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When Patrick Trevino reflects on his people-first leadership style, he brings it back to his upbringing. During his formative years, he and his mom moved from Florida to New Hampshire, a transition that exposed him to different kinds of people with different perspectives. Even though they had their cultural differences, he was intrigued to find that many of the people he met shared the same values that he grew up with in a Hispanic household.
The process of parsing through those realities over the years brought him to what he calls a “human-centric” leadership philosophy, one that he proudly lives today.
“I don’t believe in one-shoe-fits-all leadership. It should be based on the people you’re attempting to lead,” he explains. “You need to understand their cultural values, if they align with your values and how you can meet in the middle if they don’t.”
Patrick Trevino on What Brought Him to TRAX Analytics
“I was taken back by the story of the company and its founder, Tracy Davis. I was always into the interplay between operations and data-driven decisions, and she created a platform that gave clients a real time perspective on how facilities were operating. After a few phone calls, I saw that the company also aligned with my leadership style. Its leaders believed in an open-door policy and cross-departmental conversations.”
His career journey offered similar revelations. After graduating with a degree in operations and project management, Trevino worked for a firm that focused on offering soft services in aviation, where he honed his expertise in shaping effective maintenance programs and facility management efforts. Then, he and a colleague started their own company, an experience that showed him the importance of understanding what staff members go through as a leader.
“To be a good leader, you actually have to understand what your staff’s day-to-day looks like,” he says. “Making decisions in a leadership role has such an impact on people’s daily lives that without understanding that, how are you really making that decision? I learned quickly that people will follow you if you respect them as an individual, that you understand and respect what they do, and that you actually are homing in on the person, not the task at hand.
“People just want to be treated like people and with respect,” he continues. “You can’t manage through fear, controlling and making every decision yourself. It’s always great to have a perspective from every person a decision will impact. That takes time but if you have a good process, the information flows freely.”
After garnering over a decade of integrated facility management experience in the aviation industry, Trevino got a chance to bring his leadership to TRAX Analytics, a company that offers solutions that transform the way facilities manage cleanliness through the use of data and cutting-edge technology.
Trevino started in the company as a director of business development, which focused on increasing sales and expanding its client base. Over time, he kept bringing new ideas and opportunities to leadership, which allowed him to take on more responsibility and expand his focus into marketing. In 2021, he became vice president of sales and marketing, which grew the company substantially where he created a new marketing vision that has proven successful to this day. By 2022, leadership asked him to serve as executive vice president, to help lead the company and oversee day-to-day operations, a role that he proudly continues today.
“I spent a lot of my time now on growing the business, focusing in on sales but also narrowing in on product development and the future state of our product,” he explains. “It’s really inspiring to see where the technology is going. It’s one of the most exciting parts of my career every because I get to touch, feel, and develop things that are making a real change and bringing solutions to real-world problems. And I’ve been able to achieve that by getting to know the customer and the internal team.”
One of the special things about TRAX is that it keeps its promises to its people, Trevino says. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the company committed to shielding its employees from layoffs.
“No one was laid off or had monetary restructuring. We knew people were going through hard times, and we wanted to bring stability. We came up with an initiative to get us there,” he shares. “We when look back twenty-four months later, we are so proud that we continued to grow our client base, and grow our teams too. During that time, we were able to deploy our system in five different airports remotely, which had never been done before.”
Trevino advises young people to stay true to themselves and their values: “Never forget where you came from, be humble and allow others to shine.”
Patrick Trevino on AI and TRAX
“In our space, we hear a lot about AI, and our stance is we don’t want to lose the integrity of what our products solve for, but we understand that as technology evolves, so does our product. We want to ensure we’re problem-solving and not just building a product just to build one. So, we are looking at the potential usage of AI-technology, whether it’s using it to retrieve data or for creating a large ecosystem of data for our customers.”
