Hallsdale Powell Utility District (HPUD) is the third-largest utility district in Tennessee, providing utilities in North Knox County, Anderson County, and Union County. For the large utility provider, 24-hour connectivity is critical to monitoring and maintaining operations. Like many utility organizations, resources are limited, and priority becomes the day-in, day-out need of the organization. HPUD had been using another vendor to provide IT management and monitoring, but they needed additional support as they expanded their infrastructure, software platforms, and integrations. Through a trusted cybersecurity advisor, HPUD learned of LBMC Technology Solutions.

With limited IT staff to manage servers, switches, workstations, phones, applications, and integrations, HPUD knew they needed additional help. They initially reached out to LBMC Technology Solutions to provide support for the management of their network infrastructure.

“We grew so much that we needed additional help and services,” said Chad Scheidecker, Information Systems Manager at Hallsdale Powell Utility District. “LBMC Technology Solutions took the time to listen and offer solutions. While some vendors tend to come in and take over the operation, LBMC empowered us to make the right decisions for our organization when the time was right.”

After experiencing issues with their firewalls, the team decided to replace their existing FortiGuard equipment with Watchguard firewalls. The new firewalls provided better visibility into the tools, more robust security features, and better customer service response time. With LBMC Technology Solutions, the HPUD team was able to get the new firewalls up and running with minimal disruption to their work.

As a result, HPUD has experienced better reliability across the organization, including high-availability firewalls and servers with disaster recovery solutions to reduce downtime and deliver the best experience to their customers. The security features within the firewall were also helpful in a recent penetration test provided by the LBMC Information Security team.

“It’s a good solution for us, not only because it provides the service we need, but also because LBMC is familiar with it and can monitor it when I am not onsite,” said Scheidecker.

As the company has grown, HPUD has leveraged even more solutions provided by LBMC. Recently, the organization migrated their Microsoft Outlook email from on-premise servers to the cloud through Microsoft Office 365. This solution has enabled all users to be on a newer version of Outlook and have a more reliable connection, as it is hosted in the cloud.

HPUD also achieved cost savings and better connectivity after working with LBMC Technology Solutions to replace their existing ShoreTel phone system. By moving to Digium, HPUD was able to upgrade their phones while receiving better features and customer support.

“When I came to HPUD, we had a couple of servers, a billing software, a new work management system, new VoIP phone system, and we had recently added a GIS system,” said Scheidecker. “Since then, we’ve significantly enhanced our technology across the company and out in the field.”

LBMC Technology Solutions has been a vital part of helping Scheidecker manage these expansions over the last three years. “It’s worked out really well,” said Scheidecker. “I’ve surrounded myself with a bunch of professionals who speak my language. It’s enabled me to be more strategic and taken a lot of stress and pressure off me.”