BuildOps Names Medal of Honor Recipient Will Swenson as Strategic Advisor on Workforce and Policy

BuildOps today announced the appointment of retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel Will Swenson, a Medal of Honor recipient, as a strategic advisor. Swenson will work with BuildOps leadership on workforce development, the skilled-labor shortage, and the policy landscape shaping the commercial trades and the physical infrastructure behind the country's AI build-out.

Swenson received the Medal of Honor from President Obama on October 15, 2013, for his actions during the Battle of Ganjgal in Kunar Province, Afghanistan, on September 8, 2009. Serving as a U.S. Army captain and embedded advisor to Afghan forces, he repeatedly entered an exposed kill zone under heavy enemy fire to recover wounded soldiers and search for missing comrades. He was the first active-duty Army officer since the Vietnam War to receive the nation's highest award for valor for actions in Iraq or Afghanistan. A Seattle native, Swenson holds a bachelor's degree from Seattle University and a master's in security studies from the Naval Postgraduate School. He served three combat tours, retired from the Army in 2025 after more than two decades of service, and sits on the board of the National Medal of Honor Museum Foundation.

The appointment reflects BuildOps' focus on the forces reshaping the commercial trades: a widening skilled-labor shortage and the surge of workforce demand created as the country builds out the data centers, power, and grid infrastructure behind AI. The contractors who run service, projects, and financials on BuildOps are among those doing that physical work. Closing the labor gap that makes it possible, including drawing more veterans into the trades, is as much a workforce and policy challenge as a technical one.

"We are racing as a country to build the power and data centers behind AI, and almost no one is asking who actually builds it or whether we will have the people to. That shortage is real, and technology alone will not close it. I brought Will on because he has spent his life in service and he knows how to move people and decisions in the rooms that matter. The trades have never had that kind of voice. Now they do." said Alok Chanani, Co-Founder and CEO of BuildOps.

For BuildOps, the connection is personal. Chanani is himself a U.S. Army veteran who served in Iraq, where his work securing and moving resources for infrastructure reconstruction first exposed him to the scale and complexity of commercial construction. The advisory role pairs two people who came to the trades through service and see the same opportunity in them.

In his advisory role, Swenson will work with BuildOps leadership to elevate the skilled-labor shortage as a national priority, advocate for policies that bring more people, including veterans, into the commercial trades, and connect the workforce powering America's infrastructure to the public and private decision-makers shaping it.

"Every soldier who leaves the military goes looking for the next mission, and for a lot of us that mission is building the things this country runs on. We need far more veterans in the trades. The men and women already in this work carry the same standards I counted on in combat, and they have earned a real voice when the policies that affect them are written. That is why I am joining BuildOps." said Swenson.

Swenson was also a featured speaker at BuildOps' inaugural Forge user conference in 2023, and returned again in 2025, where he shared his story and leadership lessons directly with the commercial contractors on the platform.