Maria Martinez pictured second from left
March is National Women’s History Month, and as such, UT Facilities Services is taking the opportunity to celebrate the women who make our department what it is today. Facilities Services employs nearly 600 individuals, and of those team members, 21% are female. Within that 21% you’ll find supervisors, foremen, managers, and directors.
One such director, Maria Martinez, started in Facilities Services nearly 9 years ago as our resident Geographic Information System (GIS) and Building Information Modeling (BIM) expert. If you’ve ever utilized the campus map, you’ve benefitted from the work and dedication of Maria. While this is certainly not her only accomplishment, it is one of her crowning achievements.
Over the years, Maria has worked her way into leadership as space coordinator and now Director of Space Management. She has grown her team and now manages an incredible staff of GIS and BIM experts. Together, they are helping campus understand the importance of Space Management in accommodating today’s students, staff, and faculty while planning for campus improvements in the future.
In addition to her roles and responsibilities within Facilities Services, Maria is also pursuing a PhD in Higher Education Administration from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Her plate is full, but she is not slowing down anytime soon!
Because Maria adds unique skills and perspective to our senior leadership team and Facilities Services as a whole, we asked her to answer a few questions about her work. Her answers are insightful, inspiring, and a true testament to the value she adds to our team.
Maria Martinez pictured far left
1.) What unique perspectives/characteristics/skills do you bring to the table as a woman in leadership – specifically within Facilities Services?
A: I don’t like to talk about myself a lot, and I don’t know if the skills I bring are because I am a woman or just because I am me. I’ve never put my identity as a “woman” behind anything related to my career. I’ve always wanted to be seen as any person in the office, not a woman in the office. I’ve spent my career working mostly with men and, for many years, I tried to do something that I believe women from my generation (proud Gen X here!) did, which is try to not be “too female” at work. I tried to not be too sensitive or, show emotions, pay attention to what I wear, not stand out too much, etc. Most women try to fit in with the male coworkers. If I had a female in my staff, I would tell her to now worry about that. I’ve learned from younger females that there are behaviors or comments that were common in the office during my early years that were viewed “okay” and things we “put up with” that were actually not okay. Since I am in a leadership role now, I try to bring awareness to those things if I can.
As a woman, I hope to bring that perspective and point of view to how women should be treated, hopefully an awareness in equality, and remove some of the stereotypes. I also try to eliminate the guilt of taking time off and not living to work. That’s a combination of my European roots and being-a-mom. As a European, I grew up with not feeling guilty about taking more than a week off work. As a mom, I’ve learned to not feel guilty about leaving work at 5 pm to be home with my son, or to go on a walk for my own mental health. I struggled with life/work balance in the past, but the best way to deal with that is to eliminate the guilt of actually balancing your work and your life, and emphasize your mental health. I don’t know if I am successful at doing that but, if there is a female in Facilities looking at me, I hope they see me as a good role model for them in that sense.
Skills wise, I think I bring a lot of good skills! I am pretty good at looking at the big picture and have good ideas. I work hard but I also play somewhat hard (I am getting old, I can’t keep up). I am very type A, which gets me in trouble sometimes. I mostly prefer to be in the background and listen, and absorb information before I speak. I am constantly processing thoughts. I try to be fair and listen to everyone’s perspectives. I prefer to work in a team, collaborative environment. Mostly, I bring sass! Lots of sass. Sense of humor is important. Most of the time I try to not take myself too seriously.
2.) What does your career path look like that led you to this point? (both within FS and beforehand if you’d like to share)
A: I started my career in GIS working with engineers more than 20 years ago, and I followed that path for a long time just learning a lot of the technical aspects of the field and picking up general skills about project management. In my first job, I was very determined to move up the ladder quickly, worked a lot, I was very focus on moving up and I felt I had to work extra hard because I worked with a lot of men, I was young, had a strong accent and I am introvert. I felt I had a lot to prove. I did work with a lot of great people and learned a lot, but I burned out, especially after I had my son. I found the work/life balance was difficult. I didn’t have any flexibility on my work hours like we do now, so it was hard.
We moved to Tennessee almost 14 years ago and I took a step back on trying to advance in my career. I decided to go back to school and get my Master’s degree while I worked. I focused less on advancing and more on just doing my job, getting my degree, and raising my kid. I’d said I settled a bit on my initial career goals. After I finished my Masters, I started working in Facilities. That was nine years ago. I had never worked in higher ed or knew anything about Facilities or building buildings, or managing a university. I’ve spent a lot of time just trying to figure out how things work around here and learning new topics like the whole concept of how space is important to the university, which is my focus now. I didn’t know anything about that. Then when Dave Irvin (former FS Associate Vice Chancellor) did his 2.0 re-org, I asked Andy to put me in charge of what we called the Digital Assets Team. Andy actually took a chance on me and put me in that leadership role. I honestly didn’t know what my path in this university was going to be at that time and I was still learning but I wanted to make that move.
COVID hit right after that happened and I spent many months working in the EOC with other campus administrators on campus. I really enjoyed that, even though it was also stressful. That was a turning point for me professionally. I decided I needed to focus on growing my skills in different ways and decided that I wanted more, I just didn’t know what that was then. I spent a lot of time thinking about what “more” may look like. I invested in professional coaching briefly, worked with HR on learning about my Clifton Strengths at the time that was becoming a tool on campus, read a lot, listened to a lot of podcasts, took advantage of seminars and programs that UT was offering that came in my inbox, and I decided to pursue my PhD. I’ve spent a lot of time in the last four years investing time in myself to be better. I think a lot of the skills you learn to become a better leader also apply in becoming a better person. I am very intentional on using the word leader, instead of manager. There is a difference in the two. In the mist of all that time of growth, both my staff left. That was a big setback mentally, but it was an opportunity for me to step up, which I think I did. Now I have a whole new team, and Mike Brady (current FS Associate Vice Chancellor) created this position that I am in now. I still have lot to learn, but here we are!
Maria Martinez pictured far left
3.) What project are you most proud of from your time in Facilities Services?
A: One of the first big projects I worked on was creating our current interactive campus map. Before that, UT just had a bad Google map that wasn’t very useful and didn’t have a lot of information. Our current map gets 500,000 views a year. That’s a lot of views, so it is making an impact for people coming to campus. Anything I do that makes it easier for the UT community to do anything on our campus is what makes my job fun.
4.) What’s your best advice for other women looking to advance in leadership?
A: There are a lot of pieces of advice I would give to other women looking to advance in leadership. I am actually looking at the topic of women in leadership as part of my dissertation topic so I’ve become very sensitive to these ideas. One thing I’ve learned is that you have to carve your own path and take the opportunities that are available to you. We are lucky that UT offers many leadership programs that we can take advantage of, and also, anyone can pursue a degree as well, which is a huge perk. Also, be open to the idea that anything can happen. You may think there isn’t a role for you here but you never know what may come up. My current role didn’t exist a year ago.
You also have to advocate for yourself and create boundaries about what you’ll say “yes” or “no” to. Women tend to get stuck in doing administrative tasks that aren’t part of our jobs and take away from what we are supposed to be doing. But, the most important advice I will give to anyone is to be yourself, with all the good and the bad. Women think leaders have to have specific personality traits and behave a certain way but that’s not the case. Especially women who work in male-dominated fields, they feel the pressure to behave like the men in the office to be taken seriously. But there is plenty of research that discusses how women and men naturally have different leadership styles. We are different; not bad or good different we are just different. It’s also exhausting to spend the day trying to be someone you are not. But be nice! Don’t use the excuse of “being myself” to be disrespectful to others. Always be respectful.
5.) If you could go to lunch with any woman in UT history, who would it be and why?
A: I didn’t grow up in Tennessee so I don’t have a history of knowing many women who have made an impact. Joan Cronan came to one of my classes to speak to speak, and I got to talk to her bit about her career at UT. I know both her and Pat Summitt were a huge influence for women’s athletics on this campus. I’ve met and spoken with many women leaders currently working on our campus and I’ve gotten to listened to their stories, but I’ve never met Chancellor Plowman! I’d love to get in her head a bit. I think she is a great leader and has done a great job walking that line between being compassionate and being forceful in her leadership, which is hard to do as woman.