Meet the Local Team

"Hello everybody, my name is Lorena Serrano, upon completing my degree in Architecture, I started to be trained and educated in Facility Management. This educational background has given me strong foundations in architecture, construction, basic engineering, business and comprehensive insight into facility managements. I am currently finishing my Master´s in Facility Management at UPM (Spain). I am part of the local team of FMIPDS with Rick, Shikin, Blessing, and Jitesh, all of them bright team members, we enjoy working together and we learn lots! We also work with a remote team, who is a key part into the project. We all belong to different countries and the mixture is perfect! I love multicultural environments and I am always seeking to learn and grow, participating in this project is going to be a great challenge. Our main objective is increasing the visibility and recognition of the Facility Management in the global market, I strongly believe in the importance of this field as a strategic asset for public and private organizations to make them grow. I am really happy to be part of this unique project and I hope I can contribute well to it, would you like to join?" -Lorena Serrano Martinez

Sofia holds a bachelor in civil engineering and a master in construction management with focus on Facility Management, in Technical University of Lisbon. She also has studied one semester in Universidad Politécnica de Madrid by the Erasmus program. Her master's dissertation - "Facilities Management concepts applied to technical management of Portugal and Spain hotels" - developed a model to achieve simple Service Level Agreements concerning the hospitality industry particular needs. All the learning and interest about FM lead her to join the actual FMIPDS project. - Sofia Figueiredo Gomes

"The beginning of this brand new project brings lots of energy and enthusiasm to me, especially when I had to travel so far away from Kuala Lumpur to Madrid where my flight duration was nearly 24 hours and my biggest challenge is that, I will be representing my university and also my country - Malaysia. Somehow that will be tiring but we all know that time and tide wait for no man. It is my great pleasure to introduce myself here - My name is Nur Ashikin bt Mohd Thohir and this year I will be 24 years old. Shikin is what most people call me. I found that the critical, logical and also analytical thinking is enhanced from the effectual erudition system in universities, thus I’m completing my Master’s in Facilities and Maintenance Management this year at the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Previously, I had my Bachelor’s Degree in Real Estate Management at MARA University of Technology Shah Alam, Malaysia. I’m starting my career as a Pre-Development, Planning, Design and Technical Executive at one of the private companies in Kota Damansara, Malaysia. It’s really an amazing experience where I can join this unique project at the spectacular city of Madrid. Working together with those bright team members and leaders put an added value towards this project. I hope I can contribute something towards the development of Facilities Management in my country and also to the whole world. Last but not least, big thanks to my family, lecturers, friends and individuals who are involved directly or indirectly with this project." – Mohd Thohir Nurashikin

"Hello, my name is Blessing Emeruwa. I have a Bachelor’s Degree in Project Management, a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and presently undertaking a Master’s in Facility Management from the Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, Nigeria. I work presently as a Project Engineer in the Oil and Gas Industry. I have special interests in Computers, travels and football. I feel elated to be a part of this study. Being in Madrid is amazing as it is quite a beautiful city; the city centre is awesome and the people are very friendly. Here with me on the team are Rick, Lorena, Jitesh and Shikin, working with them is pretty cool. In the course of the project I hope to learn a lot and to add value while keeping an open mind." -Blessing Emeruwa

"Hi, my name is Rick van Workum, I am 24 years old, and I am a fourth year bachelor’s student in the field of Facility Management at Saxion University of Applied Science in the Netherlands. During my study I feel it is important to take on international experiences, as I would like to have an international minded future. In the end of 2009, I had my first opportunity to go abroad to New York, USA for my first internship. In 2012 I went to Asia for two shorter internships (each 3 months), to be more specific in Seoul, South Korea and Tokyo, Japan. In Korea, I researched a theory by Per Anker Jensen called: “The Added Value of FM,” the objective was to find ways to show the added value of the Facility Management Department of LG to their clients’ core business. While in Tokyo, I wrote an improvement plan for a large corporate restaurant/meeting in collaboration with AimServices and Merrill Lynch, Bank of America. After finishing my bachelor’s at Saxion Universities, I am planning to continue with my master’s in Facility Management. I am happy to be part of the local team with Lorena, Shikin, Blessing, and Jitesh. We all live together in one apartment, what makes for a great atmosphere and team feeling." -Rick van Workum

"Hey everyone, I am Jitesh Jodhani, pursuing Master’s in Construction Management with certification in Facilities Management and Business from Texas A&M University, USA. I have done Bachelor’s in Civil Engineering from SGSITS, India. I love exploring different places, making new friends and I am a big fan of cricket. I am the President-IFMA Student Chapter Texas A&M University and have always worked towards the progress of this field. I am part of the local team of FMIPDS working in Madrid, Spain. I consider it as a very good opportunity for me as I am going to learn a lot about Facility Management from this research project. I came to Madrid and joined the local team on 3rd May; it consists of Rick, Blessing, Shikin and Lorena. All of them are very friendly and motivating. They all belong to different countries but we all live together in the single apartment; work together, cook, hangout and share jokes. Madrid is really a nice place, visited some of the local attractions and they are simply awesome and the weather too. We all have started working on the project and we have good progress, I really enjoy my work and set high standards for myself. I hope I contribute well to the project and I am really keen towards the success of the project." -Jitesh Jodhani