This month, we’re proud to interview Bryan Coake, Vice President of IT at Evans General Contractors, a leading design-build, general contracting, and construction management firm delivering world-class facilities across the U.S. and beyond. With a portfolio that spans cold storage warehouses, cutting-edge distribution centers, cleanrooms, and data centers, Evans provides innovative, turnkey solutions to some of the most advanced industries in the world.

We’re proud to support Evans as they continue building the future of industrial innovation, and we’re grateful for the trust they place in our team to keep their operations running efficiently and securely.

To support their critical infrastructure and global operations, Evans relies on our Managed Services to ensure smooth and secure performance across their organization. Our partnership includes:

• Network Monitoring and Support Services
• Remote Management & Monitoring
• Server Monitoring & Management
• 24×7 Endpoint Detection and Response (XDR) and Managed Detection and Response (MDR) for advanced threat protection
• Management of Palo Alto Networks Prisma SD-WAN ION devices for seamless, secure connectivity across their distributed sites

I am the VP of IT for our company. My role seems to be ever expanding as we grapple with all the different ways technology touches construction while also maintaining a CMMC level 2 security posture.

We’re working through a period of extremely rapid growth. We just wrapped CMMC level 2 self-certification and immediately jumped into several government contracts we’re leaning into. We are leveraging several new offerings from Driven including vCISO/Cynomi, enhanced log ingestion and queries, and planning our new HQ network design along with several existing office renovations. Additionally, we are working with Driven to finally secure our mobile Apple workforce and considering best implementation practices.

The success I have personally had and the success of my team would not have been possible without Driven. The team at Driven has helped as a very powerful customer advocate in dealing with an ever increasingly complex technological landscape. You get exponentially more than you put in when partnering with Driven.

I am the VP of IT for our company. My role seems to be ever expanding as we grapple with all the different ways technology touches construction while also maintaining a CMMC level 2 security posture.

I believe that the dogged determination Driven has to get it right puts them many steps above the competition. I’ve traditionally been very averse to MSPs as they’ve always had a set it and forget it approach when getting into an environment. Driven is always helping me to take the next step forward while suggesting things that make sense. It’s very clear that Driven is about the customer rather than the bottom line.

Driven support has done an excellent job of helping to fine tune our alerting procedures. When dealing with logs, it’s very easy to get overwhelmed with too much information instead of the right information. Additionally, Driven has helped make it so that outages happen seldomly and that we have a very secure workforce in what is traditionally seen as a security averse industry.

Technology never rests and neither can we. I believe the Cynomi platform will play an integral role in continuing to improve our security posture in addressing future vulnerabilities. We will be working with Jeff Ridge and his team to fully leverage the product. Moving our HQ will be a big challenge, especially with a full SD-WAN Cloud firewall setup. We will be hard driving to secure our mobile devices with Lookout and work to find innovative solutions in helping users to leverage very spec heavy programs.

Technology is everything in the future growth of Evans. We are working to get a full understanding of our data and begin to leverage it to make great business decisions. We need to continue to tweak our posture and be flexible as our workforce becomes ever more mobile while also needing heavy tech specs. We will be looking to automate what we can to stay lean and leverage AI as a tool rather than as a replacement.

I believe we have a very special partnership. I believe both companies learn from each other and grow together. I bring things to my indispensable Senior Account Executive Blair Scurlock and our inside sales rep Autumn all the time and they always tells me they’ll look into it if they don’t have the answer handy. And then they follows up with an answer! Ron Dukeshire and Kasey Steel have done a great job of helping us to keep a regular cadence to go over any potential issues and do catch ups as needed as we end up juggling so many things at once.

I love how we’re able to be serious when we need to be and unserious when we don’t have to be. I love the camaraderie I’ve been able to build with the same people in my time here. Even relative newcomers to the account, Eric Terzo and Jordan Miculka, have been able to get up to speed quickly and aggressively to help us accomplish our objectives! There’s something to be said for consistency in relationships and I certainly value the Driven team for building familiarity within our account and always having someone available if needed.

I think people would be shocked how much technology is changing the construction industry. Between VDC, laser scanning, and drone deployment we have a much better understanding of what needs to go where and the ability to identify mistakes quickly. Additionally, we exist to empower our Field guys to do their best work. The security around mobile devices and firewall configurations can be incredibly complex. Each site is its own branch office a lot of times and each brings their own challenges especially in supplying internet.

I cannot overstate enough how much of a professional win it was to finally bring our environment to CMMC level 2 certification. Andy Price, Jeff Ridge, and I spent countless hours together working through each new problem or objection. It’s only together that we were able to do it and that’s the partnership I strive for in all of my relationships.

From the technical side, if you’re using anyone else to manage a Palo environment you’re missing out as I do not believe there’s an MSP better than Driven for dealing with Palo. From the logical side, I believe that if you’re looking for a partnership experience that Driven is the best choice. Truly, they can be involved as much or as little as you want them to be. I believe the best experience is to be up front and communicative about what you want your environment to look like and design together.

I cannot reiterate enough that my team and I would not have been anywhere near as successful without Driven. I’ve always been a big believer in doing things myself instead of engaging in a MSP, but the scale and scope can just get too big and hiring industry experts for your environment is very difficult. Driven has amazing teams that designed and know our environment and are always ready to jump in to lend a hand or even to teach new members of my team. Our relationship with Driven will continue to make Evans a leader in leveraging technology in construction.