The constraint on data center construction stopped being capital a while ago. It’s power, and after that it’s people who have built one before. PCL added three senior roles to its data center group on July 14, naming Tyler Kautz regional vice president of digital infrastructure and appointing Carl Haas district manager and Peter Losh operations manager over the active portfolio.
Building the bench before the work lands
Kautz was named vice president of data centers in July 2025 and leads the company’s Mission Critical Center of Excellence. He also wrote the original business case that convinced PCL to stand up a dedicated data center division rather than run the work through its general building groups. That’s the structural move underneath these appointments: mission-critical delivery is being treated as its own discipline with its own career track, not as a project type that a good commercial team can pick up.
PCL says it has delivered more than 120 data center and mission-critical projects across North America in the past two decades. The company is staffing against a projection that digital infrastructure demand doubles by 2031.
Why mission-critical talent is scarce
The skills that make a data center superintendent valuable don’t transfer neatly from other commercial work. Commissioning sequences run for months and involve integrated systems testing across electrical, mechanical and controls at full simulated load. Switchgear and generator lead times drive the schedule more than concrete does. A single missed clearance in a paralleling switchgear lineup can push energization by a quarter.
“Building data centers at speed and scale is one of the most complex challenges in construction today,” Kautz said. “In partnership with our clients, we’re committed to constructing this critical infrastructure in ways that strengthen the communities where these facilities are built.” That second sentence is doing work too. Community opposition is now a project risk, and contractors are being asked to help manage it.
The broader craft problem hasn’t gone away
Senior leadership is the visible part of a deeper shortage. The industry needs an estimated 349,000 net new workers in 2026, and electrical trades are among the tightest, with close to one in five workers over 55. Data centers compete for exactly those crafts. A gigawatt campus needs electricians in numbers that regional markets like Abilene or Childress, Texas cannot supply locally, which is why travel packages and per diem have become standard on this work.
Contractors that lock in mission-critical leadership now are buying option value on a pipeline that may or may not double. If it doesn’t, they’ve overpaid for three executives. If it does, they’ve bought the only thing that can’t be procured on a lead time. Source: GlobeNewswire.