Jersey City, NJ

Lehman Brothers

This rapid disaster recovery project helped get this mission critical data center back up and running.

Exterior view of Lehman Brothers building in Jersey City

Value Delivered

Forest Electric New Jersey (Forest NJ) worked with longtime client Lehman Brothers to help them rapidly engineer and build a new main data center when their previous facility was destroyed on September 11th, 2001. Forest NJ mobilized their staff rapidly and worked around the clock to complete the new data center in just 12 weeks, with as many as 200 personnel working on the project at once.

In order to allow Lehman Brothers’ stock trading operations to resume as soon as possible after the event, the first component of this mission-critical project involved the modification and expansion of an existing adjunct data center—which Forest NJ completed in just six days.

Client Objectives

The client first required the rapid modification of an existing adjunct data center in order to allow crucial business operations to resume in the immediate wake of their main data center’s destruction. After this first phase was complete, the client then needed a completely new data center facility engineered and built. 

Solutions

Forest NJ’s electrical engineering services served as a key component of this data center recovery project. We provided the following solutions:

  • Rapid modification and expansion of an existing adjunct data center in order to allow stock trading to resume less than a week after the event
  • Coordination with the construction firm on the project to mobilize and commence work to rebuild entire data center infrastructure
  • Managing around-the-clock work schedules that utilized as many as 200 workers at once
  • Collaboration with IBEW Business Managers from two local unions to fulfill labor requirements
  • Arrangement of special air freighting for equipment and police escorts for materials delivery due to government parameters in place around the building

Client Background

Lehman Brothers Holdings was a global financial services firm until it became defunct in 2008, and was at one time the fourth-largest investment banking firm in the United States with approximately 250,000 employees worldwide.