Jasper, IN, February 25, 2025 – Jasper-based PIER Group is nominated for Tech Company of the Year at this year’s Mira Awards. On Thursday, the winners will be announced at The Palladium in Carmel during a gala honoring the best in tech in Indiana.

PIER Group President of Operations Charles Stafford spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the company’s challenges and successes, including helping the University of Notre Dame become the first university stadium to implement Wi-Fi 6E standard power.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Tell me about PIER Group and its services.

PIER Group provides services specifically for higher education and research communities.

Those services reflect themselves in wired and wireless networking, be it procurement of those services and hardware, design of those solutions as well as the implementation, working with the university implementation teams to deploy those on site. We do that many times using contract vehicles to make the purchasing cycle a lot easier for the higher ed universities as they have to go through that process internally.

Talk about the company’s history.

PIER Group was founded in 2018 by six individuals who spun out from an existing company and were focused in the same community of research and education but wanted to take the next step of going all in. We are solely focused within research and education and to the point where we’ve identified a number of universities within what they call the R1 and R2 space.

There are 302 specific universities we want to take all of our years of experience, networking and partnerships and focus all of our energy and time slowly within that particular community. Getting more involved in the regional education networks that exist, getting involved in the national research laboratories that exist, that offshoot for those universities and getting all in to truly be a partner, not just in name, but in everything that we do.

What challenges has PIER Group faced over the years?

We were in existence when COVID came, so that created some different challenges of having to work with our university partners to provide and deliver their experiences differently. More remote, more reliance on bandwidth and the ability for students to get that bandwidth in different places than they did historically, be it in parking lots and things along those lines.

But outside of those unique situations, it comes down to making sure that we are able to help meet the needs of the universities because they’re pretty progressive. They have students who come in with a lot of needs.

Being able to help the universities maintain their competitive edges as far as what they can provide to the student experience as well as the professors and the faculty who are using various types of technology and requirements on bandwidth and computing power to deliver the experience to the students. Being able to help the universities maintain their competitive edges as far as what they can provide to the student experience as well as the professors and the faculty who are using various types of technology and requirements on bandwidth and computing power to deliver the experience to the students.

What successes has the business celebrated over the years?

There are many, all the way from being recognized with our vendor partners for awards as far as the manner by which we sold, the volume by which we sold, and the types of solutions that we’ve provided to our customers. We get a lot of vendor recognition and then also right at the customer level. Most recently, for example, we helped the University of Notre Dame become the first wireless 6E standard power stadium. Because of the aesthetics and the history of Notre Dame, we had to design and fabricate custom enclosures to ensure that we could provide the new age technology in a manner that feels historic and understated while providing an overstated experience to the customers and the patrons who go to the games.

What makes PIER Group unique vs. its competitors?

First and foremost, it’s our singular focus. As I mentioned, we are focused on higher ed. We have many customers who are related to other verticals or have relationships and they’ve asked us at times, “Do you mind doing this over here, within this vertical?” And we’re flattered. But because we’re singularly focused, and we speak the language of the community by which we serve, it allows us to better understand, anticipate and prepare to deliver there.

The fact that we’re women-owned within our vertical is also important. There are a lot of diversity initiatives within higher ed that help us allow them to meet those types of requirements.

Our years of experience and the dedicated consultants we have on staff to help work with the universities to help design their solutions. Those are benefits that we bring to the table that are there to help create, and they don’t cost our customers anything to have those conversations.

We have a methodology by which we execute. It’s founded on responsiveness, accuracy and follow-up. Most people appreciate when they know that you care, and responsiveness starts that off. But the accuracy of what you’re responding with, the accuracy of our designs, the accuracy of our guidance, the accuracy of our ability to pick the right partner that suits the best needs for the university, all that makes that responsiveness that much more impactful.

And making sure we follow up to make sure we got it right. That can be during or after implementation. That can be about a conversation that we’re going to have about things three to five years down the road. From a refresh perspective, that constant RAF concept and bringing that to the forefront helps our customers feel as if we’re walking with them and not just providing them a service but truly providing them a partnership. Our strong vendor relationships as well. We work very deliberately to ensure that we are aligned with the technologists our customers need. There’s a whole host of companies out there that come to play.

Within the different areas that we’re servicing, we work with the main vendors who provide the solutions and establish relationships that allow us to help our customers not just get support for what they’re putting in place but also influence the roadmap for where those vendors are taking their products. So they are looking at the higher education space in a certain way so their needs can be reflected in future visions and product launches.

What are the company’s plans for 2025?

Continue to expand our ability to meet the needs of the community. We also sponsor a lot of the events that take place within higher ed. There are events like supercomputing, which brings a lot of the players, not just nationally but internationally, to a particular event. And they talk shop. We’re one of the title sponsors for that event. We not only get involved in it from a support perspective, but we provide hardware that helps run the infrastructure.

More of those types of things as well as getting further down that list of 302 R1 and R2 universities. It’s not one of these things where we’re sprinting to do that. We are deliberately taking steps to get to that. So 2025 will be phase seven, or phase six depending on how you look at it, of adding that next group of customers while at the same time retaining the customers who’ve already bought into the fact that we are here to partner with them.

We’re also expanding our team. Our first hire started Jan. 6, so we’re definitely already in the process of making that happen.

Anything else you’d like to add?

If you ask me, at the end of the day, what’s the differentiation for PIER Group or someone else, I always have to go back to our people. Our company is a good reflection of Midwest values. We’re a good reflection of the state by which we’re headquartered in Indiana. We have a lot of hard working, caring people.

We’re fortunate we have chosen a community and a vertical that allows us to put a lot into our customers and benefit from what they’re providing. These are the next IT leaders of tomorrow. These are our next potential decision-makers at future universities. So it’s nice when you can deliver a service into a community and then see the benefits of that community work its way back to you.

About PIER Group

Headquartered in Jasper, Indiana, PIER Group is a leading IT and cybersecurity solutions provider with decades of experience specializing in research universities and large academic institutions. They excel in installing, securing and optimizing campus and research networks, demonstrated by their work with top national R1 and R2 universities from coast to coast including Indiana University, University of Notre Dame, University of South Carolina, Texas A&M University, and the University of Maryland. PIER Group’s expertise includes implementing robust security measures, such as Aruba ClearPass, to protect the universities’ sensitive data. For more information, visit piergroup.com.

Media Contact: Becky Schneider, VP of Marketing and Programs, [email protected]

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