Labor and National Infrastructure
With the national emphasis to build data centers, America is undertaking the largest infrastructure buildout since the interstate highway system. The projects that get built will be the ones communities say yes to. Think Big's Labor & National Infrastructure Advisory Practice helps companies earn that yes by focusing on the workers and lives that are impacted for the better.
The Problem
The permission to build is the new bottleneck
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Data centers, energy projects, and industrial facilities aren't stalling on capital or technology. They're stalling on trust. Opposition now spans rural conservatives, ratepayer advocates, local officials, and civic institutions, and once a community believes a project is being done to them rather than with them, narratives focused on tax revenue and jobs claims stop working.
The old playbook of economic-impact studies and late-stage PR is failing in public, project after project. Companies need a better approach, not a louder message.
The Practice
A worker-first acceptance model
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Our advisory offering is designed to immediately assist companies with real capital at risk: developers, hyperscalers, utilities, and infrastructure investors. To accomplish this, we help companies bring labor in early as a standards-setting partner, focusing on workers and commitments to communities, protecting ratepayers, and deploying trusted messengers before opponents define the project. The result is a project compact communities can believe and local validators can defend.
Leadership
As Labor Secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer visited all 50 states, sat with union leaders and workers on factory floors, and championed the expansion of registered apprenticeships and protections for skilled trades. She is one of the few figures in American public life trusted across labor, business, and both political parties.
She advises Think Big clients on labor engagement, workforce standards, community acceptance strategy, and responsible growth. No one else offers her combination of cabinet-level experience and standing with the workers who will build these projects.
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Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Lori Chavez-DeRemer is the former U.S. Secretary of Labor and a former Member of Congress representing Oregon’s 5th District. Confirmed by the Senate in a bipartisan 67-32 vote in 2025, she led the Department of Labor’s efforts to modernize workforce regulations and champion a pro-worker, pro-business agenda. Her career in public service began in Happy Valley, Oregon, where she became the city’s first woman and first Latina mayor, before going on to represent Oregon in Congress and serve in President Trump’s Cabinet. The first in her family to graduate from college, earning a business degree from California State University, Fresno, Chavez-DeRemer is now the founder of American Workers First PAC, dedicated to electing candidates who put American workers and small businesses first.
Where we work
AI and data center infrastructure.
Siting, community acceptance, labor engagement, and ratepayer strategy for the backbone of the AI economy.
Energy and
utilities.
Generation, transmission, and grid projects facing local resistance and permitting fights.
Agriculture and food supply chain.
Workforce policy, labor relations, and rural community strategy for producers and processors.
Manufacturing and logistics.
Reshoring, plant siting, and workforce pipeline strategy for companies rebuilding American industrial capacity.