Folks from all over the country joined us in Crystal City for our two-day data center conference, DICE, last week, including Hampshire County (WV) Development Authority executive director Les Shoemaker. We caught up with Les while speed networking; he was representing WestPep, a collaboration of four counties in West Virginia that have lots of available land ripe for data center construction. The IRS has already joined the party, locating a big data facility in Martinsburg, and Les says the low cost and reliable power of the four counties (Jefferson, Berkeley, Morgan, and Hampshire) is ideal for both government and private sector data centers.

From Western New York, Jim McGuire and David von Derau of McGuire Development (right) made the trip, joined here by DCers Chris Bock and Karl Grizio of Johnson Controls. Jim tells us his firm is exploring turning an old hospital in Buffalo into a data center.