Adam Schnirel, associate vice chancellor of Facilities Services at UC Riverside, serves as the inaugural chair of the University of California’s newly formed Facilities Leadership Council.
This council brings together senior facilities directors and leaders from all ten University of California campuses, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and the Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Together, they coordinate solutions for shared challenges, such as aging campus buildings and limited funding.
Under UC Riverside's leadership, the council establishes a unified voice to communicate directly with the University of California Office of the President. This direct line of communication helps align systemwide policies and funding priorities with the physical needs of individual campuses.
For faculty and staff, this partnership delivers real benefits. By sharing technical expertise and resources across the state, UC Riverside accelerates its own local improvements.
In the annual report the committee presented to the UC Office of the President, campuses shared their respective best-practice initiatives, highlighting UC Riverside's warehouse program as a prime example.
During the past fiscal year, Facilities Services built a centralized facility to store and organize nearly 3,500 unique maintenance parts. Before this implementation, individual trade teams managed their own materials, spending valuable time searching for and sourcing parts for individual work orders.
Now, this integrated inventory database connects directly with the work order system, ensuring skilled trades teams have immediate access to the parts they need to repair campus classrooms, laboratories, and facilities.
By sharing strategies like this warehouse model, the systemwide council helps other campuses reduce duplicate efforts, improve efficiency, and lower operating costs.
Looking ahead, the council continues to build a collective roadmap for the future. The group currently focuses on developing shared facilities standards, establishing data-sharing practices, and designing a risk and resilience framework to address deferred maintenance systemwide.
Through these combined efforts, UC Riverside’s leadership of the Facilities Leadership Council ensures a safer, more sustainable, and highly efficient campus environment for the entire university community.