Description

April Monthly Luncheon

What Data Centers Mean for Wichita Business: Opportunity, Infrastructure & Your Bottom Line

Held on the second Tuesday of each month, WIBA’s Monthly Luncheon brings together business leaders, entrepreneurs, and professionals from across Wichita for lunch, connection, and learning. Each event features timely topics and local voices that help attendees stay informed, engaged, and connected to the issues shaping our business community.

Featured Panel Discussion

What Data Centers Mean for Wichita Business

Data centers are at the center of one of the most active public debates in Sedgwick County — but most of the conversation is happening without the basics. What are these facilities, really? What do they need from our power grid and water supply? What does Kansas law actually require before any company gets a tax benefit? And what would this kind of development mean for your property taxes, your business, and the local job market?

This panel brings together five local and regional voices — a utility leader, a water resources engineer, a banker who already runs a data center, a mayor who's lived with one for 15 years, and a fellow WIBA member in IT — to give you the facts in plain language. Whether you're for, against, or still making up your mind, this session is designed to help you evaluate the claims on your own terms.

Moderator

Tonya Witherspoon
Founder & CEO | MindScapes

As Founder and CEO of MindScapes, a Wichita-based workforce development and consulting firm, Tonya brings deep experience at the intersection of digital infrastructure, workforce strategy, and economic development. She played a central role in building the carrier-neutral Internet Exchange Point anchored at Wichita State University and has spent the past year working with community leaders, policymakers, and industry partners to help Wichita navigate the data center conversation with facts, not fear.

Tonya will moderate the discussion and provide context on Kansas policy, the state’s broadband investments, and what tools like Community Benefits Agreements can do to help ensure the community receives a fair return.

Panel Speakers

Steve Castro-Miller
Data Center Infrastructure Leader | INTRUST Bank

As a WIBA member and data center infrastructure leader at Intrust Bank, Steve brings a perspective many don't expect: Wichita banks already operate data centers. He'll make the full spectrum of facility types concrete for a business audience, from the server room you already know to the hyperscale campus you've read about in the news.

Ebony Clemons
Manager of Economic Development | Evergy

As Manager of Economic Development at Evergy, Ebony will address the number one community concern head-on: what data center development means for our electric grid and your utility bill. She'll walk through Evergy's regional capacity, rate protections built into Kansas law, and how transmission upgrades are funded.

Scott Macey
Water Resources Engineer | City of Wichita

As a Water Resources Engineer with the City of Wichita, Scott monitors the city's source waters from Cheney Reservoir and the Equus Beds Aquifer Wellfield and uses computational predictive modeling to analyze future supply under both normal and extreme drought conditions. He brings the science behind the second-biggest community concern: water. Scott will cover how the City evaluates the effects of potential new large-scale customers on our water supply, how modern air-cooled data center designs compare to existing industrial users in Sedgwick County, and what the City is paying attention to as development conversations continue.

Mayor Zac Doyle
Mayor | Pryor, Oklahoma

As Mayor of Pryor, Oklahoma, Zac Doyle will share what 15 years of hosting Google's data center has meant for his community, including dramatic growth in assessed value, over 800 jobs, and millions of dollars in community investment. He'll talk candidly about what worked, what surprised them, and what he'd negotiate differently if he could do it over.

Andy Rose
Technical Director | Netability

As a fellow WIBA member and Technical Director at Netability, Andy brings over 20 years of hands-on IT engineering and leadership experience right here in Wichita. He'll offer a practical perspective on what stronger connectivity and a growing tech ecosystem mean for small businesses in our community.

Event Details

Date: Tuesday, April 14th
Time: 11:15 AM – 1:00 PM
Location: Ninth Floor Club + Venue
100 N Broadway St., Suite 900, Wichita, KS 67202

Registration & Pricing

Members: $25
Non-Members: $50

We look forward to welcoming you to this month’s WIBA Monthly Luncheon and continuing to provide opportunities for connection, learning, and conversation.