News

Celebrating 50 Years of Service to West Virginia 

2025 marked a truly special milestone for WVNET — our 50th anniversary of service to the state of West Virginia. Since 1975, WVNET has been dedicated to enhancing education through technology, and this golden anniversary is a testament to the talented people who have carried that mission forward through five decades of change. From the early days of mainframe computing to today’s cloud-based infrastructure, WVNET has continuously adapted to serve the evolving needs of our customers. 

This year has been defined by major infrastructure modernization across every division, a successful return to in-person conferencing, and continued growth in the services we provide to higher education institutions, K-12 schools, and state government agencies across West Virginia. Here are some of the noteworthy things we accomplished in 2025. 

High-Speed Transit Ring Upgrade: In one of the most significant network upgrades in WVNET’s history, the Telecommunications Group completed the migration to a redesigned high-speed transit ring. New Cisco routers were deployed at all four Points of Presence — Charleston, Morgantown, Columbus, and Pittsburgh — and all network traffic was migrated over a carefully planned weekend cutover in July. The new architecture provides substantially improved path diversity, increased bandwidth, and reduced latency, with physically diverse fiber paths that significantly reduce the risk of simultaneous circuit failures from a single fiber cut. The modernization also enables rapid capacity expansion for both Commodity Internet and Internet2 services without requiring new cable installations. 

Firewall Migration: In September, the team migrated all private IP addresses on the core backbone router to new standalone firewall appliances at the Morgantown Point of Presence. These modern appliances represent a major leap in security, performance, and reliability over the previous chassis-dependent modules. The Charleston Capitol Complex location is scheduled to receive the same upgrade to complete the platform migration. 

Office and Data Center Switch Upgrades: At WVNET’s Morgantown facility, the team replaced the building aggregation switch stack — equipment that had been in service for approximately 15 years — with modern hardware providing higher capacity, faster failover, and enhanced monitoring. A similar upgrade to the data center’s router-adjacent switch eliminated bandwidth bottlenecks and improved performance for virtualization, storage, and cloud-connected workloads. 

Backbone Modernization: WVNET purchased new backbone routers and switches for the Charleston and Morgantown locations, enabling connections capable of a tenfold increase over the previous maximums. This project represents a long-term, scalable foundation built for today’s and tomorrow’s traffic demands. 

Virtualization Modernization: WVNET completed the procurement and deployment of new hardware for its virtualization environment, migrating from a traditional three-tier architecture to a hyperconverged platform. This modernization enhances performance, scalability, and operational efficiency while keeping costs reasonable.  

Data Center Improvements: The team installed two new computer room air conditioners (CRAC units) in February to safeguard critical state hardware, complete with web-based monitoring for temperature, humidity, and alerts. Communication devices were also added to existing CRAC units for quick status checks. Additionally, 12 new security cameras were installed at key interior and exterior locations around the WVNET facility. 

Network Operations Center: WVNET’s NOC handled over 11,000 calls, emails, and support tickets in 2025, ensuring customers received timely assistance. The team also fielded more than 8,000 after-hours calls for the West Virginia Office of Technology, underscoring WVNET’s dedication to 24/7/365 service. The NOC continued expanding its SharePoint knowledge base to support quicker, more informed resolutions. 

Banner Support: The Banner team continued providing expert guidance to institutions across the state, attending key conferences including FSA 2025, WVASFAA 2025, and WVSTC 2025. The team hosted two well-attended conference panels at WVSTC — the Banner User Group meeting and a Birds of a Feather session — and Ellucian representatives attended for the first time in several years to host their own sessions. The team’s weekly open office hours, now featuring breakout rooms to accommodate strong attendance, remain an invaluable resource for Banner schools and staff. 

DegreeWorks: 2025 was a strong year for DegreeWorks. The team transitioned to Ellucian’s biannual release cadence, deploying Releases 5.1.5 and 5.1.6 across more than 10 institutions. The DegreeWorks Listserv grew to over 65 subscribers, and the team expanded training opportunities with personalized sessions for institutions including Pierpont Community & Technical College and WV Northern Community & Technical College. Weekly office hours continued to provide a valuable forum for questions and collaboration. 

Distance Learning: The Distance Learning team advanced several key projects, including a CRM Advise/Brightspace integration for BVC and a Brightspace Grades and Attendance Banner Sync for Glenville State University. Product updates included a redesigned Brightspace Bulk Tools process and new procedures for Banner Term Sync requests. The team continued hosting weekly Brightspace Open Office Hours and monthly User Group meetings, and attended D2L Fusion 2025. 

OZ Ticketing System Migration: The team completed the migration of the OZ ticketing system to RHEL 9, resolving over 15 years of technical debt including character encoding issues, deprecated PHP functions, and fragmented code. The migration included database conversion to UTF-8mb4 encoding and PHP 8 compatibility updates, all while maintaining 99.5%+ uptime. 

Web Development and Client Support: The team continued maintaining security updates for WordPress plugins across client sites, deploying thousands of plugin updates safely. New clients were onboarded, including Morgantown Newcomers (with full site migration, BuddyPress membership integration, and WooCommerce dues collection) and Hampshire County Public Library. Security incidents involving a compromised WordPress plugin were resolved with enhanced protective measures and new evaluation criteria. Adam McKeown conducted weekly Web Wednesday training sessions, and the team produced knowledge base articles and video tutorials for clients. 

PSTachio and HEPC Initiatives: PSTachio received a new UUID-based student identification system and consolidated course management across all PST regions. The team revamped three sections of the WVClimb.org website — Level Up WV, Open Learning WV, and Credential WV — for the Higher Education Policy Commission. The HEPC Card system also gained emergency contact functionality and migrated to the new EZTexting API. 

Strategic Initiatives: The team evaluated five accessibility compliance platforms and began CRM system development, including platform evaluation, customer list compilation, and project charter creation. A planning report and proposal were completed for redesigning WVResearch.org for the STaR Division, with the project scheduled to begin in January 2026. 

Financial Statement Audit: WVNET successfully completed the FY 2025 financial audit, including implementation of the new GASB 96 rule. The team worked with CLA throughout the audit process to ensure all documentation requests were completed in a timely manner. 

Budget and Expenditure Schedule: The Business Office successfully completed HEPC’s annual board meeting budget presentation, along with the FY 2027 Expenditure Request submitted to the state in accordance with the approved budget bill. 

ETravel System: WVNET successfully transitioned to the state of West Virginia’s new eTravel system for employee travel authorizations and reimbursements, streamlining an important administrative process. 

The 2025 West Virginia Statewide Technology Conference (WVSTC) returned to Oglebay Resort on October 15–16, welcoming over 400 attendees across 50+ concurrent sessions. Planning began in January with theme development and infrastructure setup, followed by months of proposal review, presenter coordination, sponsor outreach, and schedule building in EventCombo. The conference featured a diverse program for K-12, higher education, and government audiences, with highlights including the Banner User Group meeting, the Brightspace Awards panel, and Ellucian’s first in-person attendance in several years. The EventCombo mobile platform received positive feedback from attendees. 

In honor of this landmark year, the Development team compiled 50 years of WVNET history through newsletter and photo archives, creating a comprehensive timeline of organizational milestones and documenting past employees and conference themes. A video presentation celebrating WVNET’s five decades of service was presented at the 2025 WVSTC, giving attendees a look back at the people, technologies, and accomplishments that have shaped the organization since 1975. 

New Employees: WVNET welcomed three new team members in 2025: Rebecca Clise joined as Business Accounts Manager in January, Erin Grondalski was hired as Chief Financial Officer in February, and Wyatt Peterman came aboard as a Network Operator in September. 

Promotions: Mike McDonald was promoted to Systems and Operations Manager from Systems Supervisor in October 2025. 

Years of Service: WVNET recognized employees reaching significant milestones in 2025. Kim Jenkins celebrated 35 years of service to the state of West Virginia. Sarah Barnes, Christopher Seckman, and Charles “Chuck” Stevens each marked 10 years, while Anita Davis, Gustavo DeLaFuerza, Stephen “JC” Doll, Alexander Keefover, Edward Leonard, and Kathy Stucklen each reached 5 years. 

Employee Safety and Development: WVNET reported zero workplace injuries and illnesses in its annual OSHA submission. The organization continued investing in employee development through annual driver safety training, benefits education, TIAA webinars, and the OpenSesame training library. A significant employee handbook revision project strengthened legal compliance and audit readiness, with eight key sections revised for clarity, consistency, and legal alignment. 

As we celebrate 50 years, we’re proud of how far WVNET has come — and excited about where we’re headed. The infrastructure investments made in 2025 position WVNET to deliver faster, more reliable, and more secure services for years to come. None of this would be possible without the dedication of our staff, the trust of our customers, and the continued support of the state of West Virginia. Here’s to the next 50 years!