The Triangle

Issue date: 10/12/07 Section: News

Robert Francis is the University's first Vice President for Facilities.

There is a new executive position at Drexel, and to fill the spot, the University has brought in a new face.

Robert Francis was named the first VP of Facilities for Drexel Oct. 1. The position alleviates the workload of James Tucker, senior vice president for Student Life and Administrative Services. Now, departments ranging from Planning, Design and Construction, to Environmental Health and Safety now report to Francis, who will in turn report to Tucker.

"The new position groups under one person the responsibility for the design and construction department and the facilities operations at the main campus as well as the health sciences campus and the medical campus," said Francis. "This is a way of taking all of the facilities issues and putting them under one position."

As the first person to hold the title vice president of facilities at Drexel, Francis realizes that there are pros and cons to being first.

"It's good from the point of view that I'm not being measured against anybody who was here before, either in a good or bad way, but it's also a challenge because I'm coming into an environment that measures outcomes and has expectations," Francis said. "Since it is a new position and since I am reporting to a person with vast experience in facilities and to a president that is an engineer himself, I think the standard is going to be pretty high, so I'm going to do my best to live up to it."

Francis joins Drexel right in the middle of a very ambitious master plan that features projects in all areas of the University from Student Life to academics.

"This spring we will be breaking ground on a new recreation center, residence hall and integrated science building totaling over $153 million in new construction," Francis said in a press release.

For somebody in a position with such responsibility, Francis had an unconventional path toward becoming vice president of facilities. In an interview Francis said that he had started off teaching English and eventually became an assistant dean ofa Liberal Arts at Wright State University. While there, he was asked to temporarily fill in for somebody in the facilities department, and it eventually became his profession.

Now at Drexel, Francis is currently living in University Crossings until he finalizes his living situation.

"It's immediately convenient. I'll give it that," said Francis. "My wife has been down recently and we have found an apartment at Spruce and 22nd, and we'll be moving into that in a couple of weeks. I'll still be walking to work, but it won't be with quite the same closeness that I have at Crossings."

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