Page 128 - Peterson 85 Years and Going Strong

Generator package ready for delivery
to one of our packagers,” says Treat. “And anoth- er four weeks, on average, to build the enclosure. We use all six of our packagers because we need so many generators and no one can handle it all. We have a site in Henderson near Las Vegas, for instance, with 62 engine packages. We trucked 17 units from Florida and the rest came from Cat Solutions, in Atlanta.5 So we use everyone because no one can keep up.”
The largest concentration of data centers in the United States is in Northern Virginia and Mary- land where much of the federal government stores its data. It’s also in the heart of Carter-Cat territo- ry.“These customers can use whichever dealer they want,” says Treat. “We have a channel to the East Coast data centers because they’re headquartered in the Silicon Valley and Seattle. Carter has a re- lationship with them too. We don’t step on each other but it can get very tricky. You can’t rest on your laurels. You have to perform every single time because the customer has other options.”
5 Cat Solutions is the packaging arm of Caterpillar, based in Atlanta, Georgia.
“The data center market is huge and we get a nice piece of a very large pie,” says Hamilton, who maintains good relations with his counterparts at Carter-Cat. “But it’s a global market being served by many, many people through many different distribution paths. We’re just one of the big ones. Between Peterson and Carter, we’re either the number one or number two Cat dealer in North America, depending on the year.”
THE MAGIC OF COLLABORATION
The success of Peterson’s Mission Critical Team stands firmly on the shoulders of past genera- tions of Peterson Power employees. “To say that the data center boom is all about the last twelve or even six years is not really accurate” says Hamilton. “What we’re reaping now is based on the contri- bution of past employees like Don Stroot, Steve Cushman, Bob Bangs, Vern Booth and hundreds of others who built up the power business over the last several decades. There is an incredible amount
126 | PETERSON: 85 YEARS AND GOING STRONG