One of the best parts of our DCD>Talks is the insight we get, not only on a macro level of the industry and companies that function within it, but also of the individuals and how they grew into the expert-level shoes they now wear.

One of, perhaps, the most interesting tales was shared with us by Jim Connaughton.

It is a recurring theme in the data center industry that no one finds their way there purposefully. It is almost always serendipitous – a stumble onto the path that was unexpected but, in hindsight, makes perfect sense.

In Jim Connaughton’s case, while now the CEO of Nautilus Data Technologies, he confesses to being a “recovering lawyer”.

“I spent the 90s as a practicing attorney. I worked on environmental policy and energy policy, and I was privileged to travel the world negotiating the ISO 14,000, international environmental management system standards, on how to better manage environmental, energy, and natural resource matters with large industrial and governmental organizations.”

These beginnings show logical stepping stones to Connaughton’s current career. Nautilus Data Technologies, after all, is driven by energy savings, water conservation, environmental sustainability, and rapid global scalability. But it was not a direct leap from law to data center.

“I took off my suit and tie and put on steel-toed shoes and blue jeans, and spent the bulk of the 90s running around factories, developing these systems and then working on implementing them. I've been in every kind of industrial setting you can imagine: mines, forestry, petrochemicals, auto assembly, ball bearings, home furnishings. I've had the great privilege of traveling the world and working with smart people, a lot of engineers and others, to figure out how to do it with a smaller footprint. .

“That got me focused on the way regulations are written. Often, regulations are written by people who have no idea how things are made. So I became very involved in the regulatory reform movement of the 90s, to come up with smarter regulation. That's how I got to know then-Governor George W. Bush and his staff.

“I was really attracted to this guy down in Texas, and when he decided to run for president, I decided I liked his way of achieving environmental progress better than other methods I'd seen. While not political, I'm a real policy geek, and I ended up in the really interesting and far-reaching role as the chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.”

After a career in almost every key industry involved in improving environmental sustainability, the data center industry – while in many ways a hidden industry – should be a logical next step.

“We don't often think about digital infrastructure as being that important. But this is as important as drinking water plants. It's as important as wastewater treatment plants. And it's as important as clean power plants.

“Having super sustainable digital infrastructure is now essential to everybody on the planet, and getting it right means not only can we create environmental and social benefits within the sector, but the sector itself will drive an unparalleled scale of environmental social benefits for everyone around the world in a big way. Not in the incremental way we've been doing for the last 20 years, but in a big way. My whole career has been about looking for the big leap forward.”

Learn more about how Nautilus is revolutionizing the data center industry by watching the full interview