Tifft Gannon is Senior Director of Technical Business Development at Vertiv, where he leads strategic technical engagement with emerging AI providers — working at the front edge of one of the most consequential build-outs in the history of the data center industry. His focus is aligning the physical infrastructure and systems that enable organizations to realize their IT goals before they commit to infrastructure that is expensive, long-lead, and very difficult to undo.
Before moving into his current role, Tifft served as North American Technical Director at Vertiv, where he built and led the Thermal Management Technical and Application Engineering teams into a nationally recognized resource for data center thermal design support. This role encompassed oversight of the technical training of all Vertiv’s local sales teams, creation of industry-facing educational presentations, and development of programs for educating consulting engineering firms on data center systems. Earlier, he spearheaded the launch and product management of Vertiv’s air handler business — developing hands-on expertise from product conception through delivery and ongoing operation. Over the course of his career, he has developed expertise on the thermal management of IT spaces from network closets and edge deployments to hyperscale facilities. That breadth of experience is the foundation of his current work: engaging with clients who are new to AI environments and how infrastructure enables successful AI deployments over the life cycle of the facility.
A member of ASHRAE for more than 15 years, Tifft has contributed to the Society at both the local and national levels through the Columbus, Ohio chapter. He was the presenter for one of ASHRAE’s most successful webcasts — “Selecting the Right Air Handling Approach for Data Centers” — and has delivered technical presentations at chapter meetings, chapter regional conferences, and industry events across North America.
Tifft is known for making dense technical topics land with audiences across engineering, operations, and leadership disciplines. His presentations combine thermal engineering rigor with the kind of frank, sequencing-first advice that comes from working directly with operators navigating decisions that will shape their facilities for decades. Whether he is walking through cooling mode transitions, the imperatives of liquid-cooled system design, or the organizational dynamics that cause AI infrastructure projects to go sideways, attendees leave with frameworks they can use — not just information they have heard. Over the past 25 years, Mr. Gannon has developed an engaging speaking style honed through delivering more than 2,000 talks across professional and informal settings.
Tifft holds a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from The Ohio State University. For more than 25 years, he has volunteered as a youth sports coach and Young Life leader, mentoring young people through one of the most formative seasons of their lives — work he approaches with the same conviction that the right investment early prevents a lot of costly rework later.
Rear Door Heat Exchangers: The Practical Guide to High-Density Rack Cooling
When rack densities climb past the threshold where room-level air cooling can no longer keep up, the cooling solution has to move closer to the server. Rear door heat exchangers (RDHXs) are one of the most practical answers to that problem — but specifying and implementing them well requires understanding design, fluid, and integration decisions that are easy to get wrong. This presentation is a practitioner’s guide to getting them right. We will cover passive versus active RDHX configurations, the role of coolant distribution units (CDUs) in separating facility water from IT cooling loops, and the condensation prevention and cabinet preparation requirements that successful deployments depend on. We will also address the fluid management disciplines — filtration, chemistry, flow rates, and fault response — that determine whether a liquid-cooled deployment delivers on its promise year after year.
Key Learning Objectives:
- Explain the market drivers and rack density trends that make rear door heat exchangers a compelling solution, including the power thresholds at which room-level air cooling becomes insufficient for AI and GPU-intensive workloads.
- Distinguish between passive and active rear door heat exchanger configurations, including their capacity ranges, appropriate use cases, and the design and installation requirements that differ between them.
- Describe the function and critical design requirements of coolant distribution units (CDUs), including how they isolate facility water from IT cooling loops and the role they play in condensation prevention and system reliability.
Economizer Selection for Data Centers: What the Textbook Doesn’t Tell You
Data centers already account for roughly 4.4% of total US energy consumption, with forecasts projecting 6.7% to 12% by 2028 as AI workloads multiply. Every hour of mechanical cooling avoided is a meaningful contribution to both operational cost and grid sustainability — which is why economizer selection is one of the most consequential decisions a data center designer makes. This presentation cuts through the options with the rigor practitioners actually need. We will examine airside, waterside, and pumped refrigerant economizer systems — covering where each excels, where each struggles, and what maintenance realities rarely surface during the design phase. We will also explore how the expansion of ASHRAE thermal envelopes and higher inlet temperatures have changed the economics of economization, giving attendees a practical framework for matching the right approach to the right site.
Key Learning Objectives:
- Explain how current data center industry trends — including rising power densities, expanded ASHRAE thermal envelopes, and AI-driven load growth — are reshaping the economics and applicability of economizer systems.
- Compare airside, waterside, and pumped refrigerant economizer systems across key dimensions including climate suitability, capacity range, first cost, total cost of ownership, and operational risk.
- Apply a structured decision framework for economizer selection that accounts for site-specific constraints — including geography, available water resources, local utility rates, and existing facility infrastructure.
- Evaluate the critical factors that influence economizer system performance and reliability, including proper installation, operation, and maintenance practices.
How to Design and Deliver Successful High-Performance IT Infrastructure
AI and GPU-intensive computing are arriving in enterprise environments, colocation facilities, and edge deployments that were never designed for them — and the gap between what those environments can deliver and what high-performance IT actually requires is where projects go wrong. This presentation gives ASHRAE members the tools to close that gap. We will examine what makes high-performance computing fundamentally different from traditional data center environments, walk through the critical infrastructure imperatives across thermal, power, rack, and system management disciplines, and address the coordination requirements that determine whether a project succeeds or requires expensive rework.
Key Learning Objectives:
- Understand what distinguishes high-performance computing environments from traditional data centers — including power density thresholds, cooling mode transitions, and the infrastructure coordination demands that accompany GPU-intensive deployments.
- Identify the critical infrastructure imperatives — across thermal, power, rack, system management, and service disciplines — that must be addressed in sequence for a high-performance computing project to succeed.
- Apply a practical framework for liquid cooling system understanding, including the five key CDU characteristics.
- Recognize the organizational and cross-disciplinary coordination requirements that separate successful high-performance computing deployments from those that require costly rework after IT hardware decisions have already been made.