Facilities @ Management

1.4 The Birth of Facility Management and IFMA

Melvin R. Schlitt

The birth of the profession facility management and the International Facility Management Association (IFMA) and how I was intimately involved in the launch of and served as its Executive Director for the first 10 years is an interesting story with a somewhat serendipitous set of circumstances.

My father and his four brothers started a construction company after World War II to build homes for the returning soldiers and their families. The brothers had all learned home construction skills from my grandfather, who was a home builder prior to the war. The demand for new homes was very high after the war, and lumber companies were willing to supply lumber to home builders on a contingency basis with no interest since the homes were selling as fast as they could be built. My father and his brothers kept the construction business going for several years until the demand for new homes had cooled and they all went their own ways into other trades. However, my father continued to build homes for himself and when I was just a young teenager, I began to help him with home construction and learned a lot of the skills of the trade, which gave me an interest and knowledge of construction.

After graduating from Michigan State University in 1972 with a degree in Business Administration, I landed a job with Michigan National Bank in Lansing, Michigan, and started my career there as a management trainee. As a new trainee your task ...