With a background in military intelligence and security services and a degree in computer science, Kerry Bailey finds himself heading one of Miami’s key high-tech companies: Terremark Worldwide. Mr. Bailey was brought in after Verizon Communications purchased Terremark earlier this year.

Mr. Bailey succeeds Terremark founder Manny Medina, who Mr. Bailey credits for having the vision to reinvent the company’s focus from real estate to information technology, or IT, and he hopes to build on his predecessor’s work.

Today, as part of communications giant Verizon, Miami-based Terremark has grown to more than 3,000 employees in dozens of countries around the world. One of the company’s main data centers – the Network Access Point of the Americas – is located downtown, not far from the firm’s corporate headquarters.

As company president, Mr. Bailey is in charge of overseeing operations at the NAP of the Americas data center, which handles an astounding 90% of the Internet traffic between North America, Europe and Latin America. Mr. Bailey oversees the facility, which handles millions of secured electronic communications between people, businesses and even government agencies.

He thinks Terremark will continue to grow as so-called “cloud computing” increasingly serves as a platform for mobile phone and computer communications, transforming everyday life and workplaces for millions of people.

“Connecting to the cloud are the things that I think are going to dramatically change our industry,” Mr. Bailey says.

“I think we’re in the third era of this IT evolution,” he adds. “First, we were in mainframe (computing). And then we were in client server (mode). We’re now in cloud. Cloud is going to change business. And as businesses change, it’s going to change how the workers function.”

When he’s not on the job, Mr. Bailey enjoys golfing, fishing and spending time with his three children.

“It’s all about the kids and their sports and what they’re doing,” he says, “and they happen to just by chance play golf and fish, so we do a lot of that here in Miami.”

Mr. Bailey spoke about his vision for Terremark and the IT industry as a whole with Miami Today staff writer Scott Blake in his 28th-floor office high above Biscayne Boulevard.