Innovating Through Partnerships in Data Center Construction | Work Done Right with Amy Marks

Wes Edmiston

Today’s guest is Amy Marks, the SVP of Innovation at Compass Data Centers, where she’s helping redefine how hyperscale and cloud data centers are built through customer-focused innovation and tightly integrated supply chains. 

Known widely as the queen of prefab, Amy is a trailblazer in industrialized construction and business transformation, with previous leadership roles at Autodesk, Symmetry, and XSite Modular. She’s a respected global voice on prefabrication, sustainability, and inclusion, and serves as the chair of the Advancing Prefabrication Conference.

Amy is also a proud mom, a former competitive rugby player, and an advocate for women in sports through her work with the US Women’s Rugby Foundation. Amy, welcome to the show.

Amy Marks

Thank you for having me. I’m super excited!

Wes Edmiston

Yeah, absolutely. I’m super excited to hear from you! I was creeping your website about all about the Queen of Prefab trying to learn about this whole kingdom that is all things modular data center construction and everything is going forward. 

So with that, I know just gave a little bit of a summary of who you are. But would you mind just kind of explain to the audience a bit more about who Amy Marx is what you do, maybe what it is that Compass data centers does.

Amy Marks

Sure. So you’ve already said my name and title. I work for Compass and I’m very lucky to work for Compass because our role in innovation is really cool. Actually, I think it’s like a one of a kind kind of situation where we get to focus on things like new ways of making buildings. 

So industrialized construction, as an example, all of the sustainability is within the purview of our group, as well as worker-centric initiatives. So everything from safety to mental health.

And then I like to think that it ties it all up with some really cool technology that we look at to make sure that people are working at their best and using things like AI to get better at what they’re doing. So it’s a really cool role, I think, with cool people and an amazing company at Compass.

Wes Edmiston

Awesome. So can you tell me a bit more about I guess what it is that compass does from again, what I was reading online more about compasses is really they have a solid reputation for establishing long term partnerships with their trade partners. 

And I was kind of wondering what that means, because other folks can say that they are a partner, but I’d like to know how exactly it is that the compass means that.

Amy Marks

Sure, we develop, build, own data center campuses. And we are mostly single-tenant hyperscalers. So we are a company that works with many of the hyperscalers throughout the world, but mostly focused in North America at the moment. 

And I think we’re one of the most innovative, culture-rich companies that’s out there right now. But that’s what we do for a living. And we get to work with all the cool hyperscalers that are there.

Wes Edmiston

Awesome. So you guys both build and own. So you’re owning and operating some of these data centers as well.

Amy Marks

Yeah, I mean, we operate the campuses and then our tenants have their tenant space actually within the campus that they’re operating.

Wes Edmiston

Awesome. So with that, then whenever you’re going through, I guess, even like the design process, the build process, what is it like? How does that that idea that you’re much more involved on the back end of this really serving through that whole value chain, that whole lifecycle, how does that, I guess, play into your mind, whatever it comes to the areas of focus that you have, when whenever you’re going through like design through construction, etc.

Amy Marks

Yeah, I think in our culture, you we think about things like fastest to ready. How are we going to have a competitive advantage? We think about lowest total cost of ownership. So and like when you are not just conceptualizing, you know, the campuses, but also designing and building those. 

I don’t want to use an old phrase, but like you have to eat your own dog food, you know, in my construction space. But I think the nice thing about that is that it allowed, you know, Chris Crosby, my CEO early days, to recognize that he wanted to standardize on what we call the prototype design. 

And of course, like we evolve our designs over time, but really, you know, they’re very standardized.

They’re also very customizable, very fungible within what we do that we can have our customers can still customize things. But the design is the design and it enables that customization. It doesn’t have to, it’s not like we throw it out and start a brand new building. 

So I think the notion, the fact that like that standardization allows you to iterate and get better at something continuous improvement, learning all the time, and future-proofing the building at the same time is really at the core of Compass’s core convictions of we always asking why, how do we do this better, and how do we continually improve things?

Wes Edmiston

That makes sense to double click on something that you said you brought up like total cost of ownership. 

And what I keep hearing right now from like our data center customers and really just folks that I know in the data center market is everything is all about speed, speed, speed, we need to get these things up, upline or online right now as quickly as possible. 

So it’s more of like the the do it right now, maybe instead of like the do it right. So whenever you’re looking at that, yeah, exactly. It makes you cringe a little bit hearing that.

So how are you weighing like speed with total cost of ownership realistically?

Amy Marks

Yeah, I don’t want to walk into anybody else’s data center if that’s what they’re doing. 

I would like to be in our data center in case there’s any kind of event or weather. No, I’m just making a joke. 

Look, I think it’s ingrained within our culture to do things right. That’s number one. We do things.. and again, you know, sustainability is really an outcome of the way we do business. 

We don’t think, we have these sustainability goals. It’s like, no, no, this is how we run our business and we happen to be much more sustainable and we focus on sustainability as an outcome of some of those behaviors. 

So just because it has to be fast doesn’t mean you can’t do it correctly. And I think, you know, having standardized on, you know, kit of parts allows you to go faster than and still be correct and actually get better quality than if you’re building something for the first time ever, every single time. 

So I think it’s a misnomer. It’s just a misunderstanding that you can’t have both. You can. I think you just have to be, you have to recognize that you can have both as long as you’re on a pathway to repeat things and reuse things. 

And when we say lowest total cost of ownership, we mean things like, if I have to buy it once, because we hold our properties, we tend to hold our properties for a long time, if I buy it once over 20 years instead of something that’s cheaper, but I have to replace it four times, think about not just the piece itself, but the iterations of like going out to bid for it four more times and getting it procured four more times and the people having to waste their time to get it. 

Like, we just want to pay once. And that’s a much more sustainable process, buying something more expensive once than it is to have to buy it three times. 

And like those things end up in the landfill, the other three that we had to throw out. And I think that’s the way we think about it. 

Not anything for the cost of speed. It’s certainly the opposite of that, I would say. Like we’re doing things that speed is an outcome of the way we do business. Not the only thing that’s important, if that makes sense.

Wes Edmiston

Right, so it’s more a function of the how it is that you’re working and that’s just kind of a natural outcome based on the decisions that you’re making further upstream. Is that kind of how you would summarize that?

Amy Marks

Yeah, I mean, it makes sense if you’re building lots of things off site, right? 

If you don’t have a linear process and now you have concurrency where you’ve stacked a bunch of stuff that’s getting built somewhere else and then you can assemble it on site, which is why we also call our team the delivery team that actually produces our buildings and gets finished. 

If you’re assembling those buildings on site and you have that concurrency, inevitably you shorten the time, right? Because you don’t have to wait for a linear process, consecutive process.

We have so many things concurrently being built and then delivered and assembled that you can’t help but be in a shorter time period. Right. And I think that’s, that’s important for people to recognize.

Wes Edmiston

That makes sense. So that’s really getting to the idea that, you know, leveraging something like, like a prefabrication process is you have, you have natural outcomes that can come from that because you’re able to advance a couple of parallel paths, maybe elsewhere, you know, where you’re not so location constrained, resource constrained in one given site. And so you can progress that forward. 

So that really touches on the idea of modularization in construction, modularization in data centers. 

So I guess, just taking a step back on that, you are, like I said earlier, you are the Queen of Prefab. How did you get such a regal title as a queen of prefab? How did you get into construction? Tell us a little more about yourself.

Amy Marks

Yeah. I mean, I’ve told a story before. I think it’s funny. A lot of people think it’s a self-given name, the Queen of Prefab. 

Even I was in HBS’s article, Harvard Business School’s review, and they were like, the self-styled Queen of Prefab. And I was a little offended by that actually being an HBS alum. But yeah, no. I look, I got involved in construction early days with my dad and my mom’s company. 

They started it together and then ran across a company that was for sale at the time, that was doing really complex modular buildings like embassies and telecommunications and even then eventually data centers and stuff like that. But they were also doing things like schools and hospitals and generator enclosures, that kind of stuff. 

And so had the opportunity to be a minority partner in that business when we bought it from the original family. It was a 75 year old company, actually like third generation. 

And then left that company and actually ended up buying all the assets from that company and intellectual property assets from that company and started XSite, which was a consultancy originally, and where I first ran into Chris Crosby, because I, my CEO, I did some consulting with him early days. 

And when there was no such thing as a prefabrication consultant, like legitimately, there were zero of them. And, and so I came and did some work for Chris early days and it was great. It was super fun. And at the same time, my boss, Nancy Novak, I did some work for Balfour Beatty doing some prefabrication, but I always kept building the whole time. 

And so we built a lot of small prefabricated data centers and cable annexations and telecommunications buildings at the same time. We were consulting on very large campuses, not just data center campuses, but healthcare and some other things, semiconductor, things like that. 

But I think because I think you stand out like a different kind of person when you walk up on a job site and you’re most of the time I was the only woman on the job site or one of very few and I tend to be a little bit girly, that’s how I like to dress for me.

But so I think I got asked to speak at some conferences and then they would start paying me to travel to go speak at conferences. 

And I was in Asia and I always signed my name with my initial and the organizer said, where’s your boss? Like where’s the CEO? We’re about to go on stage. And where is he? And I was like, I mean, I’m the CEO. 

And then I think he was embarrassed and he walked out and introduced me as the Queen of Prefab. And then it was like a big joke. And like, we all just kind of started hash tagging it on LinkedIn.

And then it just like stuck. And to be honest, it’s like probably the best thing that ever happened to me in my life. And I think taking back something that was meant to be embarrassing a little bit is also a good story as a woman. And you know, I love Queen Latifah.

Wes Edmiston

Hahahaha!

Amy Marks

I’m a rap fan. I’m you know, you’re a good company and now there’s Queen B that I don’t think, but like, know, there’s like a lot of cool stuff about it. And I was like, that sounds great. I mean, it’s been, it’s served me pretty well, like over the years.

Wes Edmiston

Yeah, no, that’s awesome. I mean, yeah, I’m sure being royalty also comes with its own difficulties. But to earn a title like that, and also to hold the title to not have everybody just kind of taking digs at it all the time, must mean you’re doing something right.

Amy Marks

I think so.

Wes Edmiston

So I’d like to explore that a little bit more. Because you know, with your background, you’ve been doing prefabricated construction for, can we can at least say years, is it?

Amy Marks

I mean, I’ve been in it like almost my whole career.

Wes Edmiston

Decades then, effectively. So you’ve been doing prefab for decades and I was I was doing a little bit of investigation on kind of the prevalence of data center construction and like the decision to go with prefabrication versus stick built.

And the stats I was seeing is something along the lines of around half of data centers right now are being constructed with prefab and my at least with certain aspects of it.

But something like 93% of companies are saying, yes, we want to, or we plan to utilize prefabrication in our construction process at some point here in the near future.

So it seems like it makes sense, I’d like to, but it’s, it can also be like the silver bullet solution, right?

Like is prefabrication ready for everybody? Is it right for everybody? And who is it right for? And kind of like, who is it not right for?

Amy Marks

Yeah. So it’s funny, know, like, first of all, at my age, hearing those stats, I have to like, laugh a little like I got a lot of no’s early days. Like, we used to slam the door in my face, like, actually, like, to be honest, like, and it wasn’t easy. 

So like, I’m really proud that it’s been very normalized in so many ways, like, and it has such awareness. And, but to your point, like, and by the way, I think at the moment now, like about 75 % of our, think, upwards of 74-75 % of our building, our campuses are factory built components, and we’re moving towards more, even way more. 

But yeah, I don’t think it’s right for everybody. I think you have to make sure you’re good at it. First of all, if you think it’s like everything else, and you’re just gonna roll on in, that’s untrue. And I think it’s one of the reasons why…

I used to say, like, if it takes you five times longer to design it and then just get, and then you’ve installed it in a brief amount of time, you didn’t gain anything, right? So I think some of that learning is in the upfront of understanding how to design for manufacturing, ease of manufacturing and assembly is a big part of it. 

And then I think also, you know, we just did some really cool research on the impact of partnering and partnerships on the outcomes of prefabrication, the benefits of that, whether that’s you know, time and return on investment, but also ESG benefits. 

Like there are some empirical data points around, you know, partnering with people, which again, you know, shouldn’t be a surprise when you’re like, when you don’t do that very wasteful transaction of bidding and working with strangers and like pretending that you are going to be great at it every single time when you’ve just met, I think is a shocker, maybe to some people, but it sounds simple, but not everybody knows how to partner and they, and especially in our industry.

We’ve been so used to putting people at adversarial relationships. Partnering is a strange concept to some people. So I think that’s really the benefits that we’re seeing now. So it’s not for everybody. I think you have to change your behavior and your business model, not just the physicality of the peace part, if that makes sense.

Wes Edmiston

That does make some third like two paths that kind of come to my mind after you say all that there’s one which is okay in the partnering aspect. How is it? I suppose that goes back to incentives, right? Like how is it that we’re incentivizing the people that we’re working with to do things to get the outcome that we’re wanting them to get right? 

Because ultimately Charlie Munger would say it all the time. Like you can trace everything back to incentives. So it’s it really ties in with that.

The other I guess idea that’s in my mind off of what you said is what I hear from certain customers, certain data center sites, folks that I know that are on different projects, there have been major design revisions that happened midstream like we’re hundreds of millions of dollars into construction on this thing. 

And we say, hey, there’s something new and emergent. We’re just going to scrap this real fast, throw it in the bin and do something new. That doesn’t sound like it’s right for modularization, given the massive change that would happen. 

So we can go down either of those paths, we’ll probably circle back on the incentives here in a second.

So with that, like how with all of the changes that are happening right now, again, with AI, it’s so buzzwordy. But I feel like it’s worth kind of bringing up like, there are design decisions that are changing midstream.

How would somebody implement modularization for that, right? For this super changing, ever changing environment.

Amy Marks

I mean, I think it’s counterintuitive to the way you’ve described it. So the more you are broken down into a kit of parts and you have modularity where things are decoupled and not so monolithic, the better you are at in change and being able to adjust certain things because you can swap a piece for another piece or adjust a system for an energy source. 

Or obviously, I think most people know we do hybrid air and liquid cooling now.

We’re able to adjust so quickly to that because we have a kit of parts. 

That, think, is very, very counterintuitive to people. And it’s one of the reasons why we’re so resilient as a company for future-proofing in such a fast environment is because we are broken down into a kit of parts that is easier to adjust, right? And they’re more fungible to changes in future-proofing. 

So I think, yes, if you have a completely monolithic data center where everything is intertwined, it’s almost like, you know, it’s funny, I used to say, I haven’t said this analogy in a long time. It’s like, sometimes they would, you know, put things in a building and then almost like, you know, poche and architect taught me that phrase when it’s like, you kind of like make floor plans and then somebody would pour the MEP systems in it, like the water would fill into the, that was what MEPs look like. 

You know, like that’s a very hard building to adjust to change. Everything is not like that. And you have it very systematized and like broken down in building components. It’s very easy to actually make those adjustments when you’re super modular in that case. 

So I think that’s that, right? Like, so, yes, some people are going to have a really hard time in adjusting and future-proofing and some will not. And I feel like, you know, I work for a place where it is not, and that’s good.

But I think from an incentive perspective, you know, I, don’t know, I think we have to, it’s funny. I was just saying this, my boss, Nancy Novak, you know, one of the things we’re doing in thought leadership coming up as a talk about a change of, like sort of a tale of two mindsets, right? 

And it’s like, we’ve paired an industry in construction, which is the least, like the least adventurous, most risk averse, just trying not to lose industry with the data center industry, which is like moving fast, trying to, it’s like these two worlds could not be more different. 

And we’re expecting somehow we’re going to like walk hand in hand into the sun, like we’re going to just all win, you know?

And I think you have to recognize that if you don’t see that, you might make some missteps in your partnerships and like in drivers and behaviors and things like that. 

The give get is a different scenario for those types of companies. Like what they want and what you’re willing to give up are very different. If you’re just trying not to lose, than if you are all trying to win at a fast pace.

And I think that is, that is hard right now for people. And so incentives are incredibly important when you’re dealing with that. And I think trust and empathy is also part of that incentive program, right? 

So it’s like, you’re not gonna get the best out of people if you’re only committed to working with them once. 

Seems like you should know that, but like, I mean, if you think about product development, like that is an iterative process that we work on with partners. We co-develop products with all of our partners, whether that’s, know, Vertiv or Schneider or Siemens or RK, or, you know, any one of those people that we’re doing things with.

And I think, you know, there’s a lot of incentive about that. 

It’s funny, I feel like we say the phrase, we both write checks. It’s not like Compass writes a check to a partner. They have also written a check to us and believed in us and stat alongside us. And we’ve really failed on the path to success with all of our partners, because how else will you succeed? 

So if you’re not committed with incentives for that and you’re not also recognizing there’ll be failure that you both have to jointly take on, I think you’re just on a fool’s path at that point. You’re just wanting things that aren’t real, right?

Wes Edmiston

Yeah, no, that makes sense. 

Especially if you think about it, you know, we’ll say even marrying it back to the whole idea of like modularization and prefab. T

he idea, we’ll say even manufacturing, the idea is that this is a repeatable process, where since we’re going to be doing this thing, building this, this kit of parts over and over and over again, it’s, it’s kind of befit for something like modularization and prefab. 

And because it’s a repeated and repeatable process, we can we can begin controlling those parameters learning as we go and do a better job. In that same way, why wouldn’t we apply that mentality to the people we’re working with? 

So that it’s again, a repeatable process, we learn together and as we’re progressing, getting more narrow and narrow and narrow on effectively the point that we’re trying to get to, right? Does that make sense?

Amy Marks

No, it does. mean, like, listen, just having standard product does not make for good prefab. Like it just doesn’t. Right. 

So as an example, you know, if you look at, just did some really cool data working with Schneider. They’re our partner. We have a really great relationship with them. And from our code developed product, it’s funny – if you talk to that team originally, you know, a couple of the guys I was talking to, was like, why do think that we have such great ESG benefits? Like we have less copper, less packaging, less carbon footprint, all this stuff. 

And they’re like, it’s the standard. And I was like, no. Yes, it’s the standard but there would not be a standardized process and we wouldn’t be looking at the way to, you know, create a better production process in the factory where these things are made, if you didn’t have not just the standardization with our partnership, but scale. 

The partnership provides scale so that you have security in wanting to understand how to standardize things and work towards a goal together because you know, you’re getting so much capacity over time, so that you can invest in other things like automation in your factory and better production processes and things like simulation and whatever, whatever those things are, like new technologies and new ways of working.

No one is going to invest in something, even if you give them a thousand of something, like, right, whatever, like if it’s just a one-off, like even if it’s just a thousand of the same thing, but then after that they don’t know, it’s like, why would they invest in their process for you in that way? 

And I think that is the missing secret sauce that people kind of forget about and they just think like, oh, if I give them enough of them and it’s whatever, it could get better. 

It’s like, well, not really. Like what’s the incentive for them to want to get better for you and somebody else, right?

Wes Edmiston

Yeah. So you’re saying actually maintaining this as a long term relationship effectively where you both see yourselves together and getting more and more out of this as time progresses.

Amy Marks

I mean, that is the definition of win-win, right? 

Like, don’t want to sound like Captain Obvious, but like, I feel like sometimes the best thought leadership is like when it makes perfect sense and you’re like, yeah, we, of course, like you have to have scale and partnership because who’s gonna evolve themselves together and jointly produce things with you and figure out how to get better if they don’t have that. 

And that’s why it really hasn’t happened.

Wes Edmiston

That makes sense because I’m gonna ask you, you know, with a role. Yes, you’re heavy in all things, modularization, prefab. But really, you are the SVP of Innovation.

So you’re really at that nexus of how it is that we’re going to do things differently and better over the long run. So that’s not just, hey, how do we modularize and prefab that? How do we, you touched on automate. How do we, you know, invite new technologies into this and…

Amy Marks

Connect data, things like that. Like how do get the right same data schemas that we were like all working off the same information? 

Like all of that, how do we make sure that people are using all the right tools and that they feel good about what they’re doing and that we’re getting the best out of people, you know? 

And that like, there’s a lot of that in there as well.

Wes Edmiston

That makes sense. So I’m going to assume here that that long term partnership strategy is really a key element to bring in the innovations because just kind of out of my experience, having been on the contractor side and on the owner side in oil and gas are very different than data centers. 

But people are people. It’s like, well, if I as the owner tried to impose new requirements onto a contractor, but this is a short term contract, I’m not going to upend my entire life for 12 months, you know what I mean? Or even for 24 months, we’re going to go through a longer term process together to really evolve what that manufacturing process looks like in prefab or even what the site construction works look like. 

So is that, would you say that that is like a key element of the strategy for bringing forward new innovations really? And also what new innovations are you looking at beyond how prefabrication and modularization are playing into your strategy?

Amy Marks

Oh my God, we’re looking at so many innovations. Some have nothing to do with prefab, know, it’s like in lot of… 

But yeah, I mean, I think at the end of the day, you have to really recognize that we’re looking for 1% incremental innovations all the time, right? Like we’re continuously improving all the time. 

We are looking for singles, not grand slams all the time. And I think that’s important for people to recognize as well. 

I think as far as like, listen, like I have a slide in one of my presentations that’s like innovation happens when… and the answer is like when the owner requires it, like really, like every contractor would tell you that same phrase. I don’t even have to fill it in. 

I think that’s unfortunate. And I think we have to get past that.

But as a now sitting on the owner side, I think we have a responsibility to not just the data center industry, but to the built environment to require and request as much as possible to the people that we’re gonna work with consistently that they also evolve with us and also use tools that again, there’s some tools like, in fact, the tools that you guys have, like we’re not necessarily keeping logs for torquing, but our contractors are, but like, is it a great thing to have? 

Yes. Do we want them to have it? Yeah, of course.

But I think anytime somebody tells you must do something, I feel like in America, at least, we’re like, wait a minute, hold on. It’s like, no, no. 

So I feel like we have to bring people along to expose to them why. There’s a reason somebody sees this as an innovation.

And usually, it’s a win-win for all of us. It’s a win-win for the contractors. It’s a win-win for the technology that we’re using. It’s a win-win for us. 

I think it’s just because people are busy, let’s say it like that, because people are trying to, their incentives are slightly different maybe than ours at the time, that you have to really express to them why.

We don’t often tell people the why behind things. I think, and one thing I feel like I’ve really learned personally at Compass in the short time I’ve been here is that we try to focus on the why, right? 

Not on the, and it’s people, process, and tools, right? It’s like the tools are always last, but I think there are fantastic reasons to do incredible things with new innovations that are out there. 

If you can explain to somebody why the ‘why’ is so important to them, you know, and then everybody wins.

Wes Edmiston

Yeah, I think that makes sense though, as far as what you’re saying with that’s not going to happen without a long term relationship though, even still. 

Because what ultimately ends up happening is somebody’s gone out, they’ve bid this you, you awarded the contract to somebody. And what at that point, you’re going to come forward and say, hey, we want you to do something in entirely different way? 

Like if we think about what, where their mind was on this, what they were contracted to do, they they’ve already been through this planning process. They’ve already been starting to put together exactly how it is that they’re going to execute, and then you’re going to derail them? 

Well, that’s, that’s very difficult to do in that spirit of a really change management, right? Cause, cause companies don’t change, people change fundamentally. 

So how are you going to change the people to do something whenever they already had a set forward plan that they get, there’s punitive measures if they don’t deliver on the plan.

So they’re going to try to do it their way because maybe it’s, we as Americans, I think we as construction workers is like, I want to be in control of my own destiny. I don’t want you to tell me what to do. Right. 

So with that, I think that that idea of again, long term partnerships, not to just beat a dead horse on this, but I think, I mean, from my experience, most folks are missing out on it. And a few places that I’ve worked that do really, really, really well. 

Now thinking about it, they do have long term relationships with the owner and the contractor in place that that helped keep everything moving progressively and improving.

Amy Marks

Yeah, I think there’s one more element to it, which is that also we don’t expose the idea to enough people on what we call the role play wheel. 

You may get a really great idea and you ask one person permission or you’re asking them like their opinion and they might have like one lens on it, but you didn’t put the other nine lenses that are necessary for you or you don’t have access to those other nine people or those nine groups to get a yes.

Like six of those nine people might be like, my God, my mind’s when we have to have this and here’s why. But oftentimes you either don’t get access to many of them or only like a portion of those people, depending on where you’re at, where you could easily get a yes if you just got in front of like the, you know, the eight other people that are in the role play wheel, that this would be really important to them. Right. 

And I think that’s…it’s an unfortunate part of the way we’ve set up our relationships to be very siloed in our ecosystem, for the most part. 

Not at Compass. I would say like one of the things we, I would say it’s the opposite we have at Compass. Like we have to retrain people’s brains that we do trust them and we do have empathy. We are asking them to like question us and tell us how to do something better. 

And it’s like, and that it has its own challenges. Like I’ll be honest. Like I feel like that, that’s like changing somebody’s behavior.

And it’s not, it’s just as difficult actually for them to trust, for them to have empathy, for them to speak up, for them to learn that they should challenge because they’re so used to doing things a particular way, right? Like it works both sides.

It’s funny, like in lean manufacturing, you know, in Japan, they have this thing called the Andon cord. And anytime the problem, pull it and the line stops and then everyone does a Kaizen around it and they all say like, what can we fix? You know, quality at the source. 

And what they realize in the United States is like, in Japan, they reward you for pulling the Andon cord.

When you pull the cord in the United States, they’re like, what is going, who messed up? Why did you pull the cord? It’s like, we have a completely different understanding.

Which is why lean manufacturing is a very hard concept for people to grasp here, because we just have a different culture. 

But I think, again, it’s a retraining of our brains. And again, it’s also different types of contracts need to be in place, different risk management profiles need to put together.

Yeah, you have to trust and have empathy, but you need different vehicles in order to feel confident that you can still do business. 

And I think that is a misunderstood part of it, that it’s not that easy. Like if you have the same contracts, you can have trust, but at the end of the day, it’s hard if you haven’t changed the vehicles that you have.

Wes Edmiston

That makes sense. 

So how are you then, it makes sense if you’re already focusing on like total cost of ownership for the whole life cycle of each of your installations as the owner. 

I think it makes sense to like where the business goals are through innovation, but how are you putting on a lens to, I guess, empathize with the contractor or even the subcontractors whenever you’re bringing forward a new innovation? 

Like, is that something that plays into your calculus and I guess also with that, what are the business goals that you’re chasing right now?

Amy Marks

Well, I think first all, you can have great ideas, but if you can’t impact and get adoption, it’s just a good idea. It’s like a team of artists. Let’s just say that, right? 

So I think we’re constantly having empathy and understanding what it takes to do the thing we want. 

Now, I think the other part of it is that, you can’t just do innovation for innovation’s sake, right? Like we do have business goals that we’re trying to accomplish. We are seeking out particular types of innovations based on our customers actually, like I would say like we’re a very customer centric focused innovation team. 

We’re seeing what our customers needs are out in the marketplace. We want to make sure that, and not just the customers from like the end user perspective, our customers are also the communities that we operate within, right? So we are looking for things that make us a good neighbor as well as a good landlord and you know, put that in quotes, a good landlord and a good neighbor, right? A good community member. 

So I think we are hyper focused on that. 

You know, like that is, if that, if it’s something that we, you know, are currently measuring or we want to measure to tell us whether or not it’s good for something that our customer wants, our communities want. Like we are very focused about that. And then the innovations have to match up to that. 

It’s like, you know, innovation for innovation sake is really tough to get past. It’s like, well, who’s asking for that? What does it do for us? Like, is it hard to do? Is it making a better, are we better neighbors because of it? Is it quieter? Is it, you know, less intrusive? 

Is it helping our customers reach their end goal with goal with who they’re trying to get, you know, to use their services and things like that. 

I would say for us, our focus has been a really connected innovation plan. And that’s been a real big focus of ours, you know, Nancy Novak and myself and our entire team and working with our other teams to understand what’s important to our to really our stakeholders, right? 

So again, customers, community members, you know, we call them, you know, our investors are part of that. Like, what are they looking from us like in?

And our, what we call like Raiders and Rankers, like we obviously just, I don’t know, we’ve launched a program with the GBI on the campus approach for, you know, certification for sustainability. 

That’s very focused on not one building at a time. 

Like we helped co-develop that program with GBI because we’re building campuses, right? So it’s like, I think, and there’s a reason for that. So it’s, know, we build campuses, we are single tenant campuses. 

I would say like, again, we’re really trying to look at it through the lenses of our of our stakeholders, our innovations.

Wes Edmiston

That makes sense. The, I guess the question is in my mind is like, well, you mentioned, you know, how, how is it that you can monitor the noise control and all of that? 

I think that would fall into the bucket of, you know, how to be a better, a neighbor and community member. 

What would you say falls into the business objectives of being a better landlord?

Amy Marks

Yeah, I mean, like, listen, nobody wants to be next to a construction site if that if it’s if it’s stick built, I’m going to say it like that.

Wes Edmiston

Hahaha! Yeah, it’s loud, it’s chaotic.

Amy Marks

I mean, like it’s dirty, it’s noisy, it’s messy, it’s got a lot of dust, it’s got much more truck traffic. I mean, like you’re talking about like exponentially. I don’t know. I think I’ve seen numbers like six times more truck traffic than like, you know, whatever. 

But so, yeah, like we are a better neighbor just inherently by the assembly process. Right. It’s quieter. There’s less people on the job site. There’s tremendous reduction in people on the job site. So traffic, noise, pollution, that kind of stuff.

Obviously, think anything we look at that makes us a better neighbor. then, of course, we want the communities so listen… 

For every job that a data center brings into a community, there are six jobs created outside of the data center that have nothing to do with construction. 

So we want to make sure that we’re building communities that have you know, good jobs in those communities. 

And I think you can look at some of the stuff that Loudoun County has done. I mean, they have the best schools, the best hospitals, everything.

If you look over time, that is a community that has flourished because of the data center population in the business sense there. 

So I think definitely being a good community member and creating better communities, whether that is through the process of building or the process of operating there so that we are a good neighbor whilst operating.

You we just started something with Texas State Technical College to train people in the MEI data center pathway program. 

It’s a six week full-time course or a 12 week part-time course where we train people how to actually work in data centers. So, I mean, like we want to make sure that we’re providing jobs in the data center, outside of the data center. 

And I don’t think everybody thinks the way that Compass does. We want more people to think that because our goal is, you we build data centers differently. We hope all data centers are built differently and we lead the way.

So that we create scale and opportunity so that hospitals can also be built differently and housing can be built differently and manufacturing facilities can be built differently so that we have a better world, right? 

Like more sustainable, better business practices, more empathy for other people and just be good neighbors.

I think it really is tied in an ecosystem approach really for us.

Wes Edmiston

Yeah, definitely. Especially with the critical infrastructure that it does, it does play and really build around it. no, absolutely. That’s excellent. 

Amy we’re coming up on time. I guess the last question just to close us out here. What would you say is the biggest issue right now plaguing the data center construction market, and if you could wave that scepter of yours as the queen, what would you do about it?

Amy Marks

I mean, there’s two issues that keep me up at night. One is energy, right? Like I think we obviously need to do something, you know, in the, and this maybe not Compass’, I don’t know if it keeps Chris up at night, but it keeps me up at night. 

I think we need to think about, you know, what are we doing with other renewable energy sources and especially even like nuclear and how do we do that faster? 

Not just the actual reactors, but you know, even the enriched gas and things like the fuel you need to, the enriched fuel that we don’t have that we need.

So that, I think power keeps me up at night in general. You know, like just probably everyone would say that. 

And then I think workforce development also keeps me up at night.

I mean, I feel like I’ve said it a lot of times, like if you’re just going for middle schoolers at this point, like we don’t have time for that. Like my daughter’s 16, like I don’t have time for even her at this point to get into our space. Like certainly 12 year old’s are behind her. 

So I feel like, you know, it’s one of the reasons why I support the athlete community and know, rugby women is that we need jobs in the rugby community and like we have jobs to give them.

And I feel like we are not reaching into the pools that are more likely to come and be in our spaces, like the athletic community, like my rugby women or any kind of hockey women or softball, name the sport. Right. 

So I feel like we’re just not fishing in the right ponds for workforce development.

And then, yes, we also can train them and like do great programs for them and that kind of thing. 

But those two things, I think, me up. And I know a lot of that keeps our entire team up at night and certainly Compass believes in workforce development. 

Obviously we’re working through a lot of power, renewable power and trying to use less and all that you can see it in our sustainability report that we hourly write every year. So yeah, those two things.

Wes Edmiston

I can definitely get on board, especially with the second one. 

The first one is my former life entirely and building facilities, then the work that I do right now with Skills USA as the technical chair for all the welding programs for the state of Illinois. Totally, totally with you. 

Whatever we can do in order to get these folks prepared. Look for the people with the right characteristics, right? That are coachable, hardworking, well disciplined and want to learn and do better for themselves. 

That’s excellent. 

Is there anything that innovation can do in that space? How is it that maybe technologies can be used to augment that training experience or to bring people on board faster?

Amy Marks

Yeah, I mean, we have a great program called Frontliners that is fantastic. Rachel Neal runs it, our VP of Safety. I think we impact that by the people that are on our job sites know that we care, right? 

And we care what they think and we want them to think, how do I do things differently every day? So I think just walking the walk makes me proud. 

And we have a construction project manager, a program manager initiative that has 95 % women at Compass, which is fantastic. 

So I feel like, yeah, just walking the walk is really important and again, like no one’s perfect. We’re constantly evolving at Compass and trying to do more things. 

But yeah, I think the last thing I would say is that we want everybody to do that and to really take on to themselves the one thing they can do, know, whatever that is.

Like think of the one thing that you can do, hire an athlete, whatever, you know, do something, you know, make a donation somewhere, do something, create a new program. Because there’s so much to do.

If you can’t find something to do now, you haven’t looked, with respect.

Wes Edmiston

One hundred percent – absolutely. Get off your butt. Let’s get involved. Let’s do it. You have me motivated there, Amy.

Thank you for the conversation. I appreciate it. This was excellent. Nice show. I know that our audience is going to enjoy it. 

So thank you, Amy. I do appreciate it.

Amy Marks

Thank you.