By Lee Kirby, Salute Co-founder
To meet our mission objectives of providing a gateway for military veterans to enter the data center industry we set goals for 2013 that seemed aggressive in January. Our two key measures of success for 2013 were to hire 50 veterans and gain industry recognition and support. As of this posting we have far exceeded our goals and are positioned for even greater progress in 2014.
2013 Review:
- 59 military veterans entered the data center industry through Salute!
- Uptime Institute and 451 Group recognized the value and initiated veterans’ programs for the industry that are complimentary to Salute and will gain even greater support for military veterans.
- We established the ability to effectively deploy anywhere in the US and executed projects with military precision in IL, CT, NJ, TX, MA, WY, CA, WA, OH, and WI which totalled 1.9M square feet of cleaning.
- We expanded our service offering to include containment installations and successfully completed three large projects that resulted in over 1,000kW in energy savings.
- With the addition of military veterans with subject matter expertise and experience we are launching battery maintenance services. This offering establishes a progressive path for our veterans to gain more applicable skills and experience to prepare them for long term careers in the industry. This offering also allows Salute to continue to prove the value that veterans bring to our industry by quickly learning and delivering high quality valued services.
I am honored to be associated with this important initiative and grateful for the response we have received from customers and the industry. With your help I believe we can introduce even greater numbers of veterans to the industry in 2014. Happy new year!