Walker Engineering’s Justin Davis shares helpful insights into Texas’ flourishing data center market
With a strong presence in Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio, Walker Engineering stands as Texas’s leading electrical contracting and technology services firm. Its success was built on a foundation of family, hard work, dedication, and a commitment to excellence that has remained unchanged since its inception. The Walker Engineering team is passionate about exceeding clients’ expectations, collaborating with them on design, offering comprehensive pre-construction services, and emphasizing early engagement to ensure the best results. Justin Davis, Executive Vice President, introduces us to the company’s history.
“Established in 1981 by Charlie Walker, we are a family-owned business initially serving as electrical contractors. Over the last 45 years, we have grown into one of the most successful specialty contractors in Texas, with our primary focus on electrical contracting for mission critical or heavy infrastructure works, chiefly datacenters. Additionally, we undertake a growing amount of low voltage technology work, including structured cabling and security. Approximately five years ago, we were publicly purchased as a subsidiary of Comfort Systems USA. Focusing solely and entirely on Texas, we are a merit based electrical contractor based out of Dallas, with additional offices in Houston, Austin, and San Antonio. Our team of about 2000 electricians enables us to carry out work all over the state of Texas while maintaining a heavy focus on mission critical data centers,” Justin begins.
Thanks to its broad footprint across Texas, Walker Engineering’s services are appreciated by many customers across the state. Justin goes on to describe the suite of services provided by the company. “Electrical construction forms our core service, encompassing everything from power distribution and lighting to fire alarm systems, grounding, and all other type of electrical systems usually found in complex buildings. Power distribution constitutes the largest portion of our services and the most expensive part of data center projects. Furthermore, our network services group offers a comprehensive gamut of low-voltage technologies, spanning structured cabling, security systems, access control, fiber networks, fiber backbones, asset tracking, and audiovisual solutions. We also have a vast service group that caters to end users and their facilities all over Texas, including customers who have trusted us to service their buildings for more than 25 years. Even though we are the largest electrical contractor in Texas, we do not work with a great many people, favoring long standing customers instead, as most of our work is repeat business. We value partnerships and strive to understand exactly what our clients need us to do,” he informs.
Data center focus
In the last few years, Walker Engineering has experienced tremendous growth in the data center sector. Justin sheds light on the factors that have contributed to the company’s expansion and leadership in Texas’ data center market. “Following the pandemic, our growth in the past three to four years has been fueled by three significant influxes in the Texas data center market: the abundance of available land, available utility power, and a robust technical workforce. This is a unique advantage that is not necessarily found in the other data center hubs across the country that are low on either power, land, skilled labor, or some combination thereof. Therefore, we are very fortunate to be based in Texas.
“Throughout our history, we have focused on projects relating to data centers, especially since the mid-1990s. We have developed the perfect resume for this type of work, prompting us to solely dedicate ourselves to such projects while turning down other opportunities. With the current push towards adopting artificial intelligence (AI) and the development of 5G networks, there is an industry wide drive to win the AI race, which has culminated in making Texas a melting pot for data centers. It is truly incredible how much data center work is going on in Texas at the moment, as companies strive to build them faster than the speed of light,” he adds.
Although Justin is unable to share too many details about Walker Engineering’s projects in the realm of data centers due to non-disclosure agreements, he is keen to share valuable insights into the marketplace. “As the global tech giants like – Microsoft, Google, AWS, and Meta – continue to pour billions of dollars into expanding their network infrastructure in Texas, we have been fortunate to capitalize on these investments. Indeed, the mission-critical nature of our work aligns closely with the requirements set by these major corporations, pushing us to elevate our standards for safety, quality, and delivery ultimately driving us to become a better company. 
“With the rapid scale and pace at which these projects are being delivered, tech giants are significantly driving the industry forward, encouraging contractors like us to work harder than ever before because project timelines are becoming increasingly compacted to stay competitive. Over the last three-to-four years, I would say that the sheer industry demand and end user push for constantly delivering projects in the most innovative method available have had the most substantial impact on our company. Optimization and innovation of every facet of these projects is a daily challenge for owners, designers, and contractors. I believe these challenges and considerations are pushing everyone in the industry to constantly improve, which in turn is also turning all of us into better companies,” he expands.
Dedicated team
As the construction industry still grapples with skilled labor shortages, Justin reveals that Walker Engineering might just be the exception to the rule. “We really have not struggled as much as other businesses,” he hints. “Our company prides itself on recruiting the best talent and paying them at or above market value. The mindset with which we secure work is that we build projects where everyone wins financially, including our employees, our customers, and our vendor partners. If we cannot accomplish these goals through our work, we will typically do not go after such projects. Our core objective is to approach each project with this mindset, an attitude that has helped us to retain most of our staff, even during the pandemic. As electrical contracting was considered an essential service through Covid, we continued on-site operations without transitioning to remote work, enabling us to keep most of our workforce.
“In fact, we experienced a surge in business during the pandemic, though we were still figuring out ways to work through the uncertainties it brought along. The continuous support we offered for our staff during those hard times has significantly helped us to face the current difficulties of finding talent. Our workforce remembers how we took care of them when the industry slowed down and finding a job was challenging, thereby fostering a sense of loyalty among our team. This loyalty is the reason why our employees stay with us so long, as they have witnessed our commitment to them both during the challenging times of the pandemic but also during the good times. This mindset and our position as a leader in the Texas market puts us in an ideal position for attracting and retaining top talent,” he concludes.
Thanks to this talented team and a track record of delivering exceptional results, Walker Engineering is poised to continue leading the charge in Texas’ ever-growing data center market.