Andrew Boyea knows safety can’t be run from a distance. It’s built in the field through real conversations, mutual respect, and the willingness to listen. As an Environmental Health and Safety Engineer for NTT Global Data Centers, Andrew oversees data center construction projects across the eastern US. His approach is hands-on, people-first, and driven by a simple principle: safety isn’t a policy — it’s a partnership.
From Procedures to People
Andrew’s path into safety started behind the scenes, working on policies and procedures for a fast-growing construction staffing company. They didn’t want someone to walk in and shut them down. They wanted someone who would learn how the business worked before building a safety program to support it.
From there, he moved into workers’ compensation and became a licensed adjuster, but quickly realized he wanted to be closer to the work and the people doing it. That shift brought him to an electrical contractor, where he oversaw the full scope of data center construction, from substations and underground work to the final fit-out. Over time, he advanced into regional and then national safety roles before joining NTT. Today, he’s focused on building a safety strategy that supports not just individual projects, but the people behind them, on-site and around the world.
Those early experiences gave Andrew a clear view of both sides of safety—the paperwork and the people. He saw that structure matters, but it only works when it serves the people doing the work. “At the beginning, it was very black and white for me. You either followed the standard or you didn’t,” he said. “But that’s not how the real world works. Safety has to go beyond the baseline.”
Scaling Safety With Highwire
As NTT’s safety program grows from regional to international, the need for consistent systems has never been more critical. “We’re connecting a lot of dots right now,” he said. “We’ve pulled our safety department from being regional to being international.” That shift demands a platform that can scale—one that brings structure to a global operation without losing sight of what’s happening on the ground.
Highwire is helping them do exactly that. NTT is using the platform to track subcontractor performance, flag documentation gaps, and create a centralized view of safety across every project. “It saves us a lot of time,” Andrew said. “We can see what programs are in place, what’s missing, and what contractors say they have but don’t.” With all subcontractor data and documents in one place, Highwire is helping Andrew’s team reduce back-and-forth and make smarter, faster decisions
NTT is also expanding its use of Highwire’s inspection tools to track safety conditions throughout the lifecycle of a project. “We want to be able to see what’s happening early, midstream, and at the end — from underground to commissioning — and use that data to make decisions.”
As the company grows, so does the volume of information flowing in from projects around the world. For Andrew, the ability to capture and analyze that data is key. “Data is going to be the ever-growing component of safety,” he said. Highwire is helping NTT turn that information into action.
Trust Takes Time
For Andrew, trust is built on presence—being out in the field, talking with crews, and showing respect for the work being done. “You can tell who really respects the work happening in the field,” he said. “It’s about showing up, being there when they have to stay late or come in early, and asking why they’re doing things the way they are—not just telling them to do it differently.”
That same mindset is shaping NTT’s safety recognition efforts. While most jobsite initiatives are led by the general contractors, Andrew’s team is finding new ways to shine a spotlight on exceptional trade workers. It’s another way NTT reinforces a safety culture that puts people first.
Preparing the Next Generation
As the workforce evolves, Andrew is focused on making sure critical knowledge isn’t lost in the transition. With experienced workers retiring and new talent entering the trades, there’s a growing need to bridge the gap. “One of our biggest focuses is capturing and transferring knowledge,” he said. “We need to find ways to document what the older generation knows — because face-to-face training with them won’t always be an option.”
NTT now includes targeted questions about workforce development in its contractor prequalification process. Andrew’s team asks targeted questions about how companies support and develop their newer team members. “We want to know how contractors support people in their first two years,” he said. “What are you doing to bring them in, get them comfortable, and help them grow?”
A Safer Future Starts With Sharing
Andrew hopes the industry becomes more open and less guarded about its safety challenges. “Right now, it’s scary for companies to be fully transparent,” he said. “But the more we talk about what’s gone wrong and how we fixed it, the better we all get. And the safer our people are.”
Andrew sees transparency as a powerful driver of progress. It can start small—within a single team or company—but Andrew’s vision goes further. He wants that openness to extend beyond NTT’s walls, creating space for companies to learn from one another and raise the bar across the entire industry.
Learn more about NTT Global 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 Adam Board on Building a Culture of Care at T5 Data Centers and Advancing Data Center Safety: Mark McKeon of Rowan Digital Infrastructure.