From the moment Adam Board stepped into his first safety class in college, something clicked. What started as a job-placement opportunity quickly sparked a passion that would define his career. With a natural instinct for protecting people and solving complex challenges, Adam carved a path from Oregon to leadership roles in the semiconductor industry, ultimately becoming the Senior Vice President of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) at T5 Data Centers. Today, he’s one of the most respected voices in the field, known for combining deep technical expertise with a relentless drive to raise the bar for safety performance.
At T5, Adam’s role goes beyond overseeing safety on construction sites. He’s helping shape a company-wide safety culture that spans development, construction, and operations. What sets T5 apart is their unique position as owners, builders, and operators, which gives Adam and his team a clear view of what works—and what needs improvement—in safety programs. “We hit all facets of the data center industry, which makes us very unique,” Adam explains.
A People-First Approach to Safety
T5 Data Centers has thrived for nearly two decades in the fast-paced data center industry, a remarkable feat in a constantly changing field. Despite rapid growth, T5 remains committed to delivering “Forever On” data centers and achieving excellence through a dedicated workforce. Adam highlights the company’s leadership, especially the CEO and founders, who stay actively engaged. “Our CEO always talks about our magnetic culture of excellence,” Adam shares. “There’s a genuine culture of care here, and that’s something we’ve maintained even as we scale.”
For Adam, safety is not just a program but a reflection of T5’s broader culture of respect, teamwork, and valuing every employee—a commitment that has remained constant throughout the company’s growth. This commitment to care and collaboration extends beyond internal teams. Adam works closely with a diverse group of trade partners, some with established safety programs, and others new to the industry. His approach is simple: “If one trade partner fails or struggles, we struggle as well. We win together, or we lose together.” Building these partnerships starts early. Adam emphasizes integrating trade partners from the start, setting clear expectations, and having regular check-ins throughout the project. This ongoing collaboration ensures everyone is aligned, making safety a shared responsibility.
From Pointing Fingers to Sharing Donuts
Early in his career, Adam saw safety as a process of assigning blame for mistakes. Over time, his perspective shifted. Adam realized that people make mistakes—and that’s human. The real question, he says, is not who’s to blame, but how the team can support each other to prevent mistakes. “Early on, I thought safety was about finding out who made a mistake. I don’t think that way anymore,” Adam reflects. “People mess up. They’re human. The real question is, how do we help them learn from it?”
This shift is crucial at T5 and across the data center industry, where trade partners in the field are sometimes new to the construction industry. It’s an opportunity for T5 to lead, emphasizing that safety should be approached with guidance and care, not punishment.
One of the simplest yet most effective safety programs Adam has implemented at T5 is the “Discussion for Donuts” initiative. Each week, his team invites workers from all trades to enjoy coffee and donuts while sharing feedback on what’s working and what’s not. “It’s crazy what you can get people to talk about when you give them donuts and coffee,” Adam says with a smile. The key, he explains, is the direct feedback from the “boots on the ground employees.” As Adam puts it, “Those are the ones that see things every day. They’re the ones that can give you the actual facts.”
This open communication builds trust, strengthens teams, and uncovers risks that might go unnoticed. Listening to the workers on the ground has proven to be one of the most effective ways to ensure that safety isn’t just a top-down mandate but a collective effort.
The Impact of Highwire: Simplifying Safety Management
For Adam, Highwire plays a critical role in streamlining safety management at T5. With years of experience using various safety platforms, he appreciates how user-friendly Highwire is, especially for field teams. The platform is accessible across the entire organization, from operational leaders to foremen and supervisors, making it easy for everyone to use. As Adam puts it, “It's just super easy for people to [use] and put in inspections.”
A standout feature of Highwire is the contractor dashboards, which provide detailed insights into contractor performance. This visibility enables Adam’s team to make informed, data-driven decisions rather than relying on guesswork. The data is stored for every contractor, even after a project ends. By capturing contractor histories, including “OSHA history, their safety program[s]…and all of their incidents that they’ve had on our projects,” Adam and his team can track critical information. “We get to not only look at all of that in a holistic review to be able to make calculated decisions based on the risk of that profile,” he adds.
For T5, this comprehensive view of contractor performance—from prequalification to on-site inspections—has been invaluable. It helps the team track safety trends over time and avoid the challenges of managing paper-based records.
Looking to the Future: Shifting Safety Metrics
As the construction industry evolves, Adam sees significant changes ahead, especially in how safety success is measured. He’s passionate about moving away from traditional metrics like TRIR (Total Recordable Incident Rate) and toward more meaningful indicators of safety performance. “TRIR blinds us to the other things and takes our energy away from…what we should be focused on.”
While Adam doesn’t believe TRIR will disappear, he expects it to take a “back seat.” His hope is that the industry will rely less on it and focus more on “leading indicators and things that are proactively keeping workers safe.”
Adam’s vision for safety at T5 is clear: a culture of care, partnership, and continuous improvement. By embracing new ways of thinking, using user-friendly tools like Highwire, and fostering open communication, T5 is creating a safer, more collaborative environment for its teams and trade partners. The goal isn’t just to prevent injuries but to create a lasting culture where safety is a shared responsibility, and everyone can thrive.
Learn more about T5 Data Centers and how Highwire is supporting the data center industry. For additional insights and to explore how other global data center leaders use Highwire to manage safety, visit How NTT Global Data Centers Connects Safety Across Every Site with Andrew Boyea and Advancing Data Center Safety: Mark McKeon of Rowan Digital Infrastructure.