ENGINEERS → BUILDERS → PUSH IT

Grace: University of Wyoming / Electrical Engineering / Power Systems and Controls

Grace’s father, Johnny, was born in 1966. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy at 18 and trained as a Data Processing Technician. His first assignment brought him to the Naval Data Automation Command (NAVDAC) in Washington in 1985, where he spent his first year in the orbit of Rear Adm. Grace Hopper during the final year of her Navy career.

Johnny later served during Desert Shield and Desert Storm. He was medically separated under honorable conditions and decades later became eligible for benefits under the PACT Act.

Grace’s mother, Mary, and Johnny came to know Dakota through her work interviewing Gulf War veterans and their families about the unexplained illnesses that followed their service.

Johnny and Mary named their daughter Grace after Hopper—the pioneering computer scientist who shaped Johnny’s earliest understanding of technology, service, and what one person could build.

Grace grew up with computers before she could write. Johnny kept old machines around the house, opened them up, rebuilt them and eventually taught Grace to do the same. By the time she began studying electrical engineering, technology wasn’t something mysterious to her. It was something meant to be understood from the inside.

· · ·

Clark: MIT / The Engine

Clark grew up in Cambridge.

His parents were academics. His father, Lewis, was an American historian affiliated with Harvard’s Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History. His mother, Na Kyung, taught mechanical engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Lewis came from San Luis Obispo, California, where generations of his family had worked in agriculture. Na Kyung was born in South Korea and later became a naturalized U.S. citizen.

They named their son after William Clark, the American explorer best known for the Lewis and Clark Expedition—the Corps of Discovery.

Clark grew up between two worlds.

His father gave him access to history—maps, journals, expeditions, the stories of people who crossed boundaries without knowing exactly what waited on the other side.

His mother gave him access to machines.

Labs. Tools. Materials. Prototypes. Things that could be taken apart, understood and rebuilt.

Clark learned early that discovery could mean crossing a continent.

Or opening a machine.

At MIT, Clark found his own frontier.

He and two other students began building intelligent power infrastructure capable of coordinating grid power, storage, generation and the enormous, rapidly changing electrical loads created by AI data centers.

The company developed inside The Engine’s Tough Tech ecosystem.

Three people.

A problem that should have required hundreds.

And they needed an electrical engineer.

Not just an engineer.

A builder.

· · ·

After the town hall in Casper, Mary and Dakota started texting.

A few weeks later, they met for dinner when Dakota had other business in Casper.

It was there that Dakota began to understand Mary’s concerns more deeply.

And how unusual Grace was.

Grace had been accepted to Caltech, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and Stevens Institute of Technology.

She chose the University of Wyoming.

Johnny’s health had been declining for several years, and Grace wanted to remain close to her father.

Mary worried that Grace had already begun making her world smaller because of it.

Dakota wasn’t so sure.

From time to time, Dakota shared her conversations with Mary—and her thoughts about Grace—with Jimmy.

· · ·

Jimmy received an email from Clark.

Clark had found Jimmy through the MIT network and wanted to connect with someone living and working in Wyoming.

Clark and his tiny team were preparing to relocate their startup from Cambridge to Wyoming. They were coming west to conduct a site survey and wanted to meet Jimmy while they were there.

The company had recently raised $8 million in financing at a $24 million pre-money valuation.

Three people.

Eight million dollars.

No permanent home.

The financing would allow them to secure their first physical location, continue developing their technology and begin making several critical hires.

At the top of the list:

An electrical engineer with experience in power systems and controls.

Clark knew recruiting someone in Cambridge and then asking them to relocate to Wyoming would be difficult.

He wanted to find that person in Wyoming.

Someone already there.

Someone who understood the place where they were about to build.

Jimmy stopped reading.

Power systems and controls.

He had heard those words before.

· · ·

The ACH lifted out of Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) in the morning and headed southeast.

The flight to Laramie took about two hours.

Jimmy landed at Laramie Regional Airport (LAR).

Clark and his two co-founders had spent most of the day looking at potential sites around southeastern Wyoming.

The three met Jimmy in downtown Laramie late that afternoon.

They sat around a large table in a small restaurant.

Laptops open.

Maps spread across the table.

Coffee.

Three people.

This was the company.

Jimmy listened.

Clark explained the problem his team had been working on.

AI data centers were creating enormous and increasingly dynamic electrical loads. The existing grid had not been designed around computing infrastructure that could change its demand so quickly.

Clark and his team were building an intelligent layer capable of coordinating grid power, onsite generation, storage and compute demand in real time.

The other two founders moved in and out of the conversation.

Each knew a different part of the system.

Power.

Storage.

Controls.

Software.

Failure.

Redundancy.

The conversation moved between the technology and the physical reality of building it.

Land.

Electricity.

People.

Wyoming.

Eventually Jimmy asked:

“How many people are on your team?”

“Three,” Clark said.

“Including you?”

“Yes.”

Jimmy looked across the table at all three of them.

“And you raised eight million dollars?”

“Yes.”

“What happens when you get here?”

“We build.”

“What do you need first?”

“An electrical engineer.”

“Plenty of those in Boston.”

“That’s the problem.”

Jimmy waited.

Clark continued.

“I don’t want to hire someone in Cambridge and convince them to move to Wyoming. I want someone who wants to be here.”

“What kind of engineer?”

“Power systems. Controls.”

Jimmy listened.

“But that’s the résumé,” Clark said.

“What are you actually looking for?”

“A builder.”

Jimmy stayed quiet.

“Someone who can walk into something that doesn’t exist yet and help us figure out what it becomes.”

Jimmy listened.

“When are you guys heading back to Cambridge?”

“Friday.”

It was Tuesday.

“Three more days?”

“Yeah. We still have a few sites to look at.”

Jimmy nodded.

· · ·

The ACH returned to Jackson Hole that evening.

Jimmy and Dakota talked at home after dinner.

“How did your meeting go with the boy wonder?” Dakota asked.

Jimmy smiled.

He told her about Clark.

The three-person team.

The financing.

The technology.

The move from Cambridge.

Then he told her what they needed.

“Electrical engineer.”

Dakota looked at him.

“Power systems and controls?”

“Exactly.”

For a moment neither said anything.

“Grace,” Dakota said.

Jimmy listened.

Dakota told him more about what Mary had shared over dinner.

The schools Grace had turned down.

Caltech.

Berkeley.

Carnegie Mellon.

Stevens.

Why she had stayed.

Johnny.

“She could have gone anywhere,” Dakota said.

“She chose Wyoming.”

“She chose her father.”

Jimmy listened.

He had spent much of his life seeing something in people before they could see it themselves.

But seeing someone’s potential wasn’t permission to choose their life.

“So what do we do?” Dakota asked.

“Nothing.”

Dakota looked at him.

“Except put them in the same room.”

· · ·

Mary called Grace.

“There’s someone Dakota wants you to meet.”

“Who?”

“His name is Clark. He’s from MIT.”

“Mom, I am not looking for a boyfriend.”

“He’s moving to Wyoming with two co-founders.”

Grace waited.

Mary told her what Dakota had told her.

“They’re building intelligent power infrastructure for AI data centers.”

Grid power.

Generation.

Storage.

Controls.

Compute demand.

Three people.

Eight million dollars.

And they were looking for an electrical engineer.

That got Grace’s attention.

· · ·

Jimmy was already heading back to the data center where the Octopoda security breach had occurred several weeks earlier.

The Director wanted to understand more about the training Jules and Miles had received at the Foundry—and why, with only two people onsite, they had known what to do.

Jimmy called Clark.

“How would you guys like to visit Wyoming’s latest state-of-the-art data center?”

“When?”

“Thursday.”

“All three of us?”

“All three.”

Clark didn’t hesitate.

“We’re in.”

· · ·

Thursday morning, the ACH departed Jackson Hole Airport (JAC) with Jimmy and Dakota aboard.

It landed at Laramie Regional Airport (LAR).

Grace was waiting.

So were Clark and his two co-founders.

Introductions were brief.

The four climbed aboard.

The ACH lifted out of Laramie.

No one aboard except Jimmy and Dakota knew exactly where they were going.

At first, the four talked shop.

Clark explained more about what they were building.

Grace asked questions.

Power.

Storage.

Controls.

Load.

The other two founders joined in.

Soon the conversation moved beyond engineering.

They wanted to know about Wyoming.

What was it like growing up there?

What did people do?

Where did young people go?

Did they come back?

How bad were the winters?

Could you convince engineers to live there?

Grace answered some of it.

Dakota and Jimmy just listened.

Acres of open country stretched below them.

“If we build here, where do we find people?”

Grace looked at him.

“Here.”

The conversation continued.

By the time the helicopter began its descent, Grace was no longer sitting outside the tiny team asking questions about what they were building.

She was arguing with them about how they should build it.

The ACH touched down.

The doors opened.

Jimmy stepped out first.

Dakota followed.

Then Grace.

Clark and his co-founders came behind her.

The six of them were greeted by the data center facility manager.

· · ·

A few weeks later, Dakota got off the phone with Mary.

Jimmy was in the kitchen.

He had just opened a bottle of Mercury Head and was pouring two glasses.

“They offered Grace the position.”

“Wow.”

“That’s awesome.”

“She accepted.”

Jimmy handed Dakota a glass of wine.

Dakota took a sip.

“Apparently Grace and Clark have a lot in common.”

“Like what?”

“They both play guitar.”

Jimmy looked at her.

“Alternative rock.”

Dakota took another sip.

She thought:

You go, girl.

“Push It.”

Garbage.

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