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Adventure motorcycling participants must be self-reliant and possess a sense of . . . well, adventure. “It’s a mix of pavement and off-road sections, while carrying the gear necessary for surviving outdoors. This could be a simple day trip through local trails or an epic transcontinental tour,” says Andrew Godaire, adventure motorcyclist and vice president of engineering at Montage International.
Activities surrounding adventure motorcycling are not unlike those duties Godaire performs at Montage, which include operating and maintaining the physical buildings, equipment, and grounds through their entire life cycle to Montage’s luxury standard. Preventative maintenance is at the core of his team’s duties at Montage and at the core of adventure motorcycling.
“You’re often off in remote places without any support system. So, it’s critical that the maintenance on my motorcycle is well-kept and that I’m prepared for a trailside repair if something does go haywire. The cavalry isn’t coming to the rescue when you’re in the middle of nowhere,” Godaire explains. It’s right out of the 1974 book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, he says.
Montage was founded in 2002 as an ultra-luxury hotel brand with a humble and gracious approach to hospitality. In 2014, Montage launched Pendry Hotels & Resorts to complement its legendary service culture with a contemporary, fun, and engaging spin.
Godaire signed on with Montage in 2010 as director of engineering in preparation for the opening of Montage’s third hotel. Five years later, now as lead of the corporate division, he seized the opportunity to modernize Montage’s operations with scalable systems and processes that empower his teams with automation, key performance data, and its long-term capital planning processes. Thus he transformed the executive view of hotel engineering from a service provider to a strategic business leader.
“It was a blank canvas,” he says. “I was starting from scratch with limited systems to support our business. At the time, our five resorts relied heavily on handwritten work orders and spreadsheets.”
Godaire had modernization in mind when crafting his vision for the company. “Who do we want to be when we grow up as a division? What do we want to be known for?” he asked. He defined those core competencies required of property leaders, who up to that point had operated independently. “My goal was to take the best of what we were doing at each property and institutionalize best practices with the aid of modern systems.”
He consolidated processes and implemented a cloud-based maintenance management system across the Montage portfolio. “It automated all work order functions into a digital mobile platform and became our main repository for all facilities information,” Godaire says.
Using reporting technology, he built a dashboard that displays key performance indicators. “This enables us to optimize our services even further. I’m a data science nerd, and this enabled us to communicate the value that our division brings. You can’t improve what you don’t measure,” he says. Convincing property leaders to lean into technology was his biggest challenge. Looking back, Godaire reflects, nobody can imagine doing it the old way.
Traditionally executives have viewed facilities engineering as a support function offering little strategic value, measuring performance in cost savings rather than being viewed as a revenue-generating strategic business leader. Godaire changed this view. “[I wanted to] shake the executive custodian stigma that prevented us from having a voice on the executive team,” he explains. “We’ve accomplished this with our long-term strategic facilities and capital planning processes, guiding our C-Suite and ownership groups through the many phases of their asset’s life cycle.”
He created a capital plan identifying fixed assets at Montage’s properties and assigned a useful life to each, updating the plan annually. “It was based on current conditions and anticipated useful life. This allows us to be much more proactive in planning out the replacement or renovation of the spaces,” Godaire says. “The way we approach our long-term capital planning was really our foot in the door with the C-suite as we could accurately predict the cash flow of our reserves for the next decade.”
Montage will be focused on modernizing mechanical and plumbing equipment, a realization that presents Godaire with exciting possibilities as new, more efficient equipment replaces obsolete methods.
“Preparing our parking facilities for the surge of electric vehicles is one of our upcoming challenges,” Godaire says. “Our legacy buildings weren’t designed for this type of electrical load, so we have to masterplan for smart charging and energy management systems to overcome the limitations of our infrastructure. As a luxury hotel operator, our guests and owners tend to be ahead of the curve with transitioning to EVs, and we are equally committed to doing our part in caring for and enhancing the environments that we are privileged to operate in.”
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“Since 2011, Montage International has utilized Accruent’s Maintenance Connection, enhancing system integration under Andrew’s leadership in 2015,” says Matt Sayler, Accruent’s vice president of enterprise sales. “This collaboration standardized nomenclature across sites, improving reporting and inventory management, and ensuring quick maintenance responses. We appreciate their continued support and look forward to future success.”
Montage International operates 15 luxury hotels and resorts in the US and Mexico. Its most recent Pendry construction in Newport Beach, California, is its eighth launch in six years. Pendry properties are also under development in Tampa, Florida; St. Peter, Barbados; Punta Mita, Mexico; and Gladstone, New Jersey.
Accruent is building a more connected future where your people, systems, and data work synergistically to drive informed decision-making, operational excellence, and business growth. As the world’s leading provider of workplace and asset management software for unifying the built environment, our solutions deliver not only the promised results but also illuminate possibilities you couldn’t see before. Coupled with our deep industry expertise and world-class professional services, you can depend on us to help maximize the investments in your people, assets, and facilities.
