The Men Behind the Meters
As you may or may not already know, PayLease offers so much more than just online payments! In addition to payments, billing, and utility expense management, we also provide a full-service submetering program run by an awesome group of highly qualified individuals with years of industry experience. To better understand how our submetering program works, we’ll introduce you to the team, and examine their unique roles.
Once upon a time, Cole Bowman was working in HR at a submetering company. Cole’s hard work and eagerness to learn more about our industry got him promoted to operations, where he eventually moved into the role of VP of Multifamily. That put him in charge of Billing and UEM Operations, as well as Sales and Marketing (basically every Multifamily-focused department at the company). He was there for eight years before our SVP of Operations, Matt Amoia, convinced him to play for PayLease. When Cole arrived at PayLease, our submeter services were in their infancy. We needed someone to teach us a thing or two, and Cole was the perfect fit. Cole shuffled through diagnostics to identify their goals, roadblocks, strategies, and most importantly, each PayLeaser’s specific role on the team. Now as our VP of Operations in our Chicago office, Cole has his team running like a well-oiled machine.
Meet Zack Hendrick, our reads, rates and onboarding/training aficionado. Zack hails from Midlothian, IL, a suburb south of downtown Chicago. Zack has worked at PayLease for about two years. He is responsible for pulling reads in from the AMR (automatic meter reading), collecting manual reads, importing reads into CASA (our automated billing platform), proactively identifying non-incrementing and non-transmitting meters, and providing billing and automation support. Simply put, he gets the billers what they need so we can produce statements. Logistical, left-brained Zack stated, “I like working on the biannual rates because there’s math involved with getting the calculations to match provider rate schedules, and math is what I went to school for so it’s nice to be doing work that kind of relates to that.”
Matt Burmeister has been with PayLease for almost two years now, and grew up in Lake in the Hills, Illinois, not too far from our Chicago office. As the Team Lead of Submetering, he assists our Ops teams with any submetering issues so that PayLease can onboard properties and produce bills accurately and efficiently. After diagnosing and analyzing different submetering systems, he identifies any issues, and subsequently finds a solution to get all systems running smoothly again. Communication is key in Matt’s role, so it is fortunate that he works so well with his fellow PayLeasers. Matt said, “I like interacting with all of our different departments and seeing how each person interacts with submetering in their own way.”
Everyone loves Neil Keane, who has been with PayLease for over 3 years, and is our in-house repair guy. He works directly with properties’ Submeter Reading Systems to ensure that their system is as “healthy” as possible. He receives the data, identifies the issues, and will communicate his analysis and propose a solution to our clients. Our own Mr. Fix-it loves to repair and resolve whatever submetering issues arise. He really enjoys working alongside his PayLease submetering teammates, or as some endearingly refer to them as, “stud”metering teammates.
Our latest and greatest addition to the team, is Brian Scheafer, a Montana native who lived most of his life in the Northwest Vancouver, Portland area. While he may be the newest member of our team, he is no rookie when it comes to submeters. He has been in the submetering industry for 13 years. We are very glad to have him as our first internal installation technician. He works with Neil to do repair work, which means we have a PayLeaser on site instead of a subcontractor. Clients love having a go-to representative at the site level. Brian said, “I am very excited be a part of this team, because I’m a team player and field operations is my strength.”
Last, but certainly not least, Chris Stimac is our submetering guru. As our national sales executive, Chris works with clients across the country, offering his expert advice. He’s been in the industry for over a decade, and knows submeters backwards and forwards. If you have any questions regarding your submetering needs, Chris Stimac is the man with all the answers. Submetering is a tricky business with lots of contingencies. If you have old meters installed, you may want to retrofit. If you have no meters installed, you may want to invest in automatic meters so that you can charge your residents for the utilities they use. If you have submeters installed, but they are having issues, you may want to give us a call so we can diagnose and fix the problem. Whatever your submetering needs may be, we have the best of the best here on our PayLease submetering team to assist you.