People
The org chart is the product. So here it is.
Sixty-one people in the office, about 140 craft professionals in the field, and the seven you would actually live with on a project, named below with their years and their work.
STA 01 From the founder
I started this company because of a floor that was half an inch off.
In 2004 I was a superintendent for a GC that no longer exists, standing on a slab that had been poured half an inch high because the survey control had been rushed. Nobody above me wanted to hear it, because acknowledging it cost money that week. We built on it. The owner found out during tenant fit-out, the way they always do: at the most expensive possible moment.
I founded Datum two years later on the belief that the benchmark you set at the start, and your willingness to defend it when it is inconvenient, decides everything that comes after. That is why the company is named after the mark on the drawings that everything else measures from.
Twenty years in, the belief has survived contact with 214 projects. We publish our numbers because measurement is the culture, and a culture you will not publish is a slogan.
Ramiro "Ray" Delgado
President + Founder · 34 years in the field and counting
STA 02 Field leadership
The seven people owners actually call.
The superintendent and project manager in our proposal are contractually committed to your job; replacing either one requires your written consent. That has been in our contracts since 2011.
Tomás Herrera
Senior Superintendent · 22 years
Cedar Ridge Pavilion, Trinity Point Tower II, Vista Forge. Runs the calmest jobsite you will ever walk. Bilingual, and his 6:30 orientations are the standard the rest of the company copies.
Dale Whitfield
Superintendent · 26 years
Our occupied-building specialist: Verano Plaza, Meridian West, and every project where the tenants stayed. Believes a jobsite either respects the people around it or it does not deserve to be there.
Benito "Beny" Ríos
Superintendent · 17 years
Tilt-wall and industrial: Trinity Mills, Kestrel Flex, Hensley Cold Storage. Started on a Datum concrete crew in 2009 and still checks panel bracing math himself, by hand, every time.
Elena Vásquez
VP, Preconstruction · 18 years
Owns every number on the preconstruction page, including the 2.1% GMP delta. If she tells your committee a price is not ready to guarantee yet, that is the estimate protecting you, not stalling you.
Rachel Okafor
Senior Project Manager · 12 years
Healthcare and education: Cedar Ridge, Lakehaven CTE, Caddo Ridge Fine Arts. Writes the Friday owner report people actually read, and wrote the tenant newsletter Verano Plaza still talks about.
Marisol Vega, CHST
Safety Director · 15 years
The reason the EMR chart falls. Calls every worker who stops work to thank them personally, all 14 in the program's three years. Runs the bilingual toolbox-talk library that our subs borrow for their own companies.
The seventh person is Marcus Lin, Project Manager, 10 years, currently running First Light and unavailable for new pursuits until Q1 2027. We say that here because committed means committed.