In this episode of Shoulder to Shoulder, hosts Vin Caruso and Amanda Winter Cassidy sit down with Brian Chen, VP of Energy and Infrastructure Sales at Stewart Title, to talk about what's really driving — and slowing down — America's data center boom. Brian compares today's data center land rush to renewable energy development a decade ago, but with far deeper capital behind it and a faster path to community backlash. Drawing on his military background leading counterinsurgency and community engagement work in Afghanistan, Brian argues the biggest obstacle facing data center developers isn't land, power, or money — it's trust, and the industry's habit of operating in secrecy is making that problem worse. The conversation covers transmission bottlenecks, the misinformation swirling around tax abatements, why AI has become a national security race, and what developers can learn from renewable energy's own community-engagement growing pains.

👤 Guest Spotlight:

Brian Chen, VP of Energy and Infrastructure Sales, Stewart Title

Brian Chen leads energy and infrastructure sales at Stewart Title, working at the intersection of land, title, and some of the largest data center and renewable energy projects in the country. Before his career in title and energy infrastructure, Brian served in the U.S. Army in Afghanistan, where his work centered on provincial reconstruction and counterinsurgency — building trust and buy-in with local communities, an experience that directly informs how he advises data center and renewable developers today. Outside of his day job, Brian mentors veterans transitioning out of the military, helping them see the range of civilian career paths available beyond their military occupational specialty. In this episode, he brings a rare combination of battlefield community-engagement experience and on-the-ground land expertise to one of the most contested conversations in American infrastructure.