Ed Henigin – CTO Data Foundry, Congressman Pete Olson, Robert Flores – Governmental Affairs Advocate – Data Foundry, Andy MacFarlane – Director-Governmental Affairs, Ronald Yokubaitis – Co-CEO – Data Foundry
Congressman Pete Olson recently visited and toured our Texas 1 data center in Austin TX. During the walk through, we discussed the importance of being Carrier Neutral with 18+ fiber networks in Texas 1 and the lack of choice in Internet providers consumers get to their home. We also discussed the importance of privacy laws to protect citizens from government intrusion, and how our sister company Golden Frog is fighting for privacy by creating encryption services and tools to help people protect their Internet connections from snooping and getting hacked.
“Unfortunately, data breaches and hackers are a prevalent danger in today’s global society,” Rep. Pete Olson said. “As the threat continues to grow, it is reassuring to know that we have a company like Data Foundry right here in Texas. They protect industries from healthcare to energy by operating secure, carrier neutral data centers. Data Foundry even provides disaster recovery for businesses that lose data. Their services are vital in keeping information safe for US companies and helping spur our economy.”
Congressman Pete Olson on Tour of Texas 1 in front of the Network Carrier Cages
We discussed the differences between “Net neutrality” and the FCC’s recent “Open Internet” rules and the voluminous filings at the FCC & FTC that Data Foundry and Golden Frog have made over the past 10 years.
As a member of the House Energy & Commerce Committee, and their Energy & Power Subcommittee, Congressman Olson was particularly interested in hearing about the costs of electricity for local businesses vs cities that have much lower costs where competition for electricity providers exists.
Our discussion with the Congressman also covered the high demand for technical graduates that are needed to support Texas businesses, which he was keenly aware of. Coincidently, TSTC (Texas State Technical College) is located in the Congressman’s district in Richmond, Texas, and a number of TSTC alumni are valued employees of Data Foundry. Our newest data center, Houston 2 is actively seeking to hire technical graduates to help support the facility.
Data Foundry’s CO-CEO, Ronald Yokubaitis thanked the Congressman for his support of the Federal ECPA bills (the E-mail Privacy Act) and offered his support for opposing the SEC’s desire for a “carve out” from the “warrant for content” requirement.
