Management Bios:
John Sheputis, CEO, Fortune Data Centers
John has a proven track record of building successful IT infrastructure firms. Prior to Fortune, John has founded and managed several Silicon Valley ventures, most of which specialized in large scale infrastructure management and hosting of global applications. From 1999 through 2003, he was COO and Co-Founder of Totality (now a unit of Verizon Business), which helped launch and manage over 100 Internet applications for some of the nation’s most trusted and well respected firms. John also held senior management positions at Solidcore (sold to MacAfee [MFE] in 2009), BeVocal (Sold to Nuance [NUAN] in 2007), Enron, Gemini Consulting, and Accenture. John has a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, and MBA from Northwestern’s Kellogg School.
Matt Mochary, CEO, Fortune Development Group
Prior to Fortune, Matt was the Chairman and Co-Founder of Totality (now Verizon Business), and the Chairman of AEKus Properties, a privately-held portfolio of multi-family real estate. Before that, Matt was a Partner at Spectrum Equity Investors, a $3 billion venture capital firm, where he invested in, and sat on the boards of, numerous private technology companies. Matt was the Director and Producer of the Academy Award-shortlisted feature documentary Favela Rising, and the Founder of the Mochary Foundation, which trains ex-convicts to get and keep legitimate jobs. Matt received his BA from Yale University and his MBA from Kellogg (Northwestern University).
Bruce MacLean, CFO, Fortune Data Centers
Bruce has over 18 years of experience in the real estate/financial industry. Prior to Fortune, Bruce was the President of Embarcadero Advisors, a real estate advisory/ brokerage firm focused on tenant representation. Prior to that, he spent eight years at Trammel Crow, where he spent three years as the Controller for Northern California. At Trammel Crow, he participated in the sale of a 19-property portfolio with $170M value for PacBell (now AT&T), performed all Acquisition/Disposition of properties for Exxon, among many other significant transactions. Bruce has also held various accounting & consulting positions with PWC, Ernst & Young, and Deloitte. He has a BA from UC Berkeley and holds a current California CPA license.
Will Fleming, VP Acquisitions & Finance, Fortune Data Centers
Will has over 13 years of experience aquiring and financing of commercial properties across the US, with dozens of transactions including data center, office, industrial, retail, and multifamily projects. Prior to Fortune, Will was the Regional Acquisitions Director for Virt investments, responsible for West Coast investments. Prior to Virt, Will’s clients included MacFarlane Partners, Harvest Properties, Peter Sullivan & Associates, and Sequoia National Bank. As Vice President for Acquisitions & Finance for Fowler Flanagan Technology Partners, he acquired and managed a 13-data center portfolio. Will has also had prior real estate banking experience with First Interstate and Northland Financial Company, as well as the real estate lending department of Commercial Bank of San Francisco and Wells Fargo. He holds a BA from UC Berkeley and an MBA from UCLA.
Dave Smith, VP of Design and Engineering
As Principal and Vice President of Critical Facilities Design at Ecom Engineering Inc, Dave brings a unique blend of data center design experience, electrical critical facilities design experience and construction management experience that spans more than twenty eight years to the Fortune Data Center Team. Dave’s experience includes Nine years as Vice President of Critical Facilities Design at Ecom Engineering overseeing the design, construction and commissioning of Multiple data center projects, Hospital campus projects and large commercial development projects. Prior to Ecom, Dave spent three years as MEP engineering manager at Equinix overseeing the design, construction and commissioning of seven of the Equinix IBX projects. Dave also spent seventeen years as a senior project manager for Rex Moore Electrical Contractors and Engineers overseeing the design and electrical construction of hundreds of project to include PeopleSoft world headquarters and Data center, Wells Fargo Cassie Hill Data Center, Sutter Roseville Hospital and campus, Sutter Davis Hospital, Sutter Amador Hospital and Nestle Evaporated Milk plant. Dave’s real world construction management experience coupled with and owners perspective in supporting Equinix data centers on a day to day operational bases contribute to Dave’s complete understanding of the requirements to create a data center design that can be managed, maintained and operated on a 7x24xForever Bases. Dave has a Associate of Arts in Industrial Electrical Technology and is a State Of California Journeyman electrician.
Paul Baldwin, Director of Sales
Prior to joining Fortune, Paul was a Senior Account Executive for Silent Partner, a San Francisco based Telecom Agent firm that specializes in the data center industry. Paul has worked in the Telecom Industry for the past 11 years, specializing in carrier sales for companies such as OnFiber and TWTelecom. He has his BS in Sports Sciences from Ohio University in Athens with a Minor in Interpersonal Communications.
Jennie Karnes, Director of Sales
Jennie has over 12 years experience in the data center and telecommunications industry with a primary focus on international data center consulting and procurement in retail, wholesale, custom retro-fit/ purpose built data centers. Other areas of focus include solution development for hosting, cloud and network requirements to augment data center deployments. Prior to Fortune, Jennie was the Vice President Sales of Silent Partner, an Agent firm specializing in developing data center and network solutions for large content, financial and enterprise clients. Before that, Jennie spent 9 1/2 years with nationwide data center operator Switch and Data (now Equinix) in multiple Sales management roles from company inception, to include Director Channel Development with a primary initiative to grow revenue by expanding the company’s reach within the telco market and to extend into the SMB enterprise marketplace via partner relationships. Jennie received her BS and MBA from University South Florida.
Don Jenkins, Director of Operations and Chief Engineer
Don has over 18 years of engineering and operations experience. Prior to Fortune, Don worked for Trammel Crow and ING Clarion Partners, where he concurrently managed over a million square feet of space, over multiple sites with multi-million dollar capital and operations budgets. Prior to that, Don worked for ABME as a PM program analyst, where he was instrumental in developing and implementing PM programs for commercial, industrial, and data center properties throughout Northern California, including Trans America, AT&T, Museum of Modern Art, and United States Postal Data Center. Prior to that, He has managed and implemented Energy Star programs, ISO 9001, energy efficacy programs and cost reduction programs for his customers throughout his career. Don holds many current certifications, including Data Center Design, Data Center Management Professional, Fire Life Safety Director, and Electrical Safety, as well as a BS in Industrial Technology from Illinois State University.