What inspired you to work in the mission critical sector?

My degree is in International Politics but coming out of university I wanted to stay local rather than relocating, so I joined a small mission critical engineering firm in Milwaukee, USA. For 11 years I was immersed in the exciting world of data centres: the industry, the projects, and the complex engineering… and I never looked back. 

I was drawn by the opportunity to work on something different and was interested in the caliber of global tech clients and the concept of facilities and systems that could survive things like utility interruptions and equipment failures and still perform 24x7x365.
 

How did you join kW Mission Critical Engineering and can you explain more about your role?

I’d been out of the industry for a few years when a former colleague asked me to return and join the team. In some ways coming back was like riding a bike, you don’t forget how, but going from a small firm to an industry leader and the sheer size of the projects meant I had a lot to learn to bring my bike up to speed.

I started in 2020 during Covid, and as a Senior Project Manager, I often describe my role as being more like a cat herder! The number of internal and external people involved in a project across multiple time zones and countries can be pretty daunting to coordinate, so effective communication is critical. There can be a lot of changes to the design of facilities and systems throughout a project, which in turn affects everything from contracts, budgets and schedules to the scope we’ve been asked to deliver. Making sure changes are properly documented and approved is one of the most important parts of my job.
 

What are the challenges of mission critical from a project management perspective?

Managing the speed of change in the industry especially with AI coming on board is a big challenge. AI and other high-density technologies need a vast amount of processing power to run and that’s changing how data centres are designed and built.

It’s interesting to be in the middle of that shift and see the nitty-gritty of what’s involved. For example, hyperscale data centres are designed to fit specific tenants’ operational requirements. As tenants’ businesses evolve to adopt AI, what they need from a data centre (and from their data centre engineer) changes too… rapidly.