AFCOM golf outing raises more than $25,000 for CyrusOne summer intern program

AFCOM golf outing raises more than $25,000 for CyrusOne summer intern program

Data centers have become essential to modern life, but finding the highly qualified people to run them in the near future has become almost as difficult as hitting a hole in one.

The data center industry now faces a labor crunch and skills gap that require rethinking how the sector recruits and attracts fresh talent. The Association for Computer Operations Management (AFCOM) aims to help bridge that gap, advancing data center and IT infrastructure professionals through delivering comprehensive and vendor-neutral education and peer-to-peer networking to its members around the world.

CyrusOne is also committed to workplace training and development and seeks to renew the talent pipeline and boost recruitment, showing potential job candidates data center careers offer genuinely rewarding career paths with high-paying salaries.

That's why we were proud to join the AFCOM Potomac Chapter's Dallas-Fort Worth Golf Outing on May 23 in Euless, Texas. Twenty-nine sponsors and more than 100 golfers teed off at Texas Star Golf Course to raise more than $25,000 for the AFCOM Chapter Data Center Internship Program. Sponsors included platinum sponsor MCIS, CyrusOne and industry partners Rogers O'Brien, Vertiv, Walker Engineering, Silverback and kW Mission Critical, to name a few.

The money raised at the golf outing will pay the wages for CyrusOne interns Chris Martin, Banita Rajbhandari and Mitchel Rifae, whose steward/mentors are Jason Dunbar, Phillip Sandino and Caroline Teitelbaum, respectively. Each intern will get one-on-one assignments, career mentoring, weekly check-ins, progress reports and long-term mentorship during summer 2022 at several of our data centers, initially based at our Sterling V facility in Northern Virginia.

Regional Operations Director Robert Smith will supervise the internship program - or, as he puts it, "showing them the magic behind the curtain."

During their time with Smith and CyrusOne, we will expose them to our organizational roles and the construction to customer implementation lifecycle, including building construction, customer opportunity, solutions engineering (customer solution), operations capacity planning/approval, implementation, service delivery customer support and facilities maintenance.

"We will highlight professional relationship management, internal communication, customer communication, and administrative support and planning," Smith said. "Where appropriate and when available, we have had and will have opportunities to get them exposure to the business side of data center management as well. The goal is to give them each wholistic view into the data center life."

Internships are a vital part of any company's talent pipeline and often the launching point of a great career, providing insights and experiences academia rarely offers while earning a degree. And we are delighted to host Chris, Banita and Mitchel as our summer 2022 interns.

Stay tuned for profiles of each intern coming soon on the CyrusOne blog.