Client: Veterans United Home Loans
Industry: Finance

Business

Eric Goodwin develops and maintains the high-level design plan for the overall logical and technical network architecture. Providing technical leadership and consulting across the organization, from strategic decision making, down to the project planning level. He also gains organizational commitment for all high-level network infrastructure plans. Goodwin is highly experienced in participating in projects to evaluate technologies and methods for implementing these plans.

About

• A leading provider in securing home loans for Veterans. The Nations #1 VA Lender for Homebuyers.
• Veterans United is committed to exceeding clients' expectations and creating an amazing experience with the VA Mortgage process by providing an abundance of information and personalized service to Veterans, military members, and their families across the U.S.
• They consistently strive to amaze, measuring success by the positive impact on the lives we have of our clients, coworkers, and community.

Overview

Starting in 2015, Veterans United was looking to grow the IT department and build a mature Network Environment and put a good Wireless Solution in place.

It all started with a conversation with Aruba Networks. Eric Goodwin, Systems Architect to Veterans United had reached out to former colleagues to gain insight on solutions for building a mature Network Environment. His colleagues recommended Aruba Networks set up his wireless solution. Shortly after, Goodwin became very interested in Aruba Clearpass for Network Access Control. The next step? Needing someone with expertise to get this huge project designed and deployed. Veterans United at the time had no wireless in any of their buildings. A Few APs sprinkled throughout the campus, but in need of an upgrade.

In 2002, When Veterans United started — it was a very small organization. They were only a team of 500 when Goodwin joined in 2011. Then in under 10 years grew to 5,000. “The challenge we were facing back in 2014, was getting a mature network infrastructure in place that could scale with us. Additionally, be able to put a good wireless solution in place”.

Enter DataVizion. A small but mighty IT organization based out of Lincoln, Nebraska. Experts in network environments, wireless, and Aruba Networks. “We really needed to find a good partner. And not only that, we were looking at Aruba ClearPass products for Network Authentication Control. We needed the expertise to get this off the ground running and deployed. And we were introduced by Aruba to DataVizion. And we gave them a shot,” states Goodwin.

Ever since the partnership kicked off in 2015, Veterans United has been floored by the skill of expertise and care for their account they experienced from DataVizion. DataVizion was a partner who worked with their rapid expansion over the past couple of years. “Your Partnership [DataVizion] has always been one where we work together. You were helping us through the situations we were facing as a growing organization.

Veterans United wasn’t looking to be sold ‘the next thing’. They were seeking a partner who supports through whatever current business situation they were facing throughout the years, from a growing wireless infrastructure to Clearpass and new Access Points. They have been very happy with the sales, post-sales, and technical engineering.

“Mat Lehn is just a rockstar,” laughs Goodwin.

Veterans United is continuing to grow and is excited to add another major line to their business with the new expansion into SilverPeak. They have been a SilverPeak customer since 2016 - and with the recent Aruba + SilverPeak merger, they are looking forward to the support from DataVizion in setting up that platform in the new upcoming projects. SilverPeak is a fantastic platform and very competitive in the market.

After a recent year of uncertainty and changes, Veterans United was proud of their DataVizion installed Aruba WRAPS, which were set up prepandemic. It enabled the organization to send their entire call center home when the pandemic hit in 2020. They didn’t drop a single call. Because their call center was able to take their Aruba Access Point home with their computer. 160 people were all able to work from home, safely. The executives of Veterans United gained a new appreciation for the importance of quality technology. Veterans United IT Department was able to keep the organization running because they proactively had built a remote work strategy with DataVizion.