WGMD Business Spotlight Featuring ThinkSecureNet – Episode 07/08/21
Interviewer: I am very excited to be able to introduce you to our next guests. They are new advertisers here at 92.7 WGMD. It’s a company called ThinkSecureNet, and I don’t know that much about them. And you probably don’t know that much about them, either, but we’re going to learn in the next 10 minutes a lot about this company.
Let me introduce to you the people that are here with me in the studio. First of all, to my left is Jack Berberian. He is the CEO and co-founder. Good afternoon, sir.
Jack: Good afternoon. Thanks for having me.
Interviewer: We’re thrilled to have you. And in the other two studios, we have Mark Kosloski, who is the VP of Sales. Hi, Mark.
Mark: Hi. How are you today?
Interviewer: Good. And Drew Laroche, who is the CIO and co-founder of ThinkSecureNet. Well, first of all, glad that all three of you are here. Tell us what it is that you do.
Jack: So, we do everything from computer services and managed services to cybersecurity. We do infrastructure. We do low-voltage cabling for hospitals, for hotels, for any new construction that’s going on, whether it’s in the hospitality, restaurant, or any other vertical, as long as it’s a business. We provide security risk assessments for the healthcare community. We’re on the state contract for cabling. We offer phone services.
We’ll get into a little bit more of the individual service lines that we have, hopefully, as the show goes on, but that should give you a pretty good overview.
Interviewer: So you, Jack, are a longtime Delmarva resident and entrepreneur. You’ve established several companies locally.
Drew, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Drew: I went to school at the University of Delaware and made my way to the Delmarva area about, I think, 15 years ago. I met Jack and just kind of got chit-chatting with him over a drink, our shared interest in technology, and where we were both at. And that really sparked the idea for ThinkSecureNet and led us to where we are today.
My background is, I’d say, purely technology, from schooling to first jobs out of school with a large Department of Defense contractor working on a lot of intel systems, doing a lot of software design. And I kind of parlayed that into the IT world and have really been focusing on the security and operations of our outfit.
Interviewer: Okay. So, Jack, Drew, co-founders of this business. What was it that compelled the two of you to start SecureNetMD, which focuses on the medical industry?
Jack: Well, I moved here from California. I grew up in Richmond, and the one thing I realized when I moved to “slower lower” was that services are very hard to find, and having people show up is even more difficult.
We talked to a bunch of friends who were in the medical field, and they all had the same complaint. Nobody would show up; it was too expensive; they didn’t know what they were doing; they had to come ten times....
So, we literally started building our first server in the basement of a physician’s home. And from there, we realized that this is something that is needed in the area. The medical community is just going to grow. It is obviously a big retirement area.
That’s how we got started. The reason we established the business is really to provide services to the area. We started in the medical community, and now we’ve split up into about ten different verticals.
Interviewer: So the medical community is where it all began, but you are in other types of businesses as well.
Jack: Yes.
Interviewer: The medical industry has been attacked, right? Cybersecurity is really important, and were the businesses here lacking in that?
Jack: Yes. Not just here but everywhere. It’s a big need. And, unfortunately, as most people will do, they’re very reactionary. So we’re trying to educate and be proactive.
Interviewer: Can you describe how satellite clinics, physicians, and healthcare organizations struggle with support? I know you alluded to it. What are some of the common things that you’ve seen?
Drew: With satellite locations, a lot of the clients that we work with, if they are a larger entity, their focus is on the core medical facilities, and the satellite locations don’t have the support that they need. So we try to augment their staff and their team and work in conjunction with them to support a lot of those satellite locations so that they have the support they need to provide patient care.
We’re indirectly responsible for patient care, obviously, because technology is such a huge driver in providing care these days. So, while we’re not on the frontlines, we do take a lot of pride in what we do to help patients get seen by their physicians.
Interviewer: So, Beebe hospital is secure, but then they have a lot of satellite offices. I know, because I go to some of them. So you are spending a lot of time with those as well, it sounds like?
Drew: Yes.
Interviewer: Okay. What are managed IT services? What does that mean? I’m not familiar with your jargon.
Mark: “Managed services” alludes to the capability to provide the services necessary to maintain the upkeep and operation of the system.
A lot of midsize to small organizations really struggle with the day-to-day operations, maintaining software patches and updates. Virtually every other day, you hear something from Microsoft that you’ve got to do this patch to that patch. And when you hear about the vulnerabilities out there, whether it be malware, ransomware, viruses, they’re usually exploiting some level of deficiency within an operating system: an application or something that’s relevant to the system itself.
Managed services are what we offer to provide comprehensive upkeep to ensure that those systems are fully patched and protected from the potential risk in each of these areas.
Interviewer: What kind of staff do you have? Can you do this from your office, or do you have to go out to their facilities?
Jack: About 90% of what we do can be done remotely. We have employees that work remotely across the country, and then we have the core team that’s deployed on-site. But in this day and age, the tools that we have and how we’ve built the systems allow us to support everybody remotely. And that’s great for them because things get resolved faster and more efficiently and, in turn, saves them productivity, time, and money as well.
Interviewer: Well, I’m glad to hear your initial focus was healthcare because the last thing I want is to have my health information exposed to the world, sold on the internet, and showing up on Facebook.
But let’s talk about services that you provide outside of healthcare.
Drew: We’ve moved beyond healthcare, and what we really learned was that the same things that required compliance in that healthcare space, such as protecting your private health information and records, also apply to the same categories when you get to other spaces.
When you go into retailers, when you’re looking at credit card transactions — there are standards associated with what they call PCI, which a retailer needs to adhere to. Everyone’s hearing about these breaches, whether it be the Home Depots of the world, Lowe’s, you name it — everyone’s feeling the impact of hackers coming in.
And so the standards that are currently being deployed — such as the HB 180 here in Delaware, where there’s mandatory protection that’s being applied to that data — are really critical in an organization’s posture and assuring consumers like us, as we go into these stores, that our information is going to be protected.
We’ve been able to carry over that expertise in healthcare and apply it to other areas. Recently, the White House just released an executive order, according to which anybody doing business with the government in any way, shape, or form needs to report incidents and respond accordingly. So, all of the things that we learned in healthcare now apply to academic institutions, retail, hospitality, commercial entities, agriculture. Virtually everyone’s got some relationship with the government or the consumer that comes under the compliance requirements of either your state, local, or federal government.
Interviewer: Well, there certainly is a lot to talk about as to what you do, and you’re going to be on every week at this time.
And I’m sure we’ll be learning a lot about you and what it is you do — but, Jack, as the CEO, could you tell us if some businesses listening to this right now are interested in talking with you about your services or engaging your services, what do they need to do?
Jack: Give us a call. We’d be happy to come out and see what your needs are, do an assessment, and, hopefully, be able to help you out. And if not, we can point you in the right direction. You can give us a call or go to our website. It’s the easiest way: ThinkSecureNet.com.
Interviewer: How about a phone number?
Jack: (302) 703-9717.
Drew: Just to add one more point. On our website, there are tons of resources, checklists, information, and a white paper that can help educate people on the need for cybersecurity and posturing. We really recommend that people start just by doing their research and coming to the website.
Interviewer: So when they come to talk to you, they’ll have been exposed to it through your checklist, right?
Drew: Even if they don’t come to us, the idea is that you need to be up to speed on this and be careful. Everybody has to guard themselves today.
Interviewer: ThinkSecureNet.com. Thank you, Jack, Mark, and Drew, and we look forward to you coming back again next Thursday at this time.
Jack: Thanks for having us.
Interviewer: You’re welcome.