This is a little off topic, but I thought I would share a presentation I did about my NCTD IT Team for a Leadership program I am in through the American Public Transportation Association.  This shows I am perhaps a little overly-proud of my team, but they do earn that respect.

Today the data center project paid off big time. Yes, for those in Southern California it was a near disaster- we had an extensive power outage that reached from Mexico to Los Angeles, and from San Diego to Arizona.

The good news for my team- the data center stayed up 100% of the time. In fact, we lost only 1 rail communications cabinet during 10 hours of an outage.

This means that our phones were up, even when cell phones were not. Our Internet was online and we could communicate with our customers. Our emergency operations center (EOC) was live and effective. I was proud to see NCTD keep bus and rail service in play hours into an outage that was so significant for the region.

More than anything, I know that without the data center project, we would not have achieved this success.

Not everything was smooth and I don’t want to overstate the positives… but I am confident without our green data center, our EOC team would have struggled that much more. So here is to investment in technology and the ability to see a ROI.