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

Erich Sanchack
Chief Executive Officer
Erich Sanchack
Erich J. Sanchack serves as the CEO of Salute Mission Critical. Previously he served as the Chief Operating Officer for Digital Realty, responsible for global portfolio operations, global construction, colocation and interconnection service implementation, cybersecurity, government affairs, and supply chain operations.
Throughout his career, Erich has primarily been a profit and loss general manager, and he has held multiple leadership roles across large portfolios, including Senior Vice President for CenturyLink IT Solutions and New Market Development; Vice President and General Manager for CenturyLink Federal Solutions; Vice President, Competitive Enhancements at Lockheed Martin; Vice President, Corporate Internal Audit at Lockheed Martin; Vice President of Information Technology Services for Information Systems and Global Solutions/Defense.
A former U.S. Marine Corps officer, Erich sits on the board of directors for the Data Center Coalition and the Northern Virginia Technology Council, the board of directors and executive committee for the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association/International, and the Armed Services Council for the Union League of Philadelphia. Formerly an American Heart Association Greater Washington Region Board Member, Erich is currently on the Austin Division Board of Directors and served as co-chair for the 2021 and 2022 Austin Heart Walks.
The Northern Virginia Technology Council recognized Erich with the 2020 Data Center Sustainable Champion Award; the NVTC has previously named Erich a TECH 100 executive and Data Center Community Champion. Erich also has been included among the top 100 most influential people in the greater Washington, DC, area. He has a Bachelor of Science degree in electrical engineering from Pennsylvania State University.

Lee Kirby
Co-founder & Chairman
Lee Kirby
With more than 40 years of experience in information technology and systems, both in the private and public sectors, Lee has dedicated himself to being a servant leader in the tech industry and changing the lives of military families worldwide.
Lee has successfully led several technology startups and turnarounds as well as built and run world-class global operations. He is recognized globally for improving the performance of critical infrastructure through sustainable solutions that reduce operating costs and driving industry trends in operational excellence. His current passion is Salute Mission Critical, a premier global data center services company, launched in 2013 and founded to provide military veterans and their families with careers. His philanthropy has helped solve the industry’s shortage of talent and the societal problem of veteran and military spouse unemployment.
In addition to an MBA from University of Washington and further studies at Henley School of Business in London and Stanford University, Lee holds professional certifications of ITIL v3 Expert, Lean Six Sigma, and CCO. He serves as a frequent contributor for many industry conferences and publications. In addition, he has masterfully balanced a successful military career over 36 years (Ret. Colonel) and serves as an advisor to many veteran support organizations.
Related Military Experience
Thirty-six years military experience (10 years active duty with 6 of those years as a deployed reservist and 26 years active reserve). Over a decade in the SOF community, including tours in Europe, Caribbean, Asia, and Middle East. Successfully planned and executed a variety of missions including drug interdiction, intelligence gathering, counter-insurgency, civil affairs, psychological operations, building civil capacity (governance, rule of law and public health), reconstruction and humanitarian assistance. His last tour was in Iraq (2009-10), where he led countrywide efforts to rebuild civilian capacity by establishing sustainable key functions of Governance, Rule of Law, Public Health and Infrastructure.

Jason Okroy
Co-founder & Chief Customer and Strategy Officer

Christopher Benson
Iconicx - Principal

Ryan Buhk
Executive Vice President of Human Resources

Stefanie Crichton
Iconicx - Principal

Clive Fotheringham
Vice President of Operations EMEA

Mike Jones
Executive Vice President of Global Operations and Technology Development

Sonda Kolodzinski
Executive Vice President of Business Operations, Compliance and Sustainability

Martin Murphy
President of EMEA

Andrew Sparks
Chief of Staff

Steve Sykes
Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing
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.