Gary Backus

Manager of Safety & Security
Pandora

Gary currently functions as the Manager of Safety and Security at Pandora. His focus is to provide a safe environment through a community approach to security, the promotion of personal safety, and the deterrence of crime. His passions lie in Customer Service and the Security Industry as a whole. His career in Safety & Security extends back through his tenure at Riverbed Technology, Autodesk, ALZA Corporation, and Scios.

JP Balajadia

Co-Founder; VP
LitBit

With a history of project management and management of site operations, JP took a path of entrepreneurship and founded companies like 365 Main Inc. and LitBit, the latter of which focused on the next generation in converged infrastructure for emerging markets. JP graduated from Worcester Polytechnic Institute with a BSEE in Electrical Engineering.

Gregory Bell

Chief Knowledge Office at Teladata
TELADATA

Maricel Cerruti

Founder of the TCC
Board Member at Infrastructure Masons

Maricel Cerruti is a principal and Director of Marketing and Business Development for Teladata, a California based consulting firm specializing in planning, design, and project management mission critical space, physical technical infrastructure, audiovisual, and security.

Maricel has been a key player in the development of Infrastructure Masons from its inception in March of 2016, including the IM inaugural networking event and the first IM Leadership Summit. She accepted an Infrastructure Masons board position in October of 2016 as the Treasurer and also supports events, membership and fundraising efforts. She has held leadership positions in numerous industry organizations including the founding of AFCOM and 7X24 Northern California Chapters. Maricel also supports the Critical Facilities Roundtable (CFRT) and Data Center Pulse industry groups. Additionally, she is the founder of Geeks Giving Back and Teladata’s annual Technology Convergence Conference.

Maricel received her Bachelor of Science Degree in Business with an emphasis in Marketing from San Jose State University.

In her spare time she enjoys giving back to her community through volunteer efforts and spending quality time with her daughter, husband and dog.

Carissa Clark

Data Center Facility Operations Electrical Engineer,
Facebook

Carissa Clark is a Data Center Facility Operations Electrical Engineer at Facebook, where she is responsible for retrofit projects within live environments, maintenance and repair scopes, and power usage planning. Prior to joining Facebook in June 2015, Carissa worked as an electrical engineer at Gordon Prill, a design-build contractor with a focus on aerospace and biotech. Carissa holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo and is a licensed professional engineer in California.

Dwain Christensen

Director of Workplace Strategies – Global Facilities Management (Americas)
SAP

Dwain started his career at Silicon Graphics. In 2006, he joined SAP where he is currently Director of Workplace Strategies with a specific focus on the Bay Area. Dwain’s mission is to deliver environments that support organizational functionality while aligning the larger corporate goals of attraction, retention, and productivity. 

Jim Daly

Territory Sales Manager
Raritan

Jim has a Master of Science degree in Computer Science from American University in Washington, D.C. with 24 years of experience in the field. For the last 14 years, Jim has worked in field sales for Raritan, and he spent 10 years prior to that working in network engineering and sales at Spring. In his spare time, he enjoys Masters Lacrosse, riding his Harley motorcycle, and skiing

Ankush Dham

Director – Global Business Development
ISGN Solutions, Inc.

Ankush Dham has served in executive leadership positions in a variety of innovative technology companies in various capacities across product management, M&A, strategy, and business development. Most recently, he served as GM of the Software Products division at ISGN, a rapidly growing enterprise software provider focused on the global banking sector. In his current role as VP, Business Development & Sales at Virtual Power Systems he works closely with innovative data center operators and strategic partners to deliver tangible operational and business value. 

Richard Donaldson

Director Infrastructure Management & Operations
eBay

Richard is currently the director of CPI’s business operations & strategy at eBay. He oversees all business aspects of the infrastructure and platform that ebay runs upon – the portfolio includes datacenters, hardware, software, financial, vendors, logistics, supply chain, and business processes. During this time, ebay has won numerous industry awards for its innovations in infrastructure operational management.  Prior to joining ebay about 4yrs ago, Richard spent 12yrs in a handful of startups in Silicon Valley, all of which focused on infrastructure services.  Richard started in Investment Banking when he first landed in Silicon Valley right at the explosion of the internet in the late ‘90s.  Originally from Minnesota, he has resided in San Francisco since 1997.

Brian Donathan

Principal
TELADATA

Brian Donathan joined TELADATA in 1994 and was promoted to Principal in 2000. As the Principal/Senior Project Manager, he has overall responsibility for IT infrastructure design, technical leadership for data center / mission critical facilities, and managing our project team.

Brian began his communications career in research and design with electronic systems with the United States Air Force (U.S.A.F). He later went on to manage data communications, cable plant design, and installation management for Information Networking Company, Inc.

Chris Elgaaen

Director of Security Solutions
Sycomp

Chris Elgaaen is Director of Security Solutions.  Mr. Elgaaen oversees Sycomp’s Security business globally where he is responsible for revenue, profit, client satisfaction and business development across the solution portfolio.

In addition, he manages all vendor relationships within the security practice. This includes identifying new partnerships in the expanding security landscape, and developing deep relationships across strategic vendors.

Previously, Mr. Elgaaen held several management and executive positions in the United States for IBM, covering the software and services business units along with the client executive organization.

Most recently, he served as Executive Assistant to the General Manager, Sales & Distribution for IBM Corporation, in the Western United States. In this development assignment he managed client communications and internal operations for the General Manager while shadowing the senior executive activities within the corporation.

Prior to that he served as IBM’s Territory Manager, responsible for the Northern California market. His mission was to drive business success and client satisfaction by delivering business value to over 300 of the regions largest clients. While leading a team of 12 client executives he was also accountable for channel strategy, contract negotiation, and integrating IBM’s server, software, solutions, and services businesses.

Mr. Elgaaen also has served as Territory Services Leader for the greater Chicago area, where he led services strategy, sales, and business development for IBM’s enterprise clients in the market. In previous roles Mr. Elgaaen had responsibility for inside sales across the Western United States, and cross-brand software sales for Enterprise clients in Northern California.

Mr. Elgaaen has a Bachelor of Science degree in Business from Arizona State University, and a Masters of Business Administration from University of Califiornia, Irvine.  He currently lives in the Bay Area with his fiancé.

Scott Ethersmith

Global AV Systems Lead, Airbnb

Scott Ethersmith is a Bay Area AV nerd with a passion for seamless integration. With a background in construction management and low voltage systems, Scott has paid particular attention to the intersection between user, system, and structure. At BBI Engineering, Scott helped design and integrate AV into some of the world’s most prestigious museums, live venues, and campuses. Scott is currently the Global AV Systems Lead for Airbnb, where he designs Airbnb’s AV enabled spaces, and manages the media production team.

Carrie Goetz

Global Director Data Center Solutions, Services | Technology, Sales, Marketing
The Siemon Company

Carrie has led strategic sales consulting for data center design, upgrades and migration at The Siemon Company for over 13 years. With her skills and expertise, she has saved millions in data center projects (with one project saving $25.3M as a result of her work.

Jonathan Hewitt

Regional Sales Manager
Crestron

Jonathan Hewitt is Crestron’s Regional Sales Manager for the AV Consultant channel, with a territory that spans from Central California to Alaska.

Dan Hoffman

Corporate Real Estate Facilities Executive
Nimble Storage

Dan Hoffman is a corporate real estate and facilities executive currently running the global organization for Nimble Storage headquartered in San Jose. He is adept at managing real estate, design and construction, and facility operations. He creates teams to provide innovative and sustainable workplaces while driving operational excellence and high customer satisfaction. He has designed and built corporate campuses and led facility organizations for Google, Apple, and NetApp during his 20+ year career. Mr. Hoffman has an MBA from the University of San Francisco and BS Mechanical Engineering from UC Davis. He is a registered mechanical Professional Engineer (P.E.) and is U.S .Green Building Council LEED-AP certified.

Travis Irons

Director of Engineering
Server Technology

Travis Irons has been the Director of Engineering for the past nine years at Server Technology and the lead engineer for Server Technology’s HDOT PDU.  He has a Bachelor’s of Science in Electronics Engineering along with 25 years of experience in instrumentation, IT, and power.

Sarah Keller

Sr. Manager, Technical Procurement
Uber

Sarah is an industry veteran with more than 15 years spent providing best in class leadership and individual contributions in infrastructure and operations teams. She cites large scale infrastructure sourcing, global data center market negotiation, network and data center strategy, vendor, supplier and customer relations, budgeting and cost optimization as some of her many specialties. She currently is the Senior Manager of Technical Procurement at Uber responsible for developing technical sourcing and procurement program to support Uber’s technical spend.

Thomas Keller

Senior Security Consultant
TELADATA

Thomas is a technology consultant in the A/E/C Industry with 25 years of experience, focusing on the design and implementation of enterprise technology, communication, and security systems, having worked with clients like PG&E, Ritz Carlton, Baidu, Stanford University Outpatient Center, Pixar, Gap and more. He currently is a Senior Security Consultant at TELADATA.

Brian Mata

Senior Audio/Visual Consultant
TELADATA

Brian has been involved with the design, engineering, estimating, documentation, management, and programming for some of the country’s largest residential and commercial integrated systems. Interdisciplinary experience in multiple technical roles allows him to work closely with a project’s design team to ensure successful completion.

Brian is currently the Senior Audio/Visual Consultant at TELADATA, specializing in the design, planning, and project management of Audio/Visual systems and infrastructure, with over 12 years of design and engineering experience on some of the largest commercial and residential integrated systems.

Greg Mattson

Technical Director
Crestron

Anne Merrill

Senior Project Manager
Stanford Health Care

Anne is currently the Senior Project Manager in Planning of Design & Construction at Stanford Health Care, where she manages the all phases of capital improvement projects from planning, design, construction and activation. With 18 years of experience in the industry, she has a history of working for other respected companies like Intel and Gannett and is a leader known for her integrity and working well with others.

Mark Monroe

Executive Director
Infrastructure Masons

Mark is currently the President of Energetic Consulting and the Executive Director of Infrastructure Masons. He has 30 years of experience in Product Management, Sales, System Engineering, Software Development, Customer Support, Quality Assurance, and IT Operations, and is an expert in facilitation and driving tangible benefits in organizations. He led Sun Microsystems to attain one of Newsweek’s “Greenest Big Companies”.

Rob Morris

Managing Partner
Skybox Datacenters

Bruce Myatt

CLEAResult Consulting & Critical Facilities Solutions

Bruce Myatt, PE is a registered Mechanical Engineer in California and Founder of Silicon Valley’s Critical Facilities Round Table (CFRT) in San Francisco. He is President of Critical Facilities Solutions, a data center technical market consultant, Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer of The Data Centers, LLC (TDC), and Executive Editor at Mission Critical Magazine. Bruce has over 30 years of engineering consulting experience working with critical facilities such as data centers, semiconductor fabs, nuclear power plants, and DOE’s nuclear weapons production facilities. He is a Technical Columnist and member of the Board of Advisors for Mission Critical Magazine; member of DOE’s Energy Efficient High Performance Computing Working Group (EEHPCWG); member of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group energy efficiency committee, Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Sigma Phi Delta International Social-Professional Engineering Fraternity; and previously member the Board of Directors of Junior Achievement of the Bay Area.

Bruce has recently led the development of design concepts for several state-of-the art data centers for some of the world’s largest internet and technology companies and for supercomputing facilities at DOE and R&D sites, involving modular and containerized solutions, combined air and liquid cooling systems, and variable tier level and power density environments. And, he is now leading the design of an alternative energy powered “micro-grid” and advanced “off grid” computing project which was selected as a finalist for Data Center Dynamics 2013 North American Award for “Forward Thinking and Design Concepts”. And, he has twice led his design team into the finals of the annual eBay design competitions for the Mercury and Quicksilver projects. Previously, Bruce helped pioneer the development and acceptance of the data center “air flow containment” concept and related “best” practices, and has been selected as a technical advisor by EPA, DOE, CEC, LBNL and PG&E to assist with programs focused on data center energy efficiency solutions. He has provided data center energy efficiency presentations at over twenty different and well-known data center conferences.

Dean Nelson

Head of Uber Compute
Uber

In my professional career I have been driven by one question – What’s next? I love to solve complex problems and take on challenging projects. I live, eat and breath technology and push myself to come up with new ways to not only apply them, but push them further. I challenge the assumptions and push my leaders to think past their own experience. I also believe strongly in simplification. There are always different ways to look at challenges and innovate. Being a very visual person with a knack to see patterns, I can connect the dots allowing me to build strategies. I lead by example and surround myself with talented, passionate, dedicated people who are as motivated as I am to solving the next problem.

I feel that the range of positions I have held in my 23 year career has enabled me to be a well rounded executive who is able to see the opportunity, create and execute on the strategy and tell the story that resonates with customers and the industry.

Calvin Nicholson

BSEE, MBA University of Nevada, Reno

Calvin Nicholson is Server Technology’s Senior Director of Product Management and Software Development. Server Technology Inc., designs and manufacturer’s intelligent power distribution products for enterprise data centers.  Previously the Director of Product Marketing with GameTech International creating strategies and specifications for new product development of Gaming Management systems, games and portable card minding devices. Calvin also held various positions in the Process Control Instrumentation field, including Sales Engineer, Product Manager, Account Manager and Marketing Manager for ABB with both domestic and international responsibility

Henrique Oliveira

Director of Technology
Mirapath

Henrique Oliveira is the Director of Technology at Mirapath. Mr. Oliveira is responsible for leading Mirapath’s sales engineers, project engineers, and tech support team to architect and deliver complete solutions to customers, from technical specification to installation and ongoing support. Mr. Oliveira was most recently the Director of Business Development for Vertiv. Prior to that, Mr. Oliveira held several roles for Emerson Network Power and  Avocent Corporation including Business Development Manager and Sales Engineer. Prior to Avocent, Mr. Oliveira worked for Cyclades where he was one of the company’s first sales engineers.

Mr. Oliveira holds a Masters of Business Administration degree from Santa Clara University and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil.

Primo Orpilla

Principal
Studio O+A

Primo is the co-founder of Studio O+A, the San Francisco design firm responsible the groundbreaking of offices at AOL, Facebook, Yelp, Levi Strauss, and many other companies. Primo loves the challenge of creating workplaces that respond to culture, brand, and productivity.

Phil Pennington

Global DCIM Lead & Solutions Architect, VMware

Phil is the Data-Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) project technical lead for VMware IT Operations.  Responsibilities include design, development, integration, and administration of a global DCIM enterprise application suite. The project entails centralized management of 20+ data-center locations supporting hundreds of IT Operations staff-members and thousands of tenant users.  Phil has 25 years of industry experience starting with Defense Department software development, Advanced Messaging Systems Design at Motorola, a variety of technical roles at Microsoft, and currently at VMware.

Chris Reimer

Business Development Manager at Facilities Protection Systems
Intelli-tech

From the Orange County, California area, Chris has his attention on protecting businesses from fire through his work for Intell-tech and Facilities Protection Systems as a Business Development Manager. He also functions as the Chapter Secretary for the Society of Fire Protection Engineering in the Bay Area as well as the Chapter President for the Society of Protection Engineers in Los Angeles.

Ralph Renne

Director of Workplace Resources – Real Estate and Facilities, Americas
NetApp

Christopher Rosario

Engineer – Facilities/IT and AV Project Manager
Loma Linda University

Chris has been the IS Engineer-Facilities/Project Manager at Loma Linda University for over 10 years, bringing his expertise to the Higher Education space in the Los Angeles area. Previously, Chris studied nursing at the same university and was an Emergency Room Technician at the University’s medical center.

Cynthia Ruby

LEED AP+OM, RPA, FMA, CEO and President
Cynthia Ruby and Associates

Cynthia founded Cynthia Ruby and Associates, Inc., a facility consulting firm, that offers client representative services for facilities planning, project management and relocation move management. She has created strategic and tactical plans, managed projects and operational process improvement. She has developed corporate standards, space projections, density studies, master stacking plans, LEED Audits and developed real estate policy. Cynthia has managed construction of corporate headquarters, technology and biotech lab space, data centers, cafeterias, call centers, corporate briefing centers and domestic and international field offices. Cynthia holds a BS in Business from San Francisco State and First Professional Certificate in Interior Design and Interior Architecture from University of California Berkeley Extension. She is LEED AP+OM accredited by the U.S. Green Building Council. Cynthia is also designated as a RPA and FMA from the Building Owners and Managers Institute.

Jamie Saguindel

Manager, Data Center Operations
Box

Jamie has extensive experience in the Data Center operations space, working for large tech companies like Adobe, Hewlett Packard, eBay, VMware, and currently Box. If you name it, he’s worked with all different kinds of data center hardware and has the chops to build new environments to accommodate growth. He’s a respected leader in the industry in Silicon Valley.

Winston Saunders

Data Scientist
Independent Consultant

Living in the Portland, Oregon area, Winston is an experienced technologist who made a planned transition to Data Science. Previously, he led Security Technology efforts in the Data Center Group focusing on data center solution development for Intel(R) Software Guard Extensions (Intel(R) SGX), Silicon and Software Secure Development Lifecycle Practices and Innovation, ISO Cloud Computing Security Standards, Supply Chain Assurance, Solutions Development and User Experience, and Go To Market strategies. His history with Intel dated back to 1993.

His work now focuses on data analysis, visualization and modeling.

Marlene Sironi

Workplace Strategist
InsideSource

Marlene started her career at Silicon Graphics in Mountain View as a Facilities Space Planner. She transitioned to Herman Miller in 1999, where she spent about 17 years in a variety of roles (most recently as Learning Strategist). In 2016, Marlene joined InsideSource as a Workplace Strategist. Marlene is intrigued with the changing role of the workplace and its impact on people, culture, and productivity.

Trent Tanaka

Global AV Manager
Tesla

Native to the Bay Area, Trent currently is a Global AV Manager at Tesla, developing and implementing an AV strategic vision to drive Tesla’s mission to accelerate the advent of sustainable energy. Previously, he was the Director of AV Technology at Stanford University School of Medicine where he directed a department in Information Resources & Technology (IRT), AV Technology. With a history of work in New Media and television, Trent’s expertise is diverse and deep. Trent is a graduate of the University of Southern California.

Mark Thiele

Chief Strategy Officer
Apcera

Mark is an innovative IT Executive with 18 years of Experience on the Buy side and 5 years on the Sell Side of IT. He rapidly advanced his career path, first functioning as a PC Support Technician in 1992 to then becoming an EVP in 2011. He’s a IT staff and function turnaround expert, taking four different highly dysfunctional groups on the verge of replacement and turning them around to being high functioning, high retention teams. With a philosophy of “Team happy = Customer happy,” Mark has demonstrated leadership in building highly satisfied teams who can translate their work enthusiasm into excellent customer service.

Herb Villa

Senior Systems Consultant
Rittal Data Center Solutions

Herb currently is a Senior Systems Consultant at Rittal Data Center Solutions with experience in data center design and deployment, cabling, power distribution, and facility climate control. He is also knowledgeable in component installation and operations.

Herb authored numerous articles as well as several white papers on key technical aspects of data center design considerations and deployments with a focus on cooling solutions for high density installations and is a corporate representative and speaker at various industry trade shows and conferences.

Robin Weckesser

President & CEO
a3 Workplace Strategies

Robin is one of the Bay Area’s most experienced and accomplished executives in commercial real estate, workplace design and strategy, and project implementation management. Throughout his career of over 30 years, he has led his distinguished team of project managers in completing hundreds of domestic and global projects for technology and life sciences companies. He has managed construction of projects totaling over 3.5 million square feet and real estate transactions in excess of one million square feet, working with construction budgets exceeding $265 million.

Robin previously ran his own consultancy; he started his career with Apple Computer.