Cobalt Data Centers Names Jeff Brown as President

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A look at the network operations center at the Cobalt Cheyenne data center in Las Vegas. (Photo: Cobalt Data Centers)

Las Vegas colocation provider Cobalt Data Centers today announced the appointment of Jefferson Brown as President of the company, effective immediately. The company also announced that Mike Ballard, Cobalt’s previous CEO, has stepped down to pursue other interests.

Brown brings more than 20 years of experience with high-tech operations to Cobalt. Most recently he served as Vice President of Sales for Savvis, the cloud infrastructure and hosted technology services division of CenturyLink. Before joining Savvis, Brown was held various leadership positions at VeriSign Equinix, iPass and CompuServe.

“Attracting someone of Jeff’s caliber to Cobalt is enormous validation for our business model,” said Philip Lamb, a board member of Cobalt. “His experience and track record are exactly what Cobalt needs to ignite our growth and meet the growing demand for datacenter alternatives in Las Vegas. We wish Mike well in his future endeavors and look forward to helping Jeff build Cobalt into an industry leader.”

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In 2006, Brown (pictured at left) also led a buyout of Equinix’s Honolulu data center business to form DRFortress. He served as the company’s original CEO, raising more than $15 million and building the foundation for the largest data center operator in Hawaii. Brown continues to serve on the company’s board of directors.

"Jeff's industry insight and strategic guidance helped build DRFortress into the most reputable datacenter operator in all of Hawaii," said Steve Lee, Managing Director at The Bank Street Group. "It will be exciting to watch him do it again in the fast growing Vegas market. He's got a great facility, an experienced staff and escalating demand."

In February, Cobalt Data Centers opened the doors on the first of two planned Tier 3-compliant data centers in Las Vegas. Cobalt Cheyenne is a 34,000 square foot facility backed by 5.5 megawatts of critical power.