Experienced Leadership
for What’s Next.

Salmon Riaz is the founder of 1A Data Centers and a technology executive with more than two decades of experience guiding organizations through complex technology, infrastructure, and operational decisions. He has worked in the technology industry since 1999 and holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from Oral Roberts University.

Salmon founded 1A Data Centers around a clear objective: help organizations protect the data, systems, and infrastructure they depend on in an increasingly AI-driven and cyber-threat-heavy environment. His leadership centers on reducing dependence on fragile or scattered technology environments and advancing infrastructure strategies that are secure, resilient, recoverable, and aligned with the operational requirements and values of the organizations 1A serves.

Under his direction, 1A's strategic focus spans secure hosting and private infrastructure, disaster recovery and business continuity, data sovereignty and compliant architecture, cybersecurity posture and recovery readiness, AI-era infrastructure and automation, operational resilience, custom communications and workflow systems, and practical technology strategy for businesses, ministries, nonprofits, and other mission-critical organizations. Salmon's role is to keep those capabilities aligned with long-term customer needs while balancing risk, scalability, reliability, financial discipline, and continuity.

Salmon also places a strong emphasis on developing people and building capable teams. He has mentored technical professionals and students, including Oral Roberts University students involved in Elon Musk's Hyperloop program. His leadership philosophy is centered on assembling strong teams, setting clear priorities, and creating an environment where talented people can solve difficult problems, take ownership, and build organizations prepared to operate through change and pressure.

James Nelsen is a technology and infrastructure leader whose work spans enterprise software, network architecture, critical-facility planning, and data center operations. At 1A Data Centers, he turns business and customer requirements into deployable infrastructure, bringing electrical, mechanical, network, security, monitoring, and operational systems together as a single integrated platform.

His data center work includes megawatt-scale capacity planning, rack-density and whitespace design, A/B power distribution, UPS and generator architecture, cooling and airflow strategy, carrier and fiber design, structured cabling, physical security, DCIM, environmental monitoring, commissioning preparation, and operational readiness. He coordinates with engineers, utilities, contractors, equipment manufacturers, carriers, and operations teams to move projects from concept and budgeting through construction and turn-up, while keeping redundancy, maintainability, future expansion, and total operating cost in view.

James's background as a software architect and developer adds another dimension to modern facility operations. He has led the development of more than 25 enterprise-level applications and applies that systems mindset to automation, provisioning, telemetry, alerting, capacity management, customer portals, billing, and repeatable operating processes. That combination of facility planning, IT infrastructure, and software engineering allows him to approach a data center not simply as a building, but as an integrated operating system designed to be resilient, scalable, measurable, and efficient.