 This is JSA TV, I'm Jamie Scott of Kataya here at the I-Mason's Global Member Summit in Silicon Valley. Joining me here today is Lee Kirby. He is the co-founder and chairman of Salute Mission Critical. Simon Allen, he is the executive director of I-Mason's and of course Randy Brockman, the CEO of EdgeConnex. Welcome gentlemen, thank you for joining us. And Lee, we're going to go ahead and start with you. Please set the stage for us if you will. Tell us a little bit about Salute Mission Critical. We started Salute Mission Critical in 2013 to really solve the problem of veteran unemployment and underemployment. At that time, if you look at the stats, a 25 to 30 year old person had done their tour of duty, probably a couple of combat tours that had come back, they're trying to integrate into society, and more than 25% of them were unemployed. That didn't make any sense to me. It was counter-intuitive with all of the training and the leadership skills that they had gained in the military. I knew that there was an opportunity here to help the data center industry, which is also suffering an enormous personnel shortage. Not just unemployment, but underemployment is impacting veterans because many of them will come back and there's great companies out there that will hire them, but I believe that in our industry we get so much more potential out of the veterans than having them stock shelves, deliver sandwiches or pizzas. Veterans, I think, are a key ingredient to the long-term sustainability of this industry because if we can grow and train them into the industry, we'll see a more disciplined workforce, we'll leverage all of the training that they've gone through in the military, and I think that everybody, all boats, will rise. So that's why we've been very strong on this and pushing it because we've now built this company over the last five years. We're operating in five countries, over 265 employees, and have put over 1,200 veterans through this program, so that's introducing them into this industry. So we're having an impact on lives in ways that people don't even realize. Twelve percent of the workforce that we hire are homeless at the time, so we're impacting not just the veterans but their families as well. So I'm real excited with where we're at today and with the partnership here with IM and with EdgeConnex. Well said. Really unbelievable work that you're doing. And Simon, as the Executive Director of IMACENs, can you tell us a little bit about the partnership you're announcing here today? Sure. Thanks, Jamie. Thanks, Lee. The IMACENs are a professional association of people that work in the digital infrastructure industry. It's an industry that's been growing dramatically now for 10, 15 years, and it shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, if anything, it seems to be speeding up in terms of growth. It's crazy. The mission of the IMACENs is to connect, grow, and give back, and we have gatherings like this here today, not just in Silicon Valley but various places around the globe, where we bring the great brains of the industry together to try and tackle the challenges we face as we continue to grow and evolve. And it's interesting that the single biggest challenge wherever we go is talent. There's just not enough people around. IMACENs are doing a lot to tackle this. We're very involved in education, sponsorships, diversity, inclusion. We're trying to raise awareness of young people to make the industry attractive to them. But we're absolutely delighted when we met Lee and Salute. It's a proven process and methodology to transition vets into the digital infrastructure industry, such as data centres. Another aspect that's particularly attractive to us is, unlike the industry at the moment, which is probably overrepresented by white men, I think vets are more representative of society. We think that by getting more diversity into the industry, it might be more attractive to other people from underrepresented groups. In terms of the impact on members and partners, a lot of our partners do take advantage of Lee's people and it's been a great success. And that leads us really to this wonderful case study, if you will. We have Randy Brockman here, of course, an IMACENs member, but also the CEO of EdgeConnex. Randy, pleasure to have you here. And can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with Salute? Thank you for having us. Our partnership with Salute started in 2014, the early part of 2014. And I think it's safe to say it's been a both fruitful and successful partnership for both companies. I got a lot to say and I only got a little bit of time to say it in when it comes to Salute. But I think, look, this feels good on a lot of reasons. This is the right thing to do for these people. This is the right thing to do socially. But quite frankly, this has been a brilliant business decision as well. What we've found with Salute and in our partnership is we are getting training together with the Salute team, people who are really disciplined, who actually thrive in the training environment, who want detailed training, who actually help you construct better training. And it's been interesting to see over the course of six years now, five or six years now, we've been doing this together, we've been able to see a number of folks start maybe in the security operations, but move up into some of the technical and remote hands operations. So they've been able to evolve as frankly our customers needs have continued to evolve. Lee mentioned it briefly, but we actually work with Salute, not just in the United States, but across the globe. And I think the ultimate culmination where some of this has resulted in is some of these folks that we've started with with Salute trained and actually trained on higher skill positions have become very critical to our operations. Salute's worked with us on converting them to EdgeConnect's employees. And quite frankly, we've been able to then create a class of the next set of folks for Salute to come through. And we've done that across three continents now as well. So it's been a wonderful partnership. What you started and what you saw was absolutely needed on the social level. It was needed from an industry level and I can tell you it's been a great business relationship as well. Thank you. Lee, you've got to be proud hearing these words coming from your partners. Certainly the iMasons and the EdgeConnect's partnerships really speaking to the success that you've been growing there at Salute. We've talked diversity and training leading into employment. Really fantastic. Final words from you, Lee. I'm humbled by the compliments from both of you and really appreciate it. I'm looking forward to a continued relationship with EdgeConnect's and a burgeoning relationship with infrastructure masons. We are a microcosm of society that we veterans and what we bring to the table is something far more than people see. The leadership, the critical thinking, everything that a veteran brings to the table and the ability to adapt and learn quickly is exactly what our industry needs. There's a lot of veterans out there that are not meeting their potential and they could in our industry. Our industry's kind of been visible to a lot of people but we're able to raise the light now in the veteran community and I think we should totally leverage that. It's not just about Navy Nukes. A lot of people say hire the Navy Nukes, absolutely you should. We get infantrymen, we get truck drivers, we get any skill that's in the military has gone through the same basic training, the same leadership skills. We can convert those into data center technicians. And we've proven the medal and what we can stand up to because EdgeConnect clients are the most demanding clients in the world and the most sophisticated clients. The only way you get to be at that level is with reliable operations and reliable operations comes from a disciplined workforce following the procedures to the T. And that explains the military option. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you so much gentlemen for your thoughts, your insight. What an amazing message here today. For our viewers who want to learn more, let's go to saluteinc.com to learn more on salute. And of course for more on Randy and his global facilities, check out edgeconnects.com. And for more on the infrastructure Masons organization, go for imasons.org. There you have it from the floor of the I Masons Global Member Summit here in Silicon Valley. I'm Jamie Scott of Kataya. Happy networking.