Helping Veterans Find Purpose Through Data Center Careers

For CEO Kirk Offel, the bottom line for Overwatch Mission Critical is “changing lives and saving people by finding them a sense of purpose.” On the DCF Show, Kirk shares about Overwatch and its mission to train military veterans for careers in the data center industry.
Jan. 5, 2022
2 min read

For Kirk Offel, the bottom line of his business is simple. “We’re changing lives and saving people by finding them a sense of purpose,” says Offel, the CEO of Overwatch, which provides military veterans with training and and expertise in mission-critical operations and management. Overwatch helps data center owners and operates manage their facilities, but its biggest impact is in the lives of the military veterans it trains, employs, and places into data center careers.

In this podcast, Offel discusses his career in the military and the data center business, why he created Overwatch, and the importance of its mission in providing purpose to veterans. Kirk also shares about the qualities that military veterans can bring to the mission critical industry, including their integrity, tenacity, and their selfless attitude. It’s an interesting and important conversation.

Helping Veterans Find Purpose Through Data Center Careers

Listen to today’s show:

Here’s a timeline of topics Kirk and I discuss on the podcast:

  • 2:00 – Kirk’s career journey through the military and the data center industry.
  • 5:45 – An introduction to Overwatch Mission Critical and its mission serving veterans.
  • 22:00 – Kirk discusses Overwatch’s business model and service portfolio, and how it has evolved.
  • 32:15 – The challenges and opportunities in launching a startup at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • 38:00 – The Road Ahead: The keys to filling the talent gap in the data center industry

Here are some links with more about Overwatch and its mission::

Did you like this episode? Be sure to subscribe to the Data Center Frontier show so you get future episodes on your app. We are on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you find quality podcasts. You can also subscribe using our RSS feed, and tell your friends and colleagues about our podcast!

We’ve also just launched the Data Center Frontier Channel on YouTube to showcase our videos, where we explain the infrastructure that powers the digital world. If you like data centers or work in the industry, you’ll want to subscribe!

About the Author

Rich Miller

I write about the places where the Internet lives, telling the story of data centers and the people who build them. I founded Data Center Knowledge, the data center industry's leading news site. Now I'm exploring the future of cloud computing at Data Center Frontier.
Oselote/Shutterstock.com
Source: Oselote/Shutterstock.com
Sponsored
Ray Walsh, Program Director of Data Center Cooling for MOOG, outlines how intelligent cooling controls and maintenance services contribute to overall data center sustainability...
Flexential
coreweave___plano_expansion___social_2
CoreWeave's partnership expansion with Flexential signifies a milestone in AI-centric cloud infrastructure evolution, reflecting the growing demand for GPU-optimized data center...
May 23, 2025
Aligned Data Centers
Leading AI developer cloud Lambda will occupy Aligned’s newest Dallas-Fort Worth facility, DFW-04, a liquid-cooled AI and cloud data center currently under construction in Plano, Texas.
As AI workloads surge and power densities soar, liquid cooling has shed its niche status to become core infrastructure. At the 2025 midpoint, we map some of the most notable the...
May 22, 2025
Hammerspace
Hammerspace data center render
Backed by $100 million in fresh capital, Hammerspace is advancing a global data platform built for AI-scale performance—delivering Tier 0 shared storage, a unified namespace, ...
May 21, 2025

White Papers

Dcf Cadence No Capacity Wp Cover 2023 01 11 17 29 43
Sponsored
The pace of digital transformation is accelerating bringing not only opportunities, but challenges for technical professionals and digital strategists. Notably, organizations ...
Jan. 11, 2023
Sign up for the Data Center Frontier Newsletter
Get the latest news and updates.