2021 in Review: TierOne Looks Back

We’ve finally closed the door on what was simultaneously the longest and the shortest 12 months of our lives (anyone else feel that?). It was a challenging year, but we’re choosing to see the obstacles through the lens of gratitude. The ongoing pandemic gave us the chance to finally learn the entire Greek alphabet, and supply chain shortages helped us cherish the nonmaterial things — who else gave a lot of coupon books this Christmas? — but mostly, we’re grateful for you! Thank you so much for being a part of our lives through it all. Here at TierOne, 2021 was a busy year, filled with new faces, big projects that challenged us to think creatively, and endless opportunities to continue supporting our clients’ voice, cloud, and connectivity solutions.

Here’s how we stayed busy last year:

2021 By the Numbers

As if we didn’t stare at enough data points this year… TierOne has gone through a lot of changes and a lot of growth in 2021.

5 New Staff Members

As our clients’ needs grew, so did our team! We added:

• Customer Success Specialists Cody Knodell and Bill Rawlings to our operations team
• Our internal team expanded with the addition of Executive Operations Manager Emilie Barnes
• We brought cloud and data center expertise in-house with Vice President of Cloud Strategy & Enablement Jordan Rhinehart
• We’re amping up our design team with Experience Design Director Michael Peacock. (Technically Michael joined us at the start of 2022, but what is time anyway?)

2 Promotions

*Crushed it* Two of our team members are movin’ on up, and we couldn’t be more proud.

Hattie Hopwood was promoted to Manager of Business Intelligence, overseeing our newly formed Business Intelligence department while leading the design, development, and implementation of critical initiatives that contribute to strategic decision-making across the entire organization.

In our Customer Success department, Alex Hollenback, was promoted to Director of Customer Success, taking on the oversight of the Customer Success department while developing and executing tactical plans throughout the customer journey to ensure short- and long-term success of each active solution.

Even our leadership team took on a few title changes. Co-founder Steven Huxley assumed the role of Senior Partner, allowing him to strategically focus and develop key business segments, while Richard Reding leads solution strategy and architecture and oversees vendor, partner, and client relations while managing day-to-day operations as the firm’s sole Managing Partner.

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185 New Projects

And we thought we were busy! Our clients nailed it, rolling out project after project this year, and they enlisted our help to get almost 200 new ventures up and running.

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55 New Clients

Hats off to the class of 2021! With pomp and circumstance, we helped implement projects like nationwide SD-WAN deployments, enterprise-wide transitions to cloud-hosted VoIP, the optimization of Microsoft resources, and even the overhaul of entire data centers into hybrid and multi-cloud environments.

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7,631 Endpoints Added

TierOne goes wherever you go, and this past year, that meant we had a hand in supporting 387 locations around the country. *Slap the “That Was Easy” button*

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Highlight Reel

In a year of ups, downs, highs, lows, and (even more) uncertainty, we were fortunate to have had some positive moments to reflect on. Fire up the slide projector, coach. It’s review time:

• Working with building materials distributor American Construction Source (now US LBM), we overhauled the voice and connectivity systems of 69 locations. By utilizing the latest softphone technologies, integrating Microsoft Teams, and revamping fiber connections, we equipped this growing org with technologies to streamline communications between locations. Not to toot our own horn, but we might have had a tiny splinter of influence in finally lowering lumber prices last year 😉
• We embraced the “work hard, play harder” mentality on our company retreat to St. Pete Beach this spring. There we initiated an official TierOne cocktail (the blueberry Tom Collins) and vowed never to play beach volleyball together again.
• Grocery stores were the glue that held us together throughout the pandemic (hello, fellow sourdough bakers!), so we were honored to assist HAC and its network of 80 grocery stores in updating its outdated phone and connectivity solutions. Read the case study to see how we pulled it off.
• It was a great fall, y’all! We treated our top clients and partners to a weekend of adventure, pampering, and festive fall fun at Big Cedar Lodge at our inaugural TierOne Percenters event. It was so much fun, we’ve already started pre-season training for this year’s lawn game throwdown.
• To say 2021 was a big year for health systems is an understatement. This past year, we had the privilege of assisting Integrated Health Systems step up to the challenge of these unprecedented times by fortifying IHS’s national cloud presence. With the increased reliability and performance of their new cloud environment, IHS forged through the year keeping physicians online, securing the privacy of EMRs, enabling pharmacists to fill prescriptions, and eliminating stopgaps preventing patients from accessing health care in a year when little else was more crucial.

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Time Flies...

As the saying goes, “time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time,” and we spent a lot of time (most of it enjoyed, none of it wasted) staying on top of our game. Here's how we helped pass the hours in 2021: 

• Perfecting our signature Inventory Analytics process
• Mean muggin’ on the pages of the Springfield Business Journal
• Donning our hardhats to build a patio addition to our already drool-worthy TierOne HQ 
• Spending the spring helping clients navigate Microsoft’s changes to its voice offerings and licensing environments, then doing it again in the summer, then again….. and again….
• Only pulling out some of our hair triaging issues caused by the bandwidth.com DDoS attack
• Watching movie clips all day as we perused the submissions for our #TierOneTelephoneGame Peloton giveaway
• Helping clients round the clock during December’s AWS outage because someone said “bye, Felicia 👋” and jetted off to space
• Weathering not one, not two, but 10 Microsoft 365 outages in one calendar year
• Blushing as we were recognized as Mitel’s Partner of the Year and AppSmart’s Fastest Growing Partner
• Reevaluating our ~office vocab~
• Updating our OOO and debating if we’re more of a Vacay Alex or a Fed-Up Cody

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It was a challenging year, but we wanted to thank you for standing alongside us to celebrate the bright moments, supporting us during the difficult days, and trusting us to take care of you and your business through it all. From the whole TierOne team, cheers to 2022! We’re looking forward to another year of doing great work together. 🎉