Dave Roberts is VP of Operations and Strategy at Outer Banks Blue Realty Services and Principal Owner of VRM Excellence, bringing more than thirty years of operational leadership experience across multiple industries. With over a decade in vacation rentals and a Six Sigma certification behind him, he has built a career around lean, data driven systems that keep large scale property management operations running smoothly. Today, he leads operations for a 300 property portfolio while also advising other companies through consulting and collaborative engagements. In this episode, Lynell sits down with Dave to explore why field staff, not the front office, are the true face of a vacation rental company. They discuss where AI and automation genuinely help operations versus where the human element still has to lead, how a Kaizen blitz took Outer Banks Blue's small appliance resolution rate from 63 percent to a sustained 100 percent, why a balanced scorecard across guest, owner, and employee metrics keeps every department accountable, and why micromanagement simply cannot work in high volume vacation rental operations. This episode is sponsored by Streamline Summit 2026