Sean Aloise on forgotten tunnels and facilities resilience

After fifteen years managing operations and communications for UCSF Facilities Services, Sean Aloise has learned that the most reliable systems are the ones built to handle what no map accounts for. From unmapped tunnels beneath research buildings to pandemic-era HVAC overhauls, his work traces the unglamorous machinery that keeps a major public university running.

Sean Aloise is Associate Director for Administration and Communications within UCSF Facilities Services, where he has spent more than fifteen years overseeing communications, operations, and special projects. A graduate of San Francisco State University with a degree in music, he built his career at UCSF through roles including Communications Coordinator and Operations Coordinator. He has led the Lab Services Initiative, which supports research continuity through equipment monitoring and service reliability. He is based in San Francisco, California.

How did a vocal performance degree lead to fifteen years in facilities management?

Nothing in my background pointed directly here. I graduated from San Francisco State in 2004 with a bachelor’s in music, concentration in vocal performance. I grew up in Daly City, went to Saint Ignatius College Prep, and had interests all over the place. What carried through was curiosity and a willingness to keep improving at whatever I took on. When I joined UCSF Facilities Services, I started learning the work the same way I learned music: by doing it, asking questions, and adapting when something did not make sense the first time. Fifteen years later, I am still doing that. The field changed, the campus changed, and I kept adjusting.

What do you notice first when a facilities project is about to go wrong?

The drawings do not match what the crew is seeing. We had an HVAC renovation that was supposed to be routine: swap out aging equipment, meet new safety standards, move to the next building. A crew doing groundwork found a tunnel beneath one of our older structures. It was not on any facilities drawing we could locate. Nobody could explain why it existed or where it led. We had to halt the renovation immediately. It turned out to be a service tunnel sealed off decades earlier, forgotten before anyone on the current team started. That is when you know you are in trouble: when the physical campus teaches you something the documentation missed.

What do people consistently get wrong about your work?

They think facilities work resolves. Buildings age, equipment fails, new health and safety standards arrive on their own schedule. The work never finishes. You are not solving problems once, you are building systems that can handle the next version of the same problem. A forgotten tunnel, a pandemic, a communication campaign that falls short: each one is a test of whether your process can absorb something you did not plan for. The better question is not whether the project went smoothly, it is whether the team came out of it stronger and ready for the next one.

What looked like a failure at the time but taught you more than most successes?

A communication campaign I led fell short of its goals. My first instinct was to move on and hope the next one did better. Instead, we gathered feedback, diagnosed what went wrong, and rebuilt our strategy. The next campaign performed markedly better. That process, sitting with what did not work and being willing to admit it out loud, became more valuable than the win itself. I apply the same thing to smaller moments. A colleague once told me my communication style in meetings read as too formal and made some team members uncomfortable. I was defensive at first. I thought I was professional, not distant. Sitting with that feedback changed how I ran meetings, and the team became more productive because of it.

When did the Lab Services Initiative prove its value most clearly?

During COVID-19. We built the Lab Services Initiative to support UCSF’s research mission by providing reliable, cost-effective service and reducing downtime on the equipment researchers depend on. When the pandemic hit, we expanded it to include freezer temperature monitoring and seismic bracing, safeguards meant to protect research that could not be paused. Facilities Services faced a different kind of pressure: keeping research labs running and safe while health guidance shifted by the week. We also had to adjust HVAC systems across campus buildings to meet new safety standards, a project that demanded long hours and improvisation. That period was the hardest obstacle of my career. The team was in constant crisis mode, new problems surfacing daily. The initiative kept critical research running through it, and that remains one of the more rewarding parts of the job.

How did you keep the team functional when the problems were arriving faster than the solutions?

We leaned harder on organizational systems. I built a more rigorous scheduling process, clearer delegation of tasks, and short breaks into the day to guard against burnout. Time management used to be a genuine weakness for me. It became a strength only after I committed to better scheduling and prioritizing. During the pandemic, that discipline was the difference between a team that could absorb constant pressure and one that would have collapsed under it. What emerged from that period was a sharper appreciation for resilience and for how much a team can trust itself when the systems around it are clear.

What skill matters in facilities leadership that no classroom teaches?

Reading a room and knowing when to invite open dialogue versus when to make the call yourself. I have a set of values I try to apply: passion, creativity, respect, accountability, and engagement, all guided by treating others the way I want to be treated. But the mechanics of applying those in a meeting, or on a job site, or in a crisis, are not something you learn from a handbook. You learn them by watching colleagues react, by making mistakes, and by being willing to adjust when someone tells you your approach is not working. Colleagues have described me as someone with a knack for finding creative solutions under pressure. That comes from practice, not from theory.

The drawings do not match what the crew is seeing. That is when you know you are in trouble: when the physical campus teaches you something the documentation missed.

What part of facilities management is overrated right now?

Chasing the newest technology without asking whether it solves a problem you actually have. There is a lot of pressure to adopt the latest system or platform because it is what other campuses are doing. Sometimes that makes sense. Sometimes it is a distraction from the basics: clear communication, reliable scheduling, and a team that knows what the priorities are. I attend conferences, I read widely, and I take on risks that push past my comfort zone. But the best decisions I have made were about improving something we were already doing, not replacing it with something shinier.

What keeps showing up in your work no matter how much the industry changes?

The need to build trust with people who do not work in facilities. Researchers, administrators, and students depend on systems they do not think about until something breaks. My job is to make sure those systems stay invisible most of the time, and when they do break, to communicate what is happening in a way that does not require a facilities background to understand. That has been true for fifteen years, through every technology shift and every organizational change. The tools change. The need for clear, honest communication does not.

What would you tell someone starting in facilities management today?

Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. The job will ask you to manage things you do not know how to do yet, with people who know more than you do about their piece of the work. Your role is to ask the right questions, build systems that let those people do their jobs, and absorb the problems that would otherwise stop progress. That requires humility and a willingness to keep learning long after you think you have figured it out. I have spent more than fifteen years in this department, and I still treat each new renovation, campaign, or crisis as another version of the same basic problem: figure out what changed, adjust, and keep the campus running for the people who depend on it.

Where do you go when you need to step away from facilities work entirely?

Golden Gate Park. I bring a book, find a quiet bench, and let the city noise fall away for a while. Walking through San Francisco’s neighborhoods helps clear my mind in a way little else does. There is something calming about being surrounded by nature while getting lost in a good story. Cooking serves a similar purpose. I describe it as therapeutic, a chance to experiment with new recipes and focus on something creative. I once spent several tries getting homemade gnocchi right. It tasted better once I shared it with friends. Those unhurried hours are not separate from the discipline I bring to my job. They are a counterweight to it, evidence of the same patience that let me sit with an unmapped tunnel or a rough batch of dough until each one made sense.

The job will ask you to manage things you do not know how to do yet, with people who know more than you do about their piece of the work. Your role is to ask the right questions and absorb the problems that would otherwise stop progress.

What part of your role at UCSF still surprises you after fifteen years?

How much of the work is about relationships, not infrastructure. I oversee communications for a large facilities department while also managing operations and special projects. The mechanical systems matter, but what keeps a sprawling organization functioning day to day is whether people trust each other enough to solve problems together. I have received the Making Life Better Here Award and the Facilities Services Achievement Award, recognition for work that spans marketing campaigns, internal communications, and public relations. But the real measure is whether the team can brainstorm through a problem, watch an idea take shape on campus, and come out of it ready for the next challenge. That process still keeps the work interesting.

What will still be true about facilities work in ten years?

Buildings will still surprise you. New standards will still arrive on their own schedule. The people who depend on your systems will still not think about them until something breaks. The tools you use to respond will change, but the core problem stays the same: you are building resilience into systems that other people need to trust without understanding. The forgotten tunnel underneath one of UCSF’s buildings taught me that even a campus mapped and remapped for decades can still hold something unaccounted for. Meeting that kind of surprise calmly and without much fanfare is the job description. That will not change.