Disrupting an Industry is Our DNA
Salute Mission Critical uniquely addresses the critical infrastructure facility management needs of hyperscalers, colo providers and edge operators. Built by combining the best practices of the military and civilian sectors, Salute brings robust processes and skilled staff who are precise, professional and adept at performing in mission critical environments.
What’s Different About Salute
To achieve our primary objective of 100% mission accomplishment, safety is the most important consideration. Unsafe activities or conditions can cause injury and loss of critical systems. All activities are governed by a well-documented safety policy to ensure control of the mission critical environment.
Identifying critical activities and establishing expectations for those activities, based on the project scope of work, becomes the foundation for pre-planning safety into each and every project. Every leader at Salute is taught to make safety a natural byproduct of quality service delivery.
To provide the highest quality services to our customers while being a gateway to the data center industry for the military ecosystem and their supporters. Our core values of integrity, reliability and work ethic are evident in everything we do. Our core competency is disciplined execution of all tasks with military precision.
Your business is unique. Your data center is unique. So your critical infrastructure facility management should be unique too. Salute works with you to understand your needs and create a custom model with just the right mix of services and skills.
The professionals at Salute serve as a true extension of our your team, embodying your corporate culture and upholding your commitment to customer service, safety and adaptability across your operations teams.
We’re not bound by the silos many data center operators have found to be inefficient and costly. Our holistic approach to critical infrastructure facility management consolidates on-site functions, ensuring optimal staffing and efficiency by leveraging cross-functional teams of multi-skilled personnel. This holistic approach reduces risk and opex while increasing productivity and retention, and ensuring quality control with a single point of ownership.
Services can be adapted quickly to match your dynamic site requirements now, and adapt quickly to grow with your business into the future. Our on-site support model covers any schedule from 8×5 through 24×7 operations, and can include both full-time and part-time roles to address any functions needed in a multi-vendor environment.
At Salute, we leverage people, process, and technology to ensure the highest quality services for our clients. We are committed to delivering real results, and doing so consistently over the long term. To ensure that we do, our continuous improvement tools include:
- Daily Toolbox Talks, weekly reports, monthly summaries
- Quarterly business reviews
- Performance tracker measures performance and efficiency including targeted KPIs that drive rewards and behavior and SLAs that match your customers
- Ongoing employee engagement, development, and growth
- SOC/ISO certification support
Our training curriculum supplements the skills and discipline our personnel have already acquired during their military service. Our proprietary training and workforce management tool, IZON, allows us total transparency with our clients.
The majority of Salute employees are from the military community. That community includes a wonderfully diverse mix of veterans, spouse, guard and reservists. They bring the same discipline and integrity to serving our data center customers as they once brought to serving their countries. You benefit from their superior situational awareness, crisis response, effective planning, risk assessment, and incident handling knowledge to secure your own mission-critical sites.
Salute’s trained teams set us apart. Our team members possess a unique set of skills necessary for the data center sector: the ability to be highly detail-oriented, perceptive and quick-thinking.
Our veterans bring a high level of situational awareness to every project. They know exactly what to do – and what not to do – in a data center. They have a clear understanding of standards, MOP (Methods of Procedure), LOR (Level of Risk) and back out procedures, and carefully adhere to customer-specific requirements.
Delivering
real results
for the world's most discerning
hyperscalers, colo providers and edge operators
among others, including 5 hyperscalers
A Recognized Leader
A Recognized Leader
Our Leadership Team
Lee Kirby
Co-founder & Chairman
Jason Okroy
Co-founder & Chief Customer and Strategy Officer
Mike Jones
Salute - Executive Vice President of Global Operations
Steve Sykes
Salute - Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing
Martin Murphy
Salute - President of EMEA
Sonda Kolodzinski
Vice President of IT & Business Operations
Ryan Buhk
Vice President of Human Resources
Andrew Sparks
Vice President of Strategic Initiatives
Michael Evans
Salute - Senior Vice President of Sales USA
Clive Fotheringham
Salute - Vice President of Operations EMEA
Emma Letchford
Salute - Director of Business Operations EMEA
Stefanie Crichton
Iconicx - Principal
Christopher Benson
Iconicx - Principal
Matt Barger
Iconicx - Director of Business Development
Our History
Salute Mission Critical was founded in 2013 by Lee Kirby and Jason Okroy who brought a wealth of experience in both the military and commercial IT operations. With their unique perspective, they noticed those two different, yet equally urgent problems: underemployment among military veterans and a data center talent crisis.
Seeing an opportunity to address both problems in one master stroke, Salute was born, with its mission to recruit and train veterans in all of the processes and tasks required to deploy, manage, secure, and decommission data centers.
Since then the scope of Salute’s community expanded from veterans to all members of the military community which includes spouses, guard and reserve. We are proud of the thousands of members of this community who have been introduced to the industry by Salute, and many leading data centers have benefited from the discipline and integrity that is ingrained in these personnel from their time in the military community. The dedication and skills that Salute’s teams provide have helped get data centers up and running as these services are available through all stages of the data center life cycle, both in the U.S. and around the globe.
Our History
Salute Mission Critical was founded in 2013 by Lee Kirby and Jason Okroy who brought a wealth of experience in both the military and commercial IT operations. With their unique perspective, they noticed those two different, yet equally urgent problems: underemployment among military veterans and a data center talent crisis.
Seeing an opportunity to address both problems in one master stroke, Salute was born, with its mission to recruit and train veterans in all of the processes and tasks required to deploy, manage, secure, and decommission data centers.
Since then the scope of Salute’s community expanded from veterans to all members of the military community which includes spouses, guard and reserve. We are proud of the thousands of members of this community who have been introduced to the industry by Salute, and many leading data centers have benefited from the discipline and integrity that is ingrained in these personnel from their time in the military community. The dedication and skills that Salute’s teams provide have helped get data centers up and running as these services are available through all stages of the data center life cycle, both in the U.S. and around the globe.
Our Partners
Our Military Community
Our Responsibility Commitment
Joining Forces with Industry Leaders
Salute Mission Critical’s pursuit of improving critical infrastructure operations worldwide has led us to join forces with companies aligned with our vision, culture and goals. Our first acquisition was in the Fall of 2022; AMS Helix, a UK-based digital infrastructure solutions provider that offers project management and sustainability services to data center, telecommunications and edge customers throughout EMEA. This acquisition strengthens Salute’s Europe and UK presence and positions us for accelerated international growth. AMS Helix’s team of proven leaders and subject matter experts have strengthened Salute’s ability to serve its global critical infrastructure customers that are accelerating their investment in the EMEA region.
The second acquisition was shortly after in 2022; Iconicx Critical Solutions, a U.S. based provider of commissioning, testing and consulting services for data centers and mission critical environments. Through this strategic acquisition, Salute has expanded capabilities in commissioning and quality assurance/quality control (“QA/QC”), helping customers eliminate risks and optimize the handoff from deployment to operations. Iconicx is now – Iconicx, a Salute Mission Critical company. 