- Virginia is a beautiful place
to grow up, to raise children.
After being here for 40 plus years
I'm still discovering new things day to day.
I'm D'Andrea Thomas.
I'm a data center engineering operations technician
for AWS and our IAD cluster of data centers
which is Northern Virginia.
I always got the running joke
that the crane is the state bird, not the cardinal,
because this place has been under construction since 1980,
since I was a little kid.
There'll always be constant growth
and change and evolution here.
There's no opportunity that your family can't have
to pursue the dreams they want to live.
- I've kind of always wanted to go into tech
but I assumed that it would be harder to get in.
I thought I had to be the smartest person in the room.
I thought I had to wear like geeky glasses
and know all those codes and stuff.
But no, we can all be scientists.
I am Mariam Abidongun-Johnson.
I'm a decom tech at one of the data centers in Virginia.
AWS has a program called Career Choice
which gives you the opportunity to go back
to school if you choose to.
My current role is as a decom technician
but I'm also a student
at Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA)
studying to be a EOT, engineering operation technician.
What they do is they maintain the physical infrastructure
of our data centers, which is very, very
very important to me.
And that's why I wanna take up the next challenge
from being decom going to EOT.
- So AWS and NOVA has a very dynamic relationship
even outside of my involvement.
My name is Amir Mehmood.
I'm an associate professor and program head
at Northern Virginia Community College
and I'm also a technical instruction manager
at data center learning at AWS.
When you are coming into this program
not only you are changing role,
but basically you are getting your academic skills
and your education and our aim is this,
that you go from this program to all the way
to the bachelor's degree and change your life.
- There's so much that can be done in the community
and when you have a partner that can increase your reach,
then it just, it's like the perfect storm.
I am Navara Cannon.
I am the community and volunteer engagement manager
for Northern Virginia Family Service.
Our mission is to meet families and individuals
where they are in their life and connect them
with resources so that they can thrive in their community.
We have six projects going at one time with AWS.
We just recently received
the Hunger Resource Center refrigerated van.
So in addition to picking up food, we are starting to go
to the communities who can't get to us
and distribute food right from the community.
- At Amazon and AWS, customer and community obsession
is what we hold to our core.
I am Mishtee Chatterjee and I lead
the AWS infrastructure operations here
in the Northern Virginia area.
AWS in communities is the infrastructure
or the data center arm of empowering the communities.
We want to be a good neighbor,
so we truly go out there and build those relationship
in the communities in which we work and live.
- I would never wanna see the sense of community change
in this area, no matter how big it gets.
I'm Bernie Spencer.
I'm here at Spencer's Safe and Lock in Sterling, Virginia.
The growth is good for small businesses
and it's been great for Spencer's Safe and Lock.
Here we are, a small locksmith company,
fell into working with the data centers
and we've grown with the data centers,
hiring more people, always looking for new people.
- People think of the data centers
just having a few people inside
where it's really not the case.
I'm Rob Clubb, I'm a cluster security manager
here in northern Virginia
and I manage all things physical security
for 12 data centers and a warehouse.
My team really enjoys going out to eat together.
We try to go to a lot of our local establishments.
A lot of us have built relationships with some
of our local restaurant owners
and we like to frequent a lot of the same spots.
So we work really hard but we also get out
and we have fun, too.
- Coming from a tavern owner,
the most expensive thing we have in here is an empty seat.
I am Jimmy Cirrito and we are at Jimmy's Old Town Tavern
in beautiful downtown Herndon, Virginia.
It helps to have people moving into the town
or coming here to work that want to come out.
Now it's our job to make sure their food is hot
and their beer is cold.
- I've been a lot of places in the world
and this place always keeps me coming back.
The data centers that AWS built
in Virginia have allowed humble guys like me
that come from the trades, an opportunity to live
in the place that they grew up and not have to move away.
This is just, this is home.