Data center industry veterans integrate decades of data center design development, construction and operational experience into Crusoe’s climate-aligned computing business
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Crusoe Energy Systems LLC (“Crusoe”) announced today that two data center industry leaders, Chris Dolan and Jamie McGrath, have joined the company. Chris Dolan has joined the company as Chief Data Center Officer and Jamie McGrath has joined the company as SVP of Data Center Operations. Both Dolan and McGrath have served as members of Crusoe’s Board of Advisors for multiple years, and now step into full-time roles with the company to lead the rapid growth of Crusoe Cloud and high performance digital infrastructure offerings . They bring decades of experience and expertise building mission-critical data centers as the company continues to expand its Crusoe Cloud offering and data center operations.
Dolan and McGrath were previously the co-founders of 365 Main, a large data center developer, owner and operator. Serving as CEO and COO, respectively, they scaled and ran the business — gaining valuable experience, know-how, and relationships — before selling the company to Digital Realty, one of the largest data center businesses in the world. As Crusoe’s Chief Data Center Officer, Dolan will be responsible for driving new data center development and commercial strategies, while McGrath will be responsible for data center engineering, construction and operations.
“As an advisor, it’s been impressive to see how Crusoe has grown and evolved under the leadership of Chase and Cully, and going forward we are excited to merge our operational expertise, industry relationships and development know-how into the long term growth of Crusoe’s cloud and colocation offerings,” said Dolan. “’I’m excited to help the company take the next step in its journey as it rapidly expands within the booming artificial intelligence and high performance computing infrastructure sectors.”
Dolan and McGrath first met in college while studying architecture and engineering and immediately discovered a common interest for data center development and construction. While working for a start-up company, they were given management responsibility along with a $1.1b capital budget to commercialize the design and development of large-scale data centers. On the heels of the dot-com bust, Dolan and McGrath founded 365 Main by taking over several distressed data center assets that they had previously designed and built or acquired. Ahead of filing their IPO the 365 Main assets were sold to Digital Realty for $725 million in 2010. The pair went on to acquire additional data center assets from Equinix. The combined portfolios serviced over 500 customers within 22 data centers across the United States under one of the most respected brands in the industry, 365 Main. Their innovation and leadership resulted in the adoption of many design and operational best practices that are still used today across the data center industry. Dolan and McGrath have subsequently built and exited numerous privately capitalized data center businesses, and have also served as consultants and advisors to data center developers, builders and operators in the United States, Middle East and South America.
“This is an exciting time for the data center industry, and Crusoe’s innovative approach to climate-aligned, high-performance computing technology makes it a special place to be right now,” said McGrath. “I’m looking forward to using my data center operations expertise to work even more closely with the rest of the Crusoe team as we scale a top-tier operating platform for high performance computing workloads.”
Last year, Crusoe launched Crusoe Cloud, which mitigates the environmental impact of computing through climate-aligned solutions that capture wasted, curtailed, or stranded energy – providing scalable, clean, low-cost, cloud solutions for compute intensive applications, such as generative AI and machine learning, among others. This empowers innovators to solve the world’s biggest challenges with climate-aligned computing technology. Crusoe currently owns and operates a portfolio of approximately 200MW of data centers and related computing assets with plans to rapidly expand throughout the coming years. Under Chris and Jamie’s stewardship, Crusoe will expand its offerings in the clean computing infrastructure space to include industry-leading vertically integrated data centers and additional behind-the-meter energy projects to power the next generation of Crusoe Cloud.
“Chris and Jamie have provided valuable guidance and have become closely trusted advisors over the years,” said Crusoe’s co-founder and CEO, Chase Lochmiller. “We’re thrilled to have them join us full-time and bring their critical domain expertise in engineering, developing and operating mission critical infrastructure for high performance computing workloads as we scale Crusoe Cloud.”
About Crusoe Energy Systems LLC
Crusoe is on a mission to align the future of computing with the future of the climate. As builders and operators of clean computing infrastructure, Crusoe reduces both the costs and the environmental impact of the world’s expanding digital economy. By unlocking stranded sources of energy to power artificial intelligence, crypto, and other high performance computing applications, Crusoe is creating the future of compute-intensive innovation that reduces emissions rather than adds to them.
To learn more, visit www.crusoeenergy.com and follow Crusoe on Linkedin and Twitter.
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