Commissioner Louis A. Molina of NYC Dept. of Citywide Administrative Services | CEOs You Should Know

Commissioner Louis A. Molina of NYC Department of Citywide Administrative Services

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, everyone, This is Steve Dallistin and welcome to this
week's edition of CEOs. You should know I'm thrilled to
be joined by Commissioner Molina, the Commissioner of the New
York City Department of Citywide Administrative Services, also known as DECAST.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Commissioner, thanks for being here today, Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
We're excited to jump in and to learn a little
bit about yourself as well as the department. Okay, so
why don't we kick off things today and talk a
little bit about your background and what really inspired you
to have a career in the public service.

Speaker 3 (00:28):
So, you know, I'm a kid from the city at heart,
grew up in the Bronx, and you know, my family
had very humble beginnings, like many many millions of families
in New York City. But I was very fortunate to
have both my mom and my dad in my household.
Not a lot of kids had that I grew up with.
Not a lot of kids unfortunately have that today. We
have a lot of single parent homes. And I just
you know, encountered service throughout my journey as a kid

(00:52):
as a young adult, whether it was the school crossing
guard that would making sure me and my brothers and
sisters safely cross the street. Teachers that were in our lives,
police officers that grew up in my neighborhood, sanitation workers.
So for me, joining public service seemed like something that
was a really honorable thing to do as a young kid.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
That's awesome. It was ingrained in your blood from very
early on.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
Yes, so you mentioned you were a lifelong New Yorker,
but something also interesting is that you were a second
generation US Marine.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
How did that shape you so in a lot of ways.
You know, New York City is a tough town.

Speaker 3 (01:27):
It was a tough It's a tough town today, full
of opportunities, but being a kid and a young adult
growing up in New York City in the seventies, eighties,
and nineties, it was a really, really tough place. I remember,
you know, nineteen eighty nine, I was seventeen years old.
We had just in the Bronx alone, four hundred and
seventy eight people were killed. Wow, in the Bronx. City wide,
that number was over nineteen hundred. So, you know, when

(01:50):
you look at New York City then and look at
New York City today, you know, a year to date,
you know, a homicide rate in the Bronx salons like fifteen,
and city wide it's just a little bit about fifty
and it's been a thirty three percent decline. So New
York City is in a much better place today from
a public safety standpoint than it was when I was
a kid growing up. But there was a lot of
crime in disorder and I wanted to go to college.

(02:11):
Right My dad was in the Marine Corps, so I
naturally joined the Marine Corps to get the GI bill
and go to college. And the Marine Corps did a
lot of good for me, you know, gave me discipline,
gave me a sense of purpose, helped me mature as
a young adult into a man. And I always be
thankful of the friends that I made in that process.

(02:33):
So thankful to the Marine Corps. I'm a college graduate
today because of the GI Bill in the Marine Corps.
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:37):
Those are great traits and foundations to have in your
life and obviously be able to impact into your day
to day today.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Absolutely, speaking of education.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
I know that you've had the privilege of being part
of various protigious institutions like Harvard and Columbia, and he
even had a chance to study abroad, which is obviously
very impressive. What inspired you throughout that journey to take
all those steps to better your education?

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Yeah, so, I you know, from my parents, even though
I was the first in my family to go to college,
it didn't seem reachable at the moment when you're eighteen
years old, especially when you don't have a shepherd or
navigator or guide you through that process. But I learned
early on after I came out of the Marine Corps
went to my undergrad at Chamana University in Honolulu, Hawaii,
because I was stationed out there with the Marine Corps,

(03:22):
really realized how much investment is needed in yourself in
order for you to create opportunities for yourself. Right, So,
I think, you know, luck is when the timing of
opportunity and preparation sort of collide, and education is a
big part of that. And when I got the chance
to study at Columbia University as well as then it
was marriage college, now it's Marriage University. To go to

(03:43):
graduate school, I really needed to build a foundation of
understanding and improving myself as a researcher, as a writer,
and really being able to understand budgets, how to read
A P and L and financial statements, and I think
all of those academic institutions really helped to build the
framework of what I needed to understand how to solve
a problem. But when I had the chance to go

(04:03):
to Harvard Business School's General Management program, that really had
the most impact on me because the professors, the other
students that were involved in the course, they had real
world practical experience that could translate into the challenges we
were trying to solve today, and I think they do
a really phenomenal job and just staying connected to their alumni.
So I went to the HBS program in twenty twenty

(04:25):
and I'm still connected today with the students that were
in my cohort as well as the professors that were there.
So it was an unbelievable opportunity.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
That's awesome, very impressive. Back, Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
Lucky to go to undergrad in Honolulu.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
Too, right, Yeah, the weather was really nice. I lived
in honolul Hawaii for about ten years. I met my
wife there. We've been married almost twenty five years now.
So Hawaii is a great place. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
Well looking forward to today, right, and all the positive
work that you do so I know you as an
individual do a lot of work to make a positive
different as a person on the community and really every
neighborhood in America. What has been the thing about that
mission that drives you each and every day when you
walk into the office.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, so I think for me, being able to work
and live in service of others is an honor right,
and you can have real impact on an individual level
or on a really group level, depending on what you're
trying to address. That really can change the trajectory of
an individual's life for the positive. And I think that's
what drives me every day. Right, How do I help

(05:31):
when I interact with my staff, when I interact with
the other agencies which we serve across the city, when
I interact with the public, what can we do to
make their life a little bit easier but also at
the same time give them access to opportunities. So, whether
we're talking about job opportunities for those that are seeking
employment to join our many city agencies that have opportunities,

(05:53):
or we're talking about small businesses or minority women business
enterprises that want an opportunity to be able to serve
the city as a vendor. We want to make that
process as easy as possible for individuals and companies all
the time.

Speaker 2 (06:05):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (06:06):
It must be a very rewarding experience to every day
work with a purpose, right, Like every single day the
work that you're doing is doing good.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, and you know, we do a variety of things
at decasts, which we'll talk about, I'm sure, but the
staff is top notch, filled with a lot of experts
from a number of different fields, and every day within
their individual fields they have the very purpose driven but
collectively that work moves the city of the workforward every day.

Speaker 1 (06:33):
That's extremely important to have a strong team that's all
coming together for one mission.

Speaker 2 (06:37):
Absolutely, that's awesome. Speaking of DCAST, let's jump into that
a little bit.

Speaker 1 (06:41):
I know that the department manages citywide operations, everything from
civil service to real estate and many other responsibilities for
New Yorkers. Can you tell us a little bit about
what it looks like day to day and what are
some of the different headwinds looking ahead into the city.

Speaker 2 (06:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
So I think for me, and I think from heads
of agencies or CEOs and the private set that are
leading in large organizations, a lot of your time has
to be spent out of the office. So I spent
about seventy percent of my time outside the office, whether
it's engaging with staff, engaging with our agencies that are
tenants in the buildings that we manage, meeting with small

(07:18):
businesses to understand what are the challenges that they're facing,
if there are barriers and we need to sort of
pivot and do things differently to make the ease of
doing business with the city a little bit more palatable
for them. So seventy percent of my time is really
within engagement. Now we're also breaking down silos because we,
as you said, we managed city wide operations on the

(07:39):
civil service level. That also means procurement. We have about
one point three billion a year and procurement spend for
goods and services for the city. We also manage the
city's fleet operations, which is an excess of twenty eight
thousand vehicles from Sedan's to heavy trucks like fire trucks
and sanitation vehicles. And we also manages the city's energy right,

(08:01):
so we're thinking about how do we make the city
sustainable to lower our greenhouse gas emissions, managing our city's
climate plan. So all of that takes a lot of
engagement to keep people focused and the work moving forward.
But we can't do it alone, so our sister agencies
play a huge part and making that possible for the
entire city's workforce and the entire city's ecosystem.

Speaker 2 (08:22):
That's awesome. Sounds like you're a very busy man. It's busy,
but it's very rewarding work.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
I get to work with an amazing staff that I
learned every day from. Hopefully there learning a little for
me as we have those touch points, but it's very
rewarding day in and day out.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
That's great.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
I think so many people hear decass over the years
and they don't necessarily know the day to day. So
thank you so much for taking us for some of
the great things that you guys are doing.

Speaker 2 (08:45):
By the scenes. I know you touched on this a
little bit.

Speaker 1 (08:48):
One of the initiatives is really around climate, right, tell
us a little bit about the city's greenhouse gas reduction
plan and how you really foresee it impacting the future.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah, So in a number of way we've made great strides.

Speaker 3 (09:00):
I mean we're upwards of like thirty point five megawats
just in solar so we've instarted a lot of solar
panels across many city buildings throughout the city. We have
a great partnership with the Department of Education, so hats
off to the Chancellor that's been a real partner and
trying to deal with our sustainability plan. Our goal is
to lower it by forty percent by twenty twenty seven.

(09:22):
We had to sort of change our goal timeline because
of COVID and supply chain issues, but we're on target
to meet forty percent by twenty twenty seven and fifty
percent by twenty twenty thirty. And it's a multiple prong strategy.
One part of it is solar, another part of it
is updating our building management system so that they're more
sustainable so that we can lower our carbon footprint and

(09:44):
our buildings. And another big part of it is our
fleet management. Right we have now in our fleet five
four hundred electric vehicles. That number will grow to six
thousand by the end of the year, and then for
our heavy duty trucks because the electric isn't quite really
there for heavy duty trucks, we've converted over twelve thousand,

(10:05):
five hundred vehicles to renew with diesel just because that
burns cleaner than your traditional diesel. So it's an all
team effort. I have to thank our Deputy Commissioner Santa Barracott,
who oversees our Division of Energy Management, and our Deputy
Commissioner Keith Kerman, he's our city wide fleet officer overseas
that they're doing tremendous work and the city's really lucky
to have them.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
That's awesome. It seems like you guys are doing a
lot of really great work. Yes, it's a team effort.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, absolutely, I know. Every day really the mission is
making a change and taking a step better for a
better future for all New Yorkers. What is your vision
for the future of New York and how do you
really see it transforming over the next ten years.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
Yeah, so I'll start off with I think one of
the biggest things the Andams administration I think did was
the City of Yes, I think that piece of legislation
is going to significantly transform and evolve not only the
city but the city's landscape to give us an opportunity
to increase much needed affordable housing. You know, our vacancy

(11:04):
rate is about one point four percent and the city
is getting expensive, right, and we just don't have enough
supply to meet the housing demand that we have here
in New York City. So when I think about just
how doing big things, city of Yes represents that this
city can still do big things. And we have to
also recognize that the buildings and our portfolio are aging.

(11:28):
On average, they're like ninety years old. Many of these
building systems are thirty and forty years old. So I
think transitioning and really thinking about how can we put
affordable housing and what is really outdated office spaces, and
how we can shift to how our workforce work in
much more updated business spaces that are more environmentally friendly,
provide a better work life balance for our workers. It's

(11:50):
a win win for affordable housing, it's a win win
for the retention people that work for the city. So
I think that's one of the biggest transformers of pieces
of legislation that this city has done in the generation.

Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, and such an important topic too, and something that's
the top of mind for so many New Yorkers. Absolutely,
I'm looking forward to that that in near future continuing
to happen. But thank you for the progress you guys
have been making so far. So let's talk a little
bit more about you as an individual. So obviously we
started off the conversation talking about some of those innate
traits that were built into you from your childhood, from

(12:25):
your time with the Marines. What do you think has
led you to have resistance in your day to day
and how have you worked to overcome different obstacles.

Speaker 3 (12:34):
Yeah, so, you know, I think in a lot of
large organizations and the majority of cases is easy to
be complacent, sure, right, And that complacency can build people
to be in silos. And I think you know what's
important is you want to value the institutional history that exists.
But in a city like New York, you have to

(12:56):
constantly be rethinking how can we be better. That doesn't
mean that so messaging is important. That doesn't mean that
we're trying to eliminate somebody's job, but we're trying to
enhance that person's ability to be more successful. So you
want to have sort of this. I would call it
a creative friction, so I wouldn't call it so much resistance.
But I think when you're trying to bring about change,

(13:19):
the status quo tries to protect itself yep, right, And
I think as an agency head, it's my job to
sort of listen and understand their point of view, get
them to understand what my thinking is like and what
we're predicting the future to look like. And if we
want to continue the good work in progress that they
have done, then you have to constantly be re evolving

(13:40):
and rethinking yourself. And I always welcome their partnership, and
I think that's how we break down walls and barriers
and resistance, because it's not about me selling the future
that I think I want us to achieve. It's me
saying I want you to co create the future with me. Right,
let's be in partnership in doing that. And I think
sometimes resistance is good because I think it's important when

(14:01):
you're trying to chart your way forward. History has to
have a seat at the table, otherwise you may replicate
something in a similar way and you might not succeed. Right,
So I think history is important, but also people's input,
and people that have been doing the work for a
long time, their input has a lot of value as well.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Yeah, And I think you can learn from that, right,
You learn from the history, and you take those lessons
and those learnings and be able to move forward on
a better path.

Speaker 2 (14:29):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (14:30):
And it goes back to what you said earlier. You
can't do it alone, right, So you have to have
that collaboration and those teammate and those partnerships to be
able to make things happen.

Speaker 3 (14:37):
Yeah, I mean I remember a professor I had at
HBS in the GMP program, doctor Linda Hill. I walked
away with two important things from her. One is you
have to be able to harness the collective genius right
of your team and as a leader. The way you
do that is like there's three things that she always
talks about. One managing yourself, how do people experience you
as a leader and be sensitive and visit to that

(15:00):
having that emotional intelligence to understand that. You want to
also be able to manage your network. I mean as
a leader, even if you're the CEO or commission of
an agency, your formal authority can only get you so far,
so you have to look at the horizontal network that
you've built as a leader or at any level within
an organization to be able to move work forward. And

(15:21):
then really managing your team and really understanding how do
you serve as a leader as a bridge to help
your team enhance their ability to accomplish what you're trying
to have them accomplish. And if you do those things,
and you're not going to be successful in everything that
you do, but you'll give yourself a high probability of
success if you do that.

Speaker 2 (15:40):
Great advice. For sure.

Speaker 1 (15:42):
It's great that you still remember that to this absolutely. Yeah,
that's awesome. So for speaking of advice, for anyone listening
now that might think of a future path or a
future career within public services, what advice would you give them?

Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, So, I think depending on what you're doing and
the focus of your work, I think it's important that
you're constantly reading about the sector that you're in, whatever
that may be, whether it's public safety, healthcare. You want
to be up on the best practices that are happening
either across the country across the world, depending on your sector.
I think that's important. You know, we have a lot

(16:17):
in the private sector, and especially in the public sector,
the opportunities for you to be able to invest in yourself.
Some of those are academic driven, others are professional development,
and when those opportunities are presented to you, you should
seek them. The other thing is, as you're wanting to
move up in a career. If you're looking to move
up into these senior roles, I would say, don't geographically

(16:38):
limit yourself right to only wanting to be in one
space of where the job opportunity may be. So like
for me, I've been blessed to you know, I've worked overseas,
I've worked another municipalities and local government across the country,
and all those opportunities gave me. That gave me the
chance to compete to be considered to become a commissioner today.

(17:00):
That would be the advice I would give.

Speaker 1 (17:01):
That's awesome, great advice, Thank you. So what's next for DCASS?
Is there any exciting developments on the horizon.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
So a number of things we're we're pushing ahead with
our sustainability plans. We have one of the largest green fleets,
at least in the East Coast, probably the second largest
in the nation. And one of the things what they
we're also doing is increasing our capacity to be able
to charge our electric fleet. So we have just over
two thousand charges now, we'll probably be at twenty five

(17:28):
hundred at the end of the year. We're working closely
with the Economic Development Corporation. We have the one hundred
gold Street project. That's an Economic Development Corporation led project.
We're supporting that project to bring believe it's over one
thousand affordable units of housing. You know, we give throughout
the year about one hundred and eighty five exams. We

(17:49):
gave two hundred plus last fiscal year. As we adapt
to agencies' needs and as you know, people are retiring,
I encourage people to look at the schedule of exams
that are coming up. Eighty three percent of our city
workforce is hired via a civil service exam, So I
encourage people to take exams and get on lists because
we have about nineteen thousand vacancies right now.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Wow, so the city is hiring lots of opportunities. There's
a lot of.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
Opportunity to move up and engage and learn. And what
we have been adapting to as a city is no
longer there's one person take a job and then twenty
five years later retire from the same organization. Sure, so
we have had to inject agility. We're going to start
doing more career planning so that people like myself I've
worked in about five or six different city agencies, a

(18:37):
person can have that pathway as well if they want it.

Speaker 1 (18:40):
And if someone wanted to find out about those opportunities,
about the civil service exams, what's their first step.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
Yeah, they can google NYC jobs. That'll take you to
a link to our job site. Our schedule of all
of our exams are there. We also have job opportunities
that just require a resume, don't necessarily require exam. If
you're a student Atcunity, we have a Cunity Career Pathways
Fellowshi programs. Great, that's another entrance way into city service,
on a pathway to permanency a number of all of

(19:06):
our agencies, not just decasts. So there's a lot of
opportunity on a NYC jobs website.

Speaker 1 (19:12):
That's great, lots of opportunities. Everybody right right now is
looking for new opportunities, So great advice to be able
to look up NYC jobs.

Speaker 3 (19:19):
Yeah, and you know our Small Business Service NYC Talent,
we can do a number of hiring holes. Initially the
hiring holes just were for city jobs. We've opened that
up and now under Commissional Growth, who oversees the Small
Business Services' she's opened it up where you have not
only city job opportunities, for private sector opportunities as well.

(19:39):
Whether they be in the nonprofit or in the private sector.
We have a lot of hiring holes going on throughout
the city, so I would encourage people to look that
up as well.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
Great, great advice. So you've done a lot of really
great work within the public service. So thank you so
much for sharing, thank you for having a bit about
your background. And I know that you still have a
lot of work you want to accomplish looking ahead. But
what is one thing you want people to take away
as your mission as commissioner?

Speaker 3 (20:04):
Yeah, so I think you know, when we think about
our city moving forward, just from a sustainability standpoint, I
think everybody can chip in. You know, we have demand
response program at the city where we don't leave lights
on none necessarily. People could do that at home, right
and be conservative with how they do things. We have
composting now and now you have to you know, you're

(20:25):
obligated to do your composting nowadays. People should take that seriously.
I think collectively, if the millions of New Yorkers are
doing a little bit of their part, will have amazing
impact on our environment. So that's what I would take away.
And listen, government plays a big role in opportunity, right,

(20:45):
it's not easy to do. Everybody has a lot of
different opinions on how they would prefer things to be managed.
But I think the significant majority of government workers are
doing this from the heart, from a good place, and
they want to see our city thrive. So support and
thank government workers when you see them, whether they are
working for sanitation, our police department, our custodians that keep

(21:09):
our building systems clean, all of us together are doing
everything we can to make this the best city for
families to live in.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
That's awesome, We'll Commissioner.

Speaker 1 (21:17):
From our conversation today, I could definitely tell you're doing
it every day from the heart. Thank you for everything
you do for the community and for all New York.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
Thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
We appreciate you sharing with us a little bit about
your background about the city, and really excited for the
things to come in the future. Ye thank you everybody
for tuning in to this week's edition of CEOs You
should know.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Tune next week for next week's episode.