It was a puzzle that John Wilson simply couldn’t resist. Intel had long sold processors to the federal government on a commercial basis, but the rising importance of High Performance Computing (HPC) demanded a new approach. Undeterred by the maze of federal acquisition regulations, Wilson volunteered to stand up a dedicated government unit, a move that he tells us helped unlock cutting-edge HPC research. The work took him to the edges of “bleeding-edge technology,” even if it also meant navigating the detailed rigors of government compliance.
Read MoreThat knack for transformation would serve Wilson well when he later encountered another pivotal moment: the day the moving truck arrived at his new home in Oregon—just as Intel announced the dissolution of the very business group he was joining. Rather than panic, he thrived, moving on to master complex FP&A and business development roles. It was the same mindset that guided him in standing up an entirely separate legal entity to better serve government contracts, broadening his view of finance from purely operational tasks to strategic decision-making.
Today, as CFO of Sabey Data Centers, Wilson continues to fuse vision with pragmatism. He has drawn from his HPC experience—where technology evolves at breakneck speeds—to guide Sabey’s approach to data center design and expansion. Collaborating with teams to manage billion-dollar investments, he remains resolute on two fronts: balancing the need for innovation with disciplined capital allocation, and preserving a culture of “good stewardship” that ensures long-term stability for tenants ranging from tech giants to smaller enterprises.
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CFOTL: Tell us about Sabey Data Centers …what is this company about today?
Wilson: We design, build, and operate data centers across the United States. We (count) some of the world’s largest companies as customers, and we’re really proud of the business we’ve built. Maybe just (to) give a little context, it helps to share the company’s history. The Sabey company has been around for over 50 years, building mission-critical facilities primarily in the Pacific Northwest, although we’ve expanded and now have a national reach. We’ve got operations (of course) here in Seattle, in Central Washington, and in Ashford (Ashburn), Virginia (which, for those in the know, is the heart of the data center industry). We also have operations in Austin, Texas, and even a data center in a tower near the Brooklyn Bridge in Manhattan.
Our goal is to build scalable, flexible data centers that deliver low-cost power while operating with a mission-critical mindset for 100% uptime. It’s really a unique challenge (in) this industry because you’re putting up buildings that you expect to last 30-plus years, yet the technology (housed) inside them can change almost by the minute. The question is: how do you design enough flexibility to accommodate future waves of technology without building so much that you create an unsustainable cost structure? That’s one of the key balances we’re addressing now, particularly with the shift from traditional cloud hosting to (the) rapid advent of artificial intelligence.”
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