Global provider of data center services, Salute Mission Critical offers a novel, scalable, resilient, and agile operating paradigm. Salute is an American company that specializes in using highly skilled veterans of the armed forces to install, manage, and decommission data centers all around the world with consistently excellent outcomes. The organization's capacity to assemble, develop, and assist groups is exceptional and may be used to meet needs anywhere.

With its headquarters located in Clinton Township, Michigan, Salute Mission Critical was established in 2013.

Salute Mission Critical's CEO, Jason Okroy, privately discussed with Business Fortune how his organization is hiring and preparing former service members to become top-tier technologists.

Interview Highlights

How do you see the current changes in the industry that you serve? And how does Salute Mission Critical currently compare to other players in the market?

There will be more technological advancements supporting operations during the next ten years. By digitizing labor processes, integrating AI and machine learning will result in even higher efficiency and a bigger impact on reliability. If you consider the advances in the last 10 years, they will be considerably bigger in the future.

Data center operations have been hampered by certain things' delayed evolution, even in an industry known for its quick expansion and change. Salute's Multi-Skilled Operator approach has addressed the long-standing issue of a lack of talent and the effects of human error in data centers. Salute created a model just ten years ago that removed non-value-added tasks and enhanced it with cutting-edge technology and training procedures. For those who adopted the lean principles approach, this resulted in a minimum of 35 percent cost savings and a reduction in manpower requirements.  

In order to further reduce the need for personnel and establish solutions that, when combined with labor digitalization, encourage even higher growth, lower risk, and environmental sustainability, Salute is currently taking a step toward adopting new technologies and integration. These are just three examples of recent projects that make use of technology to increase value even further while lowering costs:

• Drones are being used for infrared moisture checks, roof and facade inspections, and security patrols.
• Our robots can decommission end-of-life IT equipment, clean floors, offer security escorts, and do rounds and readings. We also utilize them to perform IR scanning in crucial environments.
• Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies are available to collect data and make judgments for condition-based maintenance, equipment failure prediction, autonomous equipment setting control, and lights-out operations.

What characteristics of the Salute operational model make it resilient, economical, and desirable from a strategic standpoint?

Dedicated teams and project teams are the two main teams that Salute Mission Critical uses to provide its data center management services.

The hybrid approach of our dedicated teams enables multi-skilled operators to handle a variety of mission-critical tasks, including facilities, IT, and security support. Such mission-critical tasks are typically performed independently by businesses, resulting in silos that many data center operators perceive to be expensive and inefficient. Customers benefit from considerable improvements in resource utilization, labor force, and cost reductions, all while guaranteeing alignment with SLA standards. In addition to providing critical facility operations services, these specialists perform preventive maintenance and security services.

By using the global command center, a specialized facility that can handle numerous remote locations, our committed teams are also able to remotely oversee the customers' facilities. The company's employees can monitor the clients' facilities through the command center and escalate issues as needed. In order to guarantee prompt site issue response, they also manage ticketing and dispatching tasks in accordance with the established service levels. 

In addition to containment, racking and stacking, construction assistance, logistic support audits, QA and QC, and data center cleaning, our project division offers white-glove services. By giving intensive training to our project teams, we prepare them to deliver crucial data center services and constantly progress from entry-level to senior-level expertise. We employ an LMS platform to effectively manage the project team's training, resulting in the production of multi-skilled technicians who are a smooth integration into Salute Mission Critical.

With a very flexible operations architecture and a clearly defined process flow, we satisfy the needs of our clients by providing an incredibly versatile service. Since every client has a different set of obstacles, we work with them to achieve their goals by taking a comprehensive approach to their business demands. We implement a portfolio of solutions based on a playbook and customized program to lessen the difficulties faced by our clients. We offer the greatest technology package to address the customer's pain points rather than pressuring them to pick any one platform or solution. This guarantees that the customer can run the data centers as efficiently as possible with the fewest technicians possible.

Salute Mission Critical maintains an ideal combination of people, processes, and technology over the course of the project to achieve such high levels of efficiency.

Will Salute be growing and adding any additional services that we need to know about?

With modern technology, we are working on a number of projects that will eventually lead to productization. We are providing some of the most recent innovations as part of our solution set for sustainable operations. These services are producing outcomes for both current and potential customers.

• When maintenance management systems are properly implemented, procedures are optimized, trending is improved, labor costs are decreased, and quality is raised.
• Real-time findings show that environmental sensors and controls are fully operational and cutting usage.
• The best practices of mission-critical operations are being applied to cryptocurrency operations, and our solution has been quickly accepted by this industry.
• In order to achieve the highest standards in safety, quality, and communication, a proprietary life cycle management system (IZON) unites people, processes, and technologies and promotes transparency. It offers a global perspective of all technologies, projects, and assets.

Do you have any other points you would like us to emphasize that we may have overlooked?

Salute is a triple bottom line success story, having hired more than 3,000 military personnel and on track to hire over a thousand full-time employees in the upcoming year. Salute was also named as a Top 10 Military Friendly Employer and Spouse Employer for 2022. The enormous impact Salute is making on the lives of the military community and the business at large becomes clear when you consider that 12 percent of its veteran workers were homeless when they were hired.

Leadership | Salute Mission Critical

Jason Okroy is the Chief Executive Officer of Salute Mission Critical. He is a leader in the technology sector with a track record of developing high-achieving teams, coming up with creative fixes for operational issues, and increasing revenue. His ability to unite different teams, vendors, and subject matter experts and foster consensus around a plan or solution sets him apart from the competition. He is a master at motivating people to work together to accomplish a common objective.

"Salute has successfully recruited and equipped over 3,000 veterans and military spouses whose technical skills have become essential in managing critical infrastructure around the globe."