 Live from the JSA Podcast Studio, presenting Data Movers, showcasing the leaders behind the headlines in the telecom and data center infrastructure industry. Welcome to our new podcast series, Data Movers. I'm your host, Jamie Scato-Cotaia, founder and CEO of JSA, along with my fabulous co-host, top B2B social influencer, Mr. Evan Christel. Hey Evan. Hey Jamie. Hey everyone, welcome to Data Movers, where we sit down with the most influential folks in today's leading telco and data center world, supporting the network infrastructure requirements of our modern world. Speaking of our world, Jamie, you're a big Twitter fanatic, I think, huh? I do, I like a good tweet, yeah. Yeah, you and me love the Twitter and it's been a fair amount of drama. Elon Musk allegedly wants to buy Twitter. It looks like it's now in play. What do you think? In favor of Elon owning Twitter? I mean, he's kind of, I'm one of those folks who really just loves everything that man does. Like, he's so innovative. I would be very interested in to see what he could do with Twitter, but on the same token, I like Twitter just as it is. Like, it's, you know, and how much power can one person have? So I'm a little, can I be on both sides of this issue? Is that terrible? You can choose whatever sides or both you want. I think it's kind of another drama in the history of Twitter as a soap opera. I mean, this company has been through more machinations and dramas and ousters and Jack left and Jack's back. And I mean, this whole thing is just more drama. And I think it's part of Elon's ego, maniacal side, you know, wanting to bid for this thing when he really doesn't even have the financing lined up to acquire it, despite being the world's richest man on paper. So, yeah, it's like the soap opera. Every day you tune in, you see what's going to happen next. But- I see a headline here saying Elon to invest 15 billion of his own money to buy Twitter, according to one report, billion. Well, you know, tomorrow we'll see what he tweets. That's- I guess that's right. But let's get on with a more practical discussion here beyond Elon's whims. What do you think? Absolutely, absolutely. And I'm really excited about our guests today. As you know, with data movers, we really try to dive into background stories of our guests, their careers, highs and lows, their unique perspectives of the future of our industry. And we have just a stellar good friend of ours, Rosa White here with us today. She is the co-founder and chief financial officer at DR Fortress. Hi, thanks for having me, you guys. Thanks for being here. Welcome, Rosa. I won't hold it against you that you're currently joining us from Hawaii or home base. And I know it's a little great today, but I won't get out the violin for you. But we should first start with congratulations. I understand you guys are celebrating your 15th anniversary since 2006, if I'm right. You're the largest data center in Honolulu. And you've grown 10X in revenue and space, environment, power capacity, so well done. So 10X and the biggest data center in Honolulu, what's next? Where do you go from here? Just growing some more. Honestly, we've had so much demand. We've finished our last expansion this past summer, and that was about 150 racks. And we're now in the design. One of my next meetings will be with the construction team to work on our next expansion. We're looking at another 200 racks based on just a lot of demand that we see coming through our funnel. So just trying to keep up with the team and trying to keep up with all the requirements that are coming into Honolulu. So it's an exciting time. It really is. I mean, all eyes are on DR Fortress. And if we can't be there in Hawaii, we absolutely have to take the virtual tour, right? Yes. It's just launched. Yes. Tell us more about that and how it's helping Hawaiians and even folks right there on the mainland here in the US. Sure, sure. Well, the idea actually formulated during the pandemic. We had to, we were still giving tours but on a very limited basis. And quite honestly, Hawaii shut down, so travel was very limited. So we quickly needed to adjust and so we created a virtual tour. And at that time it was very simple just to get it out, get meetings going, showing people our facility, showing them images and videos of our construction saying, hey, pandemic might have a lot of things on hold but we're proceeding with the construction. So from that idea, it evolved into really having an interactive virtual tour for our customers and it's really popular. We're showing it to all our prospects. We're using it during meetings to show this is probably the location that we're gonna put your equipment in and it's close to whatever they're interested in, the conference rooms, the UPS rooms or whatnot. So it's just a really neat tool that kind of started from the need of the pandemic and now it's just another resource for our sales team, our channel partners that resell to our fortress and just a nice addition to the website. Fantastic. And DR Fortress is not just a tech company and a data center. You deserve congratulations as well for being nominated as one of Hawaii's best places to work in 2022 by Hawaii Business. I'll be sending in my resume next week. I'm hoping to move over. So but tell us about being a leader in the community and the connection with the local business world beyond just the tech world. Yeah, the island being small, the state being small, we always try to stay connected with our customers and events and activities that are going on. So again, in the pandemic, one of our main focus had been on ensuring that our most valuable asset is protected, healthy, and really mentally happy and that was our employees. So we really spent a lot of time and effort coming up with creative things to make sure their employees were interacting with each other and as a team. So we did weekly fun huddles where we were talking about what we're gonna do for that following weekend and monthly fun factors where the first Friday of the month we have kind of a lunch and learn. Some of them being educational, some of them being fun. So we really took care of our employees and when that opportunity came out to apply for it, I thought, you know what? I think we've invested a lot in our company. I'd like to apply and see if we can be selected. And I was really proud to have been selected for best places to work. It was, it's just a cool thing to brag about. And yes, we have gotten a lot more requests for job interviews. So, but then reaching out to the community during that pandemic was really important to us wherever we could help. So we've created diverse paths. It's a formal program and it has multiple tiers where we're helping the community both on just kind of charitable events, giving back to churches, food shelters, beach cleanups, anything that my employees are interested in doing. We try to fit our schedule so that we could all go or as many people in our team can go and participate in the event. And then we're also taking it a step further and trying to create educational forums within different verticals and industries here in Hawaii. So we're hoping that the diverse paths which kind of plays on our, you know, interconnectivity in Hawaii just, it becomes a successful program. You know, you just mentioned interconnectivity too. We should note that DR Fortress is the most connected data center in Hawaii. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, of course, yeah. As you said, we've been celebrating our 15 years. So it took us a long time to build that interconnectivity between our customers and our carriers. And for Hawaii, we are not only the largest in footprint employees, but also in the number of carriers. We have almost 30 carriers now in our facility between the telecom, international telecom providers, US based carriers, ISPs, mobile cable systems that we support here in Hawaii. So the community of interest for the facility has become just what our vision had been when we first started it. We wanted to make DR Fortress a digital hub for Hawaii. And now with the international carriers coming in, we're actually slowly becoming the digital hub for Asia Pacific. So that's really exciting. I mean, it's kind of funny that someone had asked, gosh, all of these cross connections, I mean, how many are there? There's a little under 1,800 cross connections that we have in our facility. And that's miles and miles of copper and fiber. So I calculated it a few weeks ago and we're talking like over 20 miles of copper and fiber that's running throughout our facility. So that's just kind of a fun thing. So when we say that we're most interconnected facility in Hawaii, we truly are. Wow, that's an amazing tidbit. So, you know, tell us, you know, of all the data centers in the US and in Hawaii and there are many, you know, what makes you stand out amongst them all? I mean, tell us all your secrets, basically. Tell us everything. Well, other than for Hawaii being the truly largest and only carrier-neutral facility that kind of really sets us apart from the other providers, it's really just our design and our execution of the operational reliability mission that we have. So everything that we do, we design with the purpose of, you know, redundancy and having a DR plan for that. In Hawaii, we just simply can't go out and place order for equipment and expect to it have, you know, truck delivered. We have to coordinate ocean transport. We need to ensure that we give ourselves enough lead time for everything we need. So from the vendors that we select, the equipment we purchased, even small infrastructure supplies, we ensure that we always have that spare capacity, though redundancy, the backup plan, if we need to back up something. So it's just really the day in and day out execution of being one of the most responsible IT providers in Hawaii where we back up the state of Hawaii. We have most of the banks, financial institution, hospitals, airlines, we take that very serious. And so we try to implement just the thought of always being ready for any disaster and having a backup plan for everything from our infrastructure to our staff, to all our policies and procedures. So I don't know if that's a secret, but that's really what is our key focus in operations. That's amazing. You know, I mean, I'm obviously familiar with our DR fortress story, but just to think about like back in the day when I was working at Telex, I used to think it was complicated just to deal with all the unions in the New York City area. I can just imagine being alone on an island in the middle of the Pacific and being strategic too. You're talking also about like, you know, US and Asia Pacific. Your geolocation is like spot on for that necessary connectivity across Pacific. And to know that we're in such great hands that you've thought of everything. Try. We sure try. That's for sure. Well, I know our listeners and our viewers are so excited about getting to the rapid, fun, fast section of our podcast here. So let's get right to it. Tell us the very first thing that comes to mind, our first question. Which is your favorite place to travel? Oh, definitely Italy. So my family's from Sicily. That was my first language actually. So I love to take my kids there whenever I can. Again, the pandemic kind of stifled our traveling, but we've been there twice since Hawaii was able to open up and travel. So it's just a fun place to, I try to have my kids emerge in my culture and my language and they love it and we love traveling. So that's definitely my favorite. From one island to the next. There you go. Yes, exactly. I'm just a true island girl from start to finish. And we're all watching way too much television. At least I am. I don't know about you guys. What's your favorite show to binge watch? Oh, I binge watch The Big Bang Theory. I actually, I had found it just on accident on a flight and I started watching it and then like the flight ended. I'm like, no, I cannot, this show stopped. So I was able to buy the seasons and I've just been slowly watching it with my kids. And it's just a fun show. I love the, it reminds me of all my engineers that I work with. They're just fun and technical and super smart and super witty. So I just enjoy the comedy and just, I like to, I try not to take my job so serious but it is very serious running this data center day in and day out. So I just like to watch light and humorous shows when I have the time. And so talking about when you have the time what's your favorite holiday? Definitely the Christmas holiday season is my favorite. In Hawaii, we don't get snow. We don't really get the cold weather but the day after Thanksgiving, I always take the day off. All my employees know not to bother me and I just recreate my house into a winter wonderland. So I have like this electric fireplace that you have to turn on the AC in order to have it run. But I decorate the fireplace and put up trees in every room. So absolutely, I love it. Just, I just love the anticipation of the holidays and just the shopping and the giving and the warmth that people express. And we always try to send out a little thanks and gratitude to all our customers. So it's just a fun time both in the fun aspects of the holiday but also just the giving and the warmth in people that always seems to come out during the holidays. Love it. Wow, that's a great pitch for the holidays. I can't wait. You know, I'm really excited about the holidays. So last question, what's one word people might use to describe you? I think the word is energetic because... That sounds right. Yep. I just love to have fun. But I also work really hard. So I spend as much time working hard and playing hard and just ensuring that everyone has the right resources they need at my company that my family is well taken care of. So I just like to put a lot of energy into anything that I do. And then I always seem to feel that my energy will rub out off on other people. And I just get that energy back. So it's kind of a fun thing to go back and forth with people. Fantastic. Well, thanks for joining us, Rose. It's really great to get to know you a little bit. And, you know, it's so amazing to see wherever you go in the US, you know, whatever state there's just an amazing infrastructure available for our industry. And so what you're doing with your fortress in Hawaii is just so cutting edge and so impressive. I'm just gonna have to go on vacation there just to test my broadband. So yeah, I can't wait. Yeah, thank you guys. I appreciate it your time. Yeah, great. Thanks guys. Bye. You are such an amazing source of energy and inspiration for all of us. So adore you and everything you were doing at DR Fortress. Thank you for your time. And guys, if you enjoyed today's Data Movers podcast as much as we did, be sure to check out jsa.net slash podcast for upcoming Data Movers episodes and trapping every other week on Wednesday mornings. And be sure to follow us on Twitter. It's called Twitter for now. That's what it's called. Jay Scotta, whenever it cursed out. And as always guys, stay safe, be green, think green, live green and happy networking.