Laflamme keeps tech snapping at New England Tech

TECH IN FRONT: Jacques Laflamme, New England Institute of Technology’s chief information officer, has supervised the physical and intellectual expansion of technology for the school during the last three years. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY
TECH IN FRONT: Jacques Laflamme, New England Institute of Technology’s chief information officer, has supervised the physical and intellectual expansion of technology for the school during the last three years. / PBN PHOTO/RUPERT WHITELEY

CHIEF INFORMATION/TECHNOLOGY OFFICER, NONPROFIT | Jacques Laflamme, New England Institute of Technology


All universities need technology, but the stakes are particularly high at the New England Institute of Technology.

“We have very technical students here,” said Jacques Laflamme, NEIT’s chief information officer. “If our technology is not stable, available and state-of-the-art, our students notice, and they will challenge us.”

Laflamme manages information technology services for all three of New England Tech’s campuses, located in East Greenwich and Warwick. He’s been focused on upping the university’s technological game since he joined as CIO three and a half years ago.

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Laflamme oversaw the technology design for a major campus expansion, including a new 50,000-square-foot student center, a fitness center and NEIT’s first residence hall. “We had the luxury of a green pasture to work with, so I really wanted to do it right,” Laflamme said.

The 400-bed residence hall is equipped with state-of-the-art Wi-Fi, high-definition televisions that students can use for gaming and subscription services such as Netflix, and even wireless-equipped washers and dryers. Collaboration spaces allow students to project content from their laptops to wall screens in order to work together on school projects.

“The design of the wireless network to ensure that our students have the bandwidth available to have access to educational resources, as well as the capacity to support their entertainment needs, was a challenge that Jacques met head-on and achieved,” said Douglas Sherman, New England Tech’s senior vice president and provost.

The technology design also included the installation of more than 60 digital signage monitors throughout campus buildings.

“We are now able to get information out to students and faculty at a moment’s notice,” said Carole Stiles, the school’s operations manager. “The impact on the school has been tremendous for not only students but faculty as well.”

While Laflamme’s previous role at Harvard University focused on network engineering, cybersecurity became a top priority when he came to Rhode Island. Like all universities, New England Tech manages a considerable amount of confidential student information and data. “It’s something that keeps us up at night – making sure that we’re preventing any breaches and protecting ourselves from vulnerabilities,” Laflamme said.

That meant hiring a cybersecurity expert, implementing better firewalls and putting together a disaster recovery plan to ensure that services such as Wi-Fi remain available during storms or other unforeseen events.

Laflamme also implemented a life cycle management program to keep NEIT’s equipment in strong working order, including the more than 1,000 computers used by students, faculty and staff, and audio/visual technology used in classrooms. The program employs a “first-in, first-out” mentality for technology – older gear gets replaced by new tech before it becomes outdated.

“There were 10-year-old Gateways running Windows XP when I got here,” Laflamme said. “Now, we don’t have any machines that are more than 5 years old.”

Under Laflamme’s direction, the IT department rolled out Microsoft Office 365 campus-wide, implemented new student-housing management software and launched a new web-based payment system.

In addition to providing and maintaining high-quality technologies throughout NEIT’s campuses, Laflamme wants to change the perception people have about IT. Many people think of IT employees as working behind the scenes on technical issues no one really understands. Laflamme and his 11 full-time staff and 10 student employees aim to be a visible part of the college community.

“The days of IT being back-office are gone,” Laflamme said. “We need to be out there and very accessible, because everybody needs some kind of technology in their daily life.”

Laflamme regularly meets with department managers and chairs to ask how the IT department is doing, what needs they have and how the team can better service them. He thinks the informal outreach has helped improve the department’s favorability throughout the college.

“[Information technology] is much more involved, and approachable and accessible,” Laflamme said. “That’s a big accomplishment.”

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