At Exterior Medics, we aren’t surprised that the head of our Multi-Family Property department, Gabriela Torres, can multitask like a champion. Her career at Exterior Medics embodies the spirit of personal growth and professional challenge that we encourage in our entire team. As the Property Manager Liaison, Gabriela has been one of our stars in handling the challenge of COVID-19, upping her game in all aspects of her work and modeling how to get the job done.
Developing Her Own Department
Gabriela joined Exterior Medics in 2017 as an administrative assistant, and right away she proved to be a proactive, reliable team player who the owners could count on to follow up and follow through. She was given increasing responsibilities, until 2018 when a huge windstorm hit Northern Virginia. At that time, Exterior Medics realized that their multi-family property clients needed special attention to handle the crisis and their ongoing needs. In just two years, the department has grown to four people, led by Gabriela. She has been entrusted with putting together proposals for jobs, and she prides herself on making sure that the notice-to-proposal process takes a week or less.
Her Vision, Her Hard-Work
The Multi-Family Property Management department builds and maintains relationships primarily with property managers, providing services from small repairs at individual units to large-scale rehabilitation. Traditionally, Gabriela has emphasized personal connection with her clients, and in person meetings were a big part of her strategy. Portfolio Manager, Jennifer Brymer, had this to say about the relationship her and Gabriela have, “When I first came to Virginia to manage communities two years ago, I was introduced to Gabi and Exterior Medics almost immediately as I jumped into dealing with roof projects in two of my current associations. Since my day one, Gabi has gone above and beyond to provide support in any way possible. Her responsiveness and attention to detail (almost on the verge of complete OCD), has been tremendous. I know that I can always rely on Gabi, not only professionally, but also personally as she has become someone that I consider to be a close friend as I was getting acclimated with this new location.” Exterior Medics has hosted networking and appreciation events and the Property Management team tries to attend meetings of associations and other groups that focus on the needs of property managers to stay on top of the latest trends and needs of their client base. Her business development approach is to cultivate and harvest new clients through establishing trust.
COVID-19
2020 has been a challenging year for us all, but the challenge started a little earlier for Gabriela. In January, she gave birth to her first child, and on the very day she was meant to return to work, COVID-19 caused Exterior Medics to move their team to telework. Immediately, Gabriela began to figure out how to accomplish her duties digitally and balance having a newborn steps away while she tends to her clients and her team. One of her new tasks has been helping residents to understand the safety protocols that Exterior Medics has put in place to protect the safety of the team and the residents when a job is being done.
With the pandemic rules, in-person meetings have been impossible, so Gabriela has moved online – and on the phone – to get her work done. She sets aside a day a week to call clients to make sure they are doing okay, and she often follows up on client emails with the more personal touch of a phone call. “When I make a call, I can ask the client how they are doing, and show that I am interested in their well-being, which doesn’t come through in an email,” says Gabriela. She has also coordinated with some other businesses who offer services to property managers to create the Pay It Forward Program, where they have nominated a property manager who went above and beyond during the pandemic, and then asked that manager to nominate a colleague. The goal is to have a couple dozen nominees to celebrate and recognize.
The Hallmark of Gabriela Torres
Client interface and personal relationships are a hallmark of Gabriela’s approach to her work. Many of her clients are friends on social media, and she makes a point to connect with them on those platforms as well. For instance, a client recently announced on Facebook that she was going to have a baby, and Gabriela arranged for delivery of a congratulatory gift. As an introvert, she says that working with her clients and developing these relationships have helped her to be more extroverted, and she loves this part of the job.
“One of the greatest assets of our Exterior Medics Team is having great people; Gabi is one of them! I had the pleasure of knowing Gabi for several years before bringing her on board. She worked with my wife and was a parent liaison at an elementary school where she was responsible for handling communication between parent and school officials, right in line with what she does for us today. Every time I saw her, she had a positive, enthusiastic perspective, and an optimistic outlook on life. My wife would come home from work and tell me, “Joe, you need to hire her, she’s fantastic.” My business partner, Mark, and I interviewed and hired her on the spot. No surprise, she nailed the interview and professionally was everything I knew she would be. Since then, Gabi has created an entire department centered around what she does best, makes people around her better. She's interviewed, hired, and trained our entire property management team. She's our right-hand woman, and we couldn’t do it without her. Her constant focus is on client relationships, providing outstanding customer service, and building her team to be the best they can be. To this day, through all challenging times, Gabi continues to use her motivation to empower those around her to help make our Exterior Medics Team the best we can be. Mark and I are fortunate to be able to surround ourselves with people that help make us better, our Gabs is one of those people, and we love her for it!”
- Joe LeVecchi, Co-Owner at Exterior Medics
Asked about her experience at Exterior Medics, and Gabriela immediately raves about the culture of opportunity and genuineness. She has relished building a solid department, and she looks forward to helping the Exterior Medics expansion into its new locations by developing similar departments for a regional approach to servicing clients. Given the fantastic job Gabriela has been doing so far, we think she will be hugely instrumental in the company’s continued growth.
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