Meet a Member – Bill Mazzetti
Senior Vice President, Innovation Rosendin Electric

Bill Mazzetti is the Senior Vice President, Innovation at Rosendin Electric. Based in San Francisco, Bill’s been involved in data center design, construction, and operations since 1982. In his 40^th year in the data center business, Bill now spends his time in Rosendin’s innovation work, with a strong focus in robotics, unmanned/autonomous vehicles, key industry partnerships and construction process improvement.

How Did You Get into the Business?

I’m a legacy. My father, Bill Mazzetti, Sr. founded Mazzetti and Associates (now Mazzetti) in 1962 in San Francisco. I still have the business’ first budget, written on a small note pad in my mother’s handwriting. I grew up drafting plans for Dad, starting at age 11, and I worked for Dad during school breaks all through high school. I broke into construction with Brayer Electric during college.  My college thesis was the design for the Schwab HQ in SF (which was a Charles Krieger client).  After the Army, I got back into the family business.

The Army?

After graduation from Santa Clara University, I was commissioned in the Army and took a year off to get through the typical infantry officer training regimen. I was then selected US Army Special Forces in late 1986, subsequently taking several Army SOCOM assignments until the mid-late 1990’s. I was in the reserves the whole time, balancing my civilian and military lives for 13 years.

How Did You Get into Data Centers?

My first job out of the Army was with Charles Krieger. Charles was a founder in data center work, a mentor and a lifelong Mazzetti family friend. I stayed in the business during my career.

What Have Been Some of the Highlights?

The people. Hands down, some of the best people in business – mission focused, no time for nonsense, skilled and great teamwork. I’ve been blessed to count many, many of my clients as friends. The list is far too long to mention everyone, and the intersection of business and friends has kept me in the mission critical business for this long.

Which Clients Have You Been Involved With?

I’ve been very, very lucky to have been part of the dawn of both the colocation and cloud services businesses. While Rosendin and I enjoy an enviable position in the business, there are a ton of highlights:

• Facebook – Working with them since they were 200 people. I was Tom Furlong’s reference when he first interviewed.  Jay Park called me the morning after he invented Open Compute and I heard the story literally hours after it hit the napkin.
• Digital Realty Trust – Working with GI Partners pre DLR as a distressed data center real estate asset play. Countless friends and memories with this crew.
• Microsoft – When they birthed Azure from the Xbox gaming platform and thinking to myself that they were onto something that I could not quite understand at the time. Also, the time we cut a hole in the side of Building 8 when the cooling system fizzled out.  It was prehistoric free cooling.
• Equinix – Mazzetti did their mechanical design and consulting in the late ‘90’s. Running all over the world setting them up.  A lot of those buildings are still in the portfolio today.
• Google – Seeing the first blade server in the Equinix IBXs in the 90’s. 100% garage build and complete genius.
• Cyrus One & Laramie Dorris – Project Goliath in Northern Virginia. Still the biggest and fastest.
• TGS Management – Who taught me everything I know about high-performance computing. And just awesome people to boot!
• Who Shall Not Be Named – That little tech company and Project Onyx in Mesa, Arizona.
• ANSI/BICSI 002 – The first comprehensive data center standard, 12 years of hard work.

What Are You Most Happy About?