Salute Mission Critical – Providing Data Centers with the Talent and Technology To Execute Mission Critical Operations with Military Precision

“With a well-defined process flow and a highly adaptable operations model, we deliver an exceptionally flexible service that meets the client’s requirements.”

Salute Mission Critical is a global Data Center services company that delivers a new operating model that is agile, resilient, and scalable. Salute specializes in utilizing highly trained American military veterans to deploy, manage & decommission data centers worldwide with consistently high-quality results. The organization's ability to recruit, train, and support teams is unique and applied in a highly effective manner to fulfill requirements anywhere.

Salute Mission Critical was founded in 2013 and is headquartered in Clinton Township, Michigan.

Jason Okroy (CEO) and Lee Kirby (Chairman & Co-founder), Salute Mission Critical, spoke exclusively to The Silicon Review on how their company is recruiting and training military veterans to make them world-class technicians.

Interview Highlights

Q. From your perspective, how is the industry you serve currently evolving? And where does Salute Mission Critical stand at the moment relative to other participants in the industry, Mr. Okroy?

The next 10 years will see further advances in technology that support operations. Integrating artificial intelligence and machine learning will drive even greater efficiencies and have a greater effect on reliability by digitizing labor functions. If you consider the advances in the last 10 years, they will be even greater in the next.

Despite being in an industry that is noted for its rapid growth and change, some things have been slow to change, which has impaired data center operations. The chronic problem of talent shortage and human error impacts in the data center have been solved with Salute's Multi-Skilled Operator model. Just 10 years ago, Salute built a model that eliminated the non-value added tasks and augmented it with best-of-breed training processes and technological support. This reduced staffing requirements and saved a minimum of 35 percent of costs for those who embraced the lean principles model.

Salute is now leaning forward to embracing new technologies and integration so that the next step further reduces staffing requirements and establishes solutions that promote even greater growth, less risk, and environmental sustainability with the digitization of labor. Just three examples of projects underway that embrace technology and are intended to drive even greater value at less costs are:

• We are using drones for security patrols, roof and facade inspections, and infrared moisture surveys.
• Our robots perform rounds and readings, clean floors, provide security escorts, and can decommission end-of-life IT equipment. We also use them to perform IR scanning in critical environments.
• We have Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools gathering data and making decisions for condition-based maintenance, predicting equipment failures, autonomous control of equipment settings, and enabling lights-out operations.

Q. What makes – and keeps – Salute relevant, Mr. Kirby?

Salute Mission Critical addresses the talent challenge that plagues even the most sophisticated hyperscalers, colocation providers, and edge operators. As a global data center services provider, our roots can be traced back to when I and Jason Okroy, decided to address two urgent issues that loomed over the data center services industry: underemployment among military veterans and a data center talent crisis. Salute has now hired and trained more than 3,000 veterans and military spouses whose technical expertise has become crucial in managing critical infrastructure around the globe. Many data centers have benefited from the discipline and integrity ingrained in this skilled labor force from their time in the military.

Q. What can you tell us about the Salute operating model, and what makes it cost-effective, resilient, and strategically advantageous, Mr. Okroy?

Salute Mission Critical's data center management service is delivered through two core teams: dedicated teams and project teams.

Our dedicated teams' model is hybrid, which allows multi-skilled operators to perform a mix of mission-critical functions such as security, facility, and IT support. Traditionally, companies carry out such mission-critical functions independently, creating siloes that many data center operators find to be inefficient and costly. This helps customers reduce the labor force and costs as well as improve resource utilization significantly while ensuring alignment to SLA expectations. In addition to providing critical facility operations services, these technicians provide preventive maintenance and security services. Our dedicated teams also manage the clients' facilities remotely by leveraging the global command center, a dedicated facility that can manage multiple remote facilities. With the command center, the company's staff can monitor the clients' facilities and escalate issues accordingly. They also handle ticketing and dispatch functions according to the defined service levels to ensure timely resolution of site issues.

Our project division delivers white-glove services, including containment, racking and stacking, construction support, logistic support audits, QA and QC, data center cleaning, and more. By providing extensive training to our project teams, we prepare them to deliver critical data center services and continuously grow from entry-level to senior-level skills. To manage the project team's training efficiently, we use an LMS platform and produce multi-skilled technicians who become a seamlessly integrated part of Salute Mission Critical.

With a well-defined process flow and a highly adaptable operations model, we deliver an exceptionally flexible service that meets the client's requirements. Understanding that no two clients' challenges are the same, we take a holistic view of the client's business needs and collaborate with them to bring successful outcomes. Based on a custom program and a playbook, we deploy a suite of solutions to mitigate the challenges of its customers. Instead of forcing the customer to use any particular platform or solution, we recommend the best suite of technology to solve the customer's pain points. This ensures that the client can operate the data centers with a minimum number of technicians while maintaining maximum efficiency.

Salute Mission Critical achieves such high levels of efficiency by maintaining an optimal balance of people, processes, and technology throughout the project lifecycle.

Q. How skilled is the Salute team of experts? And how do they bring value to the company, Mr. Kirby?

Our progressive workforce development model is enabled by the Salute Training Academy. This integrated training program includes both common core and graduated curricula based on skill and experience, as determined by a pre-test. The curricula encompass all aspects of data center safety, equipment, facilities, security, operations, maintenance, incident handling and response, deployment, and decommissioning.

Every junior-level candidate looking to serve as a data center technician completes a 90-day foundational program. That's in addition to the continuous development of our managers with hiring, safety, and leadership training. In every case, our training programs are purpose-built to develop specific technical competencies, augmenting our culture and the foundational skillsets our veterans come in with.

We're able to accelerate training and reduce onboarding time because we correlate specific training programs to specific data center experiences. In addition, our proprietary management software IZON standardizes onboarding and training processes and flow.

In addition, Salute team members who work at client sites receive client site-specific training, which covers the client's policies, procedures, and equipment; service response, escalation, and emergency response requirements. Where the client requires us to interface with their CRM platform, our team members are also trained on that platform, its requirements, and SLAs.

Ongoing Professional & Technical Development

Hiring technically competent and astute individuals and adding structured and on-the-job training (OJT) training, we quickly progress our team through site certification. Everyone who passes through this program becomes certified to perform specific tasks matched to their training level. There are several logical progressions to such a program: 1) Qualification for supervised operations, 2) Qualification for unsupervised operations, and 3) Qualification for advanced operations.

Level 1

The goal at this level is to produce an employee that is capable of "standing watch" and properly responding to emergencies. Ideally, there would be at least one other more highly qualified staff member on duty with them.

Level 2

At this level, the training focuses on learning the site-specific critical systems while beginning participation in routine work practices.

Level 3

Here the focus broadens to non-critical systems while getting more in-depth into the critical systems. Completion of Level 3 is where most Salute team members will end up. When employees are hired with more experience and stay with Salute longer, they may move to level 4 training. Also, when an employee aspires to lead roles level, four is available to develop and demonstrate skills and competencies associated with those roles.

Level 4

This level puts the employee on the path to becoming a subject matter expert and includes; select, technically difficult procedures, specialized outside training, training course development, and training course delivery.

Q. Will Salute be expanding, bringing on any new services that we should be aware of, Mr. Okroy?

We have several initiatives underway with new technology that will evolve and be productized. Some of the most immediate advances are what we are offering as part of our sustainable operations solution set. These offerings are driving results both with existing clients and new ones.

• Maintenance management systems fully implemented and optimized procedures and enhanced trending reduces labor and increase the quality
• Environmental sensors and controls are fully implemented and reducing consumption with real-time results
• Cryptocurrency operations are benefiting from the best practices of mission-critical operations, and our solution for this sector has been rapidly adopted
• A proprietary life cycle management system (IZON) brings people, processes, and technologies together and drives transparency - it provides a global view of all technologies, projects, and assets as well as outcomes that achieve the highest standards in safety, quality, and communication

Q. Is there anything else you want us to highlight that we might have missed?

Salute is a triple bottom line success story, having introduced (3K+) military personnel to the industry and will exceed 1K full-time staff in the next twelve months. Salute was also ranked as a Top 10 Military Friendly Employer and Spouse Employer for 2022. When you consider that 12 percent of Salute's veteran staff were homeless at the time of their hiring, you realize the monumental impact Salute is having in the lives of the military community and the industry at large.

Leadership | Salute Mission Critical

Jason Okroy is the Chief Executive Officer of Salute Mission Critical. He is a technology industry leader with a proven track record of building high-performing teams, creating innovative solutions to operations problems, and generating revenue growth. He is uniquely skilled at bringing together disparate teams, vendors, and subject matter experts and building consensus around a strategy or solution. The hallmark of his leadership is getting all parties to drive towards achieving a common goal.

Lee Kirby is the Co-founder and Chairman of Salute Mission Critical. He has more than 40 years of experience in all aspects of information systems, strategic business development, finance, planning, human resources, and administration, both in the private and public sectors. Lee has successfully led several technology startups and turn-around and built and run world-class global operations. In addition to his many years as a successful technology industry leader, he has masterfully balanced a successful military career over 36 years (Ret. Colonel) and continues to serve as an advisor to many veteran support organizations.

“Salute has now hired and trained more than 3,000 veterans and military spouses whose technical expertise has become crucial in managing critical infrastructure around the globe.”