NOC, 24 hours SEC1 +1 201 016 2747 NWK1 +1 973 018 5536
Company
Eight people run the company. Two more run the buildings, which is the part customers notice.
Chief Executive Officer and co-founder
Paul spent fourteen years at an electric utility in New Jersey designing substations, then five running the critical facilities of a carrier hotel in lower Manhattan, which is where Hurricane Sandy found him in October 2012. He co-founded Cordgrass in 2013 and has run it since.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering, still reads every post-incident report in draft, and answers the neighbors’ line himself one night a month.
Chief Engineer and co-founder
Elena is a coastal engineer, licensed as a professional engineer in New Jersey and New York. Before Cordgrass she spent eleven years designing tide gates, levees and pump stations for towns in the Northeast.
She wrote our flood design basis and its three revisions, and drew most of the drawings on this website: the initials EMC in their title blocks are hers.
Chief Operating Officer
Russell joined in 2019 to run both sites. He was an electrician’s mate on a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier for eight years, then ran operations for a colocation company in Philadelphia.
He is responsible for the 52 people who work in our buildings around the clock, and for the shift pattern they say is the best in the trade.
Chief Financial Officer
Anjali joined in 2021, when the company took its first outside investment. She spent the previous decade financing toll roads, ports and power plants, and says a data center is the same thing with better air conditioning.
She sits on the board.
Vice President, Critical Facilities
Tomasz was our first employee, hired in 2014 as an electrician while SEC1 was still a warehouse. He became its chief engineer when it opened and now leads facilities engineering at both sites.
He led the sixty-one overnight transfers that moved SEC1’s switchgear up to its new gallery during the Raise, and checks every drawing Elena draws.
Vice President, Sales and Interconnection
Keisha joined in 2017 from fifteen years selling fiber and transport for network operators in the Northeast, which is why there are 50 networks in our meet-me rooms.
She runs sales, account management and the interconnection team.
General Counsel and Secretary
Stephen joined in 2018 after practicing real estate and telecommunications law in Newark. He wrote the plain-language summary of our master services agreement, against the advice of several colleagues.
Director, Community and Sustainability
Lorraine joined in 2025, after a summer of complaints from SEC1’s neighbors about diesel fumes. She had spent nine years organizing residents’ associations in Hudson County and four running environmental compliance for a freight railroad.
She runs the neighbors’ meetings, the complaints record and our energy reporting.
01 The sites