to implement the largest smart buildings program in the country and a national integrated work management system to create one of the largest and most advanced real estate portfolios in the world.
As he looked to the future, Melton’s vision was to step away from government service to create a company that could provide a total real estate and facility operations solution that delivers the integrated services he sought in the marketplace as a Federal Executive, but could never find. In 2013, The Building People was born as an idea to create a company that could integrate technology, buildings, and people to deliver the future of facilities today. Now in its tenth year, we are recognized as an industry-standard providing a total real estate services solution to the industry.
Our Leadership
As leaders in the real estate and facilities industry, The Building People’s leadership team brings over 100 years of combined experience walking in our client’s shoes. We know the complexities of maintaining, innovating, and adding value to a real estate portfolio that serves some of the most complex missions in the world. While our competitors offer siloed services, we deliver an approach that accounts for the entire facility life cycle and integrates the technology, buildings, and people at the core of the operation. We are here to provide the total real estate and facilities solution for real estate owners, occupiers, and operators that will take their facilities into the 21st century and beyond.
We are here to provide total real estate and facilities solutions for real estate owners, occupiers, and operators to take facilities into the 21st century and beyond.
David Sawczuk
David serves as the Chief Growth Officer for The Building People. David brings over 35 years of experience in international business development, management, and operations. In his previous roles, David has driven revenue growth via new business lines, markets, and customers; developed and managed customer relationships; built business portfolios and execution teams; managed multiple business lines, programs, and projects; and has provided his expertise in strategy formulation, change/culture management, problem solving, and decision making.
Jamie Kerner
Jamie is the Chief Financial Officer with The Building People. Jamie has a proven record of helping to establish strong financial practices to help drive corporate growth. Jamie’s ability to implement enterprise practices that remove inhibitors to performance has demonstrably improved company profits and driven improvement initiatives that lead to outsized results year over year. Jamie has more than 20 years of financial and accounting leadership supporting government contractors. Prior to The Building People, Jamie was the CFO for a government contractor providing digital transformation and cyber security services to the Federal Government. Leading the Finance, Accounting, Pricing, Security, and Human Resources teams, Jamie helped develop strategies and practices to transform project accounting and guide corporate reinvestments to develop next-generation capabilities leading to the successful sale of the company. Jamie’s leadership has been critical to the growth and success at each stop along her career.
Frank Santella
Frank serves as Senior Vice President of Program Delivery and Technical Services for The Building People. Frank oversees a portfolio of projects across the company business lines ensuring that services meet and exceed client expectations. Frank recently left Federal Service as a Senior Executive with the General Services Administration (GSA), Public Buildings Service, and has been with The Building People Team since 2017. Frank brings over 35 years of Federal experience in the real estate space. He was responsible for the management of a wide diverse nature of Federal properties with an emphasis on the daily service, maintenance & repair, energy supply and demand, and sustainability programs. With extensive operational experience, Frank continues to help federal agencies reduce costs without sacrificing quality and reliability.
Saima Malik
Saima is the Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer for The Building People. She has over 20 years of human resources experience, 15 specifically within the industry. Currently, she is responsible for driving the strategic direction and management of the human resources and people for The Building People. Saima has innovatively developed and successfully executed various talent strategies throughout her career. Her expertise includes talent acquisition, workforce planning, benefits, employee relations, performance management, career management, and upskilling. She has built an industry reputation as a functional business leader who brings business acumen and strategy to fast-growing organizations. Saima has been recognized by industry partners like Washington Exec and Washington Business Journal for her focus on building strong culture and leading people efforts.
Brad Peterson
Brad Peterson is Vice President of Technology Solutions & Services with The Building People. Brad brings more than 30 years of industry experience with the delivery and sustainment of technology solutions supporting the infrastructure, facilities, and asset management markets across multiple industries. Brad’s experience specifically includes industry account strategy surrounding the provisioning of integrated solutions for the built environment. He also has specific areas of expertise in Federal Government infrastructure policy, technical solution alignment and enterprise level program engagement.
Trevor Morrison
Trevor Morrison is Vice President of Energy, Smart Buildings & Sustainability Services at The Building People. Trevor leads the energy resilience and smart buildings portfolio for The Building People, specializing in Master Systems Integration design and implementations in the federal and MUSH sectors. Believing in leading the clean energy transition by optimizing the existing built environment, his approaching integrations in “systems of systems” approach, tying the operation of existing building, lighting, metering, physical access, and life safety controls to business operation platforms such fault detection, integrated workforce management systems (IWMS), asset management, and financial management systems.
Shawn Morgal
Shawn Morgal is the Vice President of Facilities Management and Operations & Maintenance business lines with The Building People. Shawn brings more than 30 years of experience in small to large-size organizations. In addition to being a Master Plumber by trade, his experience includes Integrated Facilities Management, Critical Infrastructure, Vertical Transportation, MEP Operations and Maintenance as well as Safety and Sustainability. Prior to joining The Building People in 2021, Shawn managed the operations of several high-level HQ campuses to include Capital One Financial, The MITRE Corporation and Fannie Mae. As part of our corporate office, Shawn has direct oversight of all government FM contracts as well as additional commercial contract pursuits.
Laura Fabeny
Laura Fabeny serves as the Vice President of Mission Support Services with The Building People for the Northbound Solutions JV Business Administration Support Services and Conference Logistics contract with the Department of Energy’s Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy office. As a Senior Program Manager, Laura is responsible for the day-to-day management of the $70M business support services contract. Laura is responsible for leading teams to deliver project(s) and provide client support across multiple program offices and client sites. Staff support EERE by delivering business services and conference logistics support, including project and program planning, budget and operations, communications and stakeholder engagement, and executive administrative support.
Charles Dilley
As Vice President of Strategic Initiatives with The Building People, Charles helped lay the foundation for the company’s growth from its outset through the development of the brand, marketing, growth, and business development strategy. He provides strategic management, business capture, branding and marketing, key performance measures, benchmark strategies, and strategic consulting in support of client portfolios in excess of 500 million square feet. He is an experienced project manager and business measures consultant with over a decade of experience specializing in statistical analysis, asset management, enterprise application integration, and key performance measures for private and public sector clients such as Kaiser Permanente, CenturyLink, Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS), U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). Charles holds a Masters Degree in Public Policy from George Mason University.
Dan Purcelley
As Director of Capture at The Building People, Dan Purcelley leads the pursuit of new business opportunities. He oversees the business development and capture management team, drives business line growth strategies, cultivates partnerships, and enhances client value-added solutions. With over 18 years of experience supporting federal government and commercial clients, Dan excels in business service delivery, property management, organizational consulting, and real estate solutions. He has a deep understanding and experience as a strategic client executive, steering business relationships, enterprise-wide engagements, and executive-level transactions with the U.S. Courts, Department of Justice, and IRS. Dan is a motivational leader who values cultivating talent, guiding cross-functional teams, and fostering a culture of imagination, agility, and excellence.
Rob Lindsey
Rob is the Director of Contracts at The Building People. Rob is an accomplished senior contracts director with robust experience negotiating and administering federal and commercial contracts while implementing controls to ensure total regulatory compliance. Highly skilled at leading specialist teams and partnering with C-level executives to guide strategic planning and devise initiatives to expand corporate revenues. Powerful negotiator adept at collaborating with internal/external clients to broker new deals, administering compliant contracts, and evaluating progress for timely completion of requirements and deliverables.
J.J. Mashburn
J.J. Mashburn is the Corporate Controller with The Building People. J.J. brings more than 20 years of experience in mid-size organizations. Her experience includes both Government Contracting and Private Industry financial work. She has developed process and policies for past accounting departments. Prior to joining The Building People, J.J. established short and long-range goals, strategies, plans and policies that set the strategic direction for her prior company. As part of our corporate office, J.J. will oversee our Accounting Department, Financials and work with the CFO on the strategies for the company.
Keith Colella
Keith Colella is the Director of Project Management and Engineering with The Building People. Keith has over 36 years of experience supporting federal and commercial clients in the engineering, design, construction, facilities technology, operations, and maintenance industries. He has decades of leadership experience at the Federal Executive national level. Keith is an extremely driven professional leader successful at turning strategy into execution and strives to implement creative solutions in everything that he does to serve clients with excellence.
James Castruccio
James Castruccio is the Director of Portfolio and Facility Management Solutions with The Building People. James has over 30 years of experience in system process analysis, facilities management, space planning, and designing and implementing Integrated Workplace Management Solutions for commercial, government, and non-profit organizations. He couples his real-world experience with a vast understanding of processes and technology around the built environment to identify improvements that can best support the people within each organization. He has successfully deployed solutions for the National Science Foundation, USDA, USDOT, the UN World Food Programme, The Salvation Army, Purina, Edward Jones, Scottrade, as well as the states of Missouri, Washington, Montana, and North Dakota. James takes an analytical approach to problems and has a keen ability to map and assess processes and develop and implement strategies to increase workflow efficiency and bring issues to resolution.
Trish Ibanez
Trish Ibanez is the Director of Solutions Delivery Management with The Building People. Trish has over 20 years of experience directly managing IT implementations for the federal government. She brings experience in the implementation of IWMS solutions, quality control, continuous improvement, process, strategy, and strong client relationships throughout the federal sector. She currently provides strategic direction and oversight for IWMS implementations at USDA, IRS, NRC, NCIS, and NSF.
Come Work With Us
Join our team of real estate and facilities experts helping our clients navigate 21st-century real estate and facilities operations challenges. Our global organization delivers total lifecycle solutions that integrate technology, buildings, and people to solve some of today’s most complex challenges for building owners, occupants and stakeholders.