Condo Media - April 2021 - 24

VENDOR SPOTLIGHT

Great North Property
Management, Inc.
A Model of Crisis Management
[by Pamela Schweppe]

You don't have to be in the property management business for long to realize that you have to be
prepared for absolutely anything - including a once-ina-century pandemic.
Lou Gargiulo, CMCA, doesn't have a crystal ball, but
as a decades-long property management professional,
he has seen his share of disasters, both natural and
man-made. So, he made sure that Great North Property
Management, Inc. - the company he co-founded 31 years
ago and for which he still serves as principal owner, president, and CEO - was ready for whatever fate had in store.
" One only has to imagine what would happen if there was
a major fire or flood where all of the records are stored,
if you didn't have them in a manner that they could be accessed and that they wouldn't be damaged, " he explains.
" So, over the course of years, we made sure we had systems in place to ensure the continuity of business. "
A LONG HISTORY OF LOOKING AHEAD
A family-owned, full-service management company
headquartered in Exeter, New Hampshire, Great North
employs roughly 150 professionals in various disciplines, including not only property managers, but also
accounting, administrative staff, client services, and
construction and maintenance personnel. From an initial portfolio of about a dozen properties, the firm has
expanded to manage more than 350 associations totaling roughly 25,000 units throughout New England.
From the beginning, Gargiulo has zeroed in on technology as a key competitive advantage, and state-of-the-art
systems have been a major source of investment for Great
North. That commitment was reinforced about seven
or eight years ago, when the company began developing
a plan that would allow them to continue to operate in
the event of an emergency. Redundant systems were
built in various locations, so that if something happened
at company headquarters, operations could be moved
to another of the company's 10 satellite offices within a
24-hour period. Multiple access points were added to the

systems, allowing employees to gain access to mainframe
computers securely from home or from a remote office.
" All of our electronic information is stored for the most
part on the cloud, and it has multiple backups. We built all
those systems before the pandemic, " says Gargiulo.
Additionally, the company invested significantly in the
phone system so that staff could receive calls through
the company phone system, no matter where they were.
" When the pandemic came, we just opened those systems further, " Gargiulo reveals. " We added some laptop
computers, but everything was actually well in place. "
A SECURE WORKPLACE
AT HOME AND AT THE OFFICE
With these systems already in place, it was easy for employees to transition from working in the office to working at home. " We built out systems not only with a great
deal of redundancy, but also with huge levels of security
to ensure that all of the data was protected, while allowing our service levels to continue, " says Gargiulo.
Of course, sometimes working remotely isn't possible.
Most of the accounting group and some client services
staff continued to commute to the office, and Great
North made sure safety protocols were rigidly enforced
there, too. All offices have been conducting daily temperature checks, not only of staff, but also of visitors.
That data is recorded centrally, while also respecting
privacy, for contact-tracing purposes.
Temperature checks have also been required of
staff working onsite at condominium associations.
Everyone is required to wear masks in all of the common
areas, and social distancing is strictly enforced. " With all
of those precautions, we have fortunately had very few
active cases, " Gargiulo reports.
STAYING GROUNDED WHEN
THE GROUND RULES CHANGE
Another challenge has been staying on top of everevolving government guidelines. That's especially

Condo Media - April 2021

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