Prepared for Golden Valley Electric Association
Reliable IT for the cooperative that keeps the Interior powered.
Vicinity proposes a per-device Managed IT Services program for GVEA: a help desk that answers, monitored and patched workstations, managed servers, monitored network gear at every site, and the option of 24/7 coverage. Priced per device, delivered by a team with an office in Fairbanks.
Three building blocks, one accountable partner.
Managed IT, per device
Help desk, 24/7 monitoring, patching, endpoint protection, and hands-on dispatch to our Fairbanks technicians or GVEA's own IT staff, for every workstation, laptop, and tablet. One price per device.
Managed IT Services →Servers and network
Per-server monitoring and patching, plus per-device monitoring of firewalls, switches, and access points with configuration backups at every site.
Servers & Network →24/7 coverage, optional
Business-hours support by default. Add the 24/7 upgrade and the help desk answers nights, weekends, and holidays, with priority escalation for emergencies.
24/7 options →An Alaska-founded partner with an office in Fairbanks.
Founded in 2023 by people with decades in Alaska telecommunications, serving 90+ organizations from Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Honolulu. We have delivered a 1MW data center for a GT&D utility and an E911 WAN built to stay up through fiber cuts.
Who we are and why we fit GVEA →The counts that seed the pricing and the cost comparison. Placeholders until discovery.
Device, server, and network counts are placeholders pending discovery.
Who we are, and why we fit GVEA.
Vicinity is an Alaska-founded IT services, managed services, and value-added reseller partner with offices in Fairbanks, Anchorage, and Honolulu. We were founded in 2023 by people with decades in Alaska telecommunications, on one premise: where you are located should not decide the quality of technology support you get. A cooperative serving 36,176 members across 6,440 square miles from Fairbanks is exactly who we built the company for.
What GVEA needs from an IT partner, and what Vicinity brings.
Our read of the requirements before discovery, with our answer beside each one.
Reliability is the mission
GVEA reports 99.9% reliability to its members and runs a 24-hour outage line. The IT systems behind dispatch, member services, and billing need the same posture: monitored constantly, patched on a schedule, and supported by people who answer.
24/7 monitoring on every device, server, and network node, patching in windows GVEA chooses, and critical server alerts escalated to engineering within 30 minutes. The help desk is managed to published service level objectives.
Round-the-clock operations
Outages do not keep business hours. Crews, dispatchers, and on-call staff need a help desk that picks up at 2 AM in January, with escalation to engineers who already know the environment.
The 24/7 Support Upgrade puts a person on the phone at any hour, priced per device, so GVEA can cover dispatch, operations, and on-call laptops without paying for it on every desk.
A distributed footprint
Two member offices, substations, generation sites, and field crews across 6,440 square miles. Network devices and servers at every site should be visible from one console, with configuration backups and alerting.
Server and network monitoring from one console with daily configuration backups at every site, and hands-on work dispatched from our Fairbanks office or to GVEA's own IT staff, whichever is closer, under one ticket.
Local accountability
A cooperative answers to its members. Vicinity has an office in Fairbanks and technicians who can be on site the same day, backed by a help desk and engineering bench across Alaska and Hawaii.
Founded in Alaska, offices in Fairbanks and Anchorage, and leadership with decades in Alaska telecommunications. GVEA gets a named account team and a project manager, not a queue.
Predictable cost
Per-device pricing scales with what GVEA actually runs. No hiring cycles, no surprise overtime, and the cost of tooling (RMM, endpoint protection, monitoring, Microsoft 365 backup) is built into the seat price.
One unit price per device, server, and network device, with monitoring, endpoint protection, ticketing, and Microsoft 365 backup included. Term discounts up to 20%, and a cost comparison GVEA can adjust itself.
Critical infrastructure posture
An electric cooperative is critical infrastructure. Endpoint protection on every device, patch compliance reporting, and configuration backups of network gear are the baseline, with a path to managed detection and response when GVEA is ready.
Endpoint protection and patch compliance reporting in the base price, a path to managed detection and response, and delivered work that includes a 1MW data center for a GT&D utility and an E911 WAN that stayed up through fiber cuts.
People first. Always within reach.
The People+ Framework™
A dedicated team backs GVEA: people who know your name, your environment, and your goals, rather than an anonymous ticket queue.
Local, by design
Our Fairbanks office is minutes from Illinois Street. Technicians show up in person when that is what a problem needs, and the help desk and engineering bench span Alaska and Hawaii.
Co-managed or fully managed
We work alongside your IT staff rather than replacing them, taking on monitoring, patching, and help desk volume so your experts stay on the work only they can do.
Critical infrastructure ready
We support regulated and critical environments, with the access controls, patch discipline, and audit trail that utilities, tribal governments, and clinics rely on.
Measured on outcomes
A help desk managed to published service level objectives, a quarterly business review against a roadmap, and a client portal where GVEA can see every ticket.
Built for the long haul
We invest in long-term relationships and local talent. A cooperative plans in decades, and we intend to still be your partner ten years from now.
Critical infrastructure we have delivered.
Utilities, public safety, and regional hosting. Anonymized where the client asked.
A ground-up 1MW data center for an electric utility diversifying into telecom, with N+1 redundancy, tier-grade standards, and LEED-AP sustainability, delivered inside 18 months.
A redundant WAN engineered to carry mission-critical 911 traffic, which held steady through fiber cuts and severe weather with automatic failover to the backup PSAP.
A regional cloud computing center built from scratch: Cisco Nexus core, VMware NSX virtualization, all-flash storage, BGP peering, and last-mile fiber to client offices.
The people accountable for this proposal.
Technology and business veterans with deep roots in Alaska. Tap a profile to read more.
Managed IT Services, Standard.
Per-device coverage for every workstation, laptop, and tablet GVEA runs. Day-to-day operational support and maintenance for end-user devices, billed per device. Vicinity proactively monitors, troubleshoots, and maintains covered devices to keep them stable and secure. The service runs on a defined scope so GVEA always knows what is included.
- Local support during business hours (8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday)
- Immediate phone access to a help desk that answers
- Hands-on issues dispatched to our Fairbanks technicians, or to GVEA's in-house IT team under the co-managed model
- Full support for Windows and Mac computers
- 24/7 remote monitoring with automated health alerts
- Help desk via phone, email, and web chat
The tooling is part of the per-device price. GVEA does not license these separately.
- Vicinity Remote Monitoring & Management. Monitoring and management agent on every covered device
- Vicinity Help Desk. US-based voice, email, and web chat support
- Vicinity Managed Detection & Response (Anti-Malware). Endpoint protection for supported devices
- Vicinity Client Portal. Self-service portal, ticketing, and knowledge base
- Vicinity Microsoft 365 Backup. Mail, OneDrive, and SharePoint backup, 1-year retention
- Vicinity Cloud Based Printing Solution. Secure cloud print management for covered devices
What is inside the per-device price.
Tap a heading to expand it. This mirrors the statement of work that accompanies the agreement.
If GVEA has IT staff today, this program works alongside them. We take the monitoring, patching, help desk volume, and after-hours load. Your team keeps the work only they can do: operational technology, member systems, and strategy. Where GVEA relies on custom or proprietary applications, we write standard operating procedures with your IT staff, and from then on our help desk supports those applications directly within the SOPs, so the in-house team is not the only escalation path. Hands-on work goes the same way: when a ticket needs someone at the device, the help desk dispatches a Vicinity technician from Fairbanks or hands it to GVEA's in-house staff, whichever the SOP names for that site, and the ticket stays in one queue until it is closed. On-site visits by Vicinity are billed time and materials only when they happen, which is deliberate: GVEA's team covers most hands-on work, Vicinity is surge capacity, and the per-device price stays lower for it.
- Major projects, migrations, and architecture changes (separate engagement)
- Advanced security services such as SOC, SIEM, and forensics (security add-on)
- Custom or proprietary application support beyond general troubleshooting. In a co-managed model, once we establish a standard operating procedure with GVEA's in-house IT team, Vicinity provides direct support for those applications within the agreed SOPs
- Microsoft 365 licensing
Servers and network, under the same roof.
End-user devices are only part of GVEA's environment. The servers behind dispatch, billing, and member services, and the firewalls, switches, and access points at every site, get their own monitoring, patching, and alerting, priced per unit.
Server Monitoring & Management
Per-server oversight for the systems behind dispatch, billing, and member services.
Proactive monitoring, patching, and management for physical servers, virtual servers, hypervisors, and network-attached storage. Vicinity watches server health continuously, applies OS patches in agreed windows, and escalates critical issues to engineering.
- Health metrics: CPU, RAM, disk, SMART status, critical services, system logs
- Automated alerting on thresholds, outages, and hardware faults
- OS patching, plus 1 hour per server per month of third-party patching
- Performance and uptime tracking with monthly reporting
- Vicinity server management and automation tooling included
- 24/7/365 server health monitoring with automated alerts
- Critical server issues escalated to engineering within 30 minutes
- Routine patching inside scheduled maintenance windows
- Major OS upgrades or migrations
- Database administration and application-server configuration changes
- Hardware procurement and replacement
Network Device Monitoring
One console for every firewall, switch, and access point across GVEA's footprint.
ICMP/SNMP monitoring, configuration management, and alerting for firewalls, managed switches, wireless access points, and routers, delivered on Vicinity's network monitoring platform. Every site that has network devices gets the same visibility, configuration backups, and firmware discipline.
- Bandwidth, packet loss, latency, and interface status monitoring
- Automated daily configuration backups for quick restoration
- Firmware update scheduling in agreed maintenance windows
- Network topology mapping and discovery
- Alerts on device outages, thresholds, and security events
- 24/7/365 network device monitoring
- Daily automated configuration backups
- Network alerts reviewed within 15 minutes during business hours
- Network design and architecture changes (project work)
- WAN and ISP circuit management
- Wireless site surveys and unmanaged or consumer-grade devices
When GVEA needs more than steady state.
Backup and disaster recovery
We assume GVEA's existing in-house backup and recovery platform stays in place. Backup verification is part of server management. If GVEA ever wants to replace it, Vicinity's own appliances with local instant virtualization and off-site replication can be reviewed and quoted separately.
Managed detection and response
24/7 threat monitoring, advanced endpoint protection, and security awareness training as a per-user add-on when GVEA is ready to formalize its security program.
Projects and procurement
Network redesigns, server refreshes, cloud migrations, and hardware sourced through our Cisco, Dell, Fortinet, NetApp, and Microsoft partnerships, each scoped and quoted on its own.
Two coverage models. GVEA picks.
Monitoring is 24/7 in both models. The difference is when a person answers the phone. The Standard tier covers business hours. The 24/7 upgrade extends the help desk to every hour of every day for an extra $25 per device per month.
Business hours
- Help desk 8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday
- 24/7 remote monitoring and automated alerting, every day
- Patching in the overnight maintenance window
- Hands-on support during business hours, dispatched to our Fairbanks technicians or to GVEA's in-house IT team
- After-hours emergencies handled at time-and-materials rates
Suits office staff whose work follows the business day.
24/7/365
- Support hours: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year
- Phone, email, and web chat at any hour
- Remote troubleshooting and resolution for everything the Standard tier covers
- Priority escalation for after-hours emergencies
- Everything in Option A
On-site service after hours is available at time-and-materials rates and is not guaranteed 24/7.
What each option looks like across 24 hours.
The 24/7 upgrade is priced per device, so GVEA can apply it to the devices that matter after hours (dispatch, operations, on-call laptops) and leave the rest on business-hours coverage. Set the number of 24/7 devices on the Pricing panel to see the cost of any split.
Server and network monitoring run 24/7/365 regardless of the help desk option. Critical server alerts escalate to engineering within 30 minutes.
Priced per device. Then compared with building it yourself.
Every line is a unit price multiplied by a count GVEA controls. Set the counts, choose how many devices get 24/7 support, add seasonal devices, and pick a term. The same scenario is then set against what an in-house team would cost, and what it could deliver.
Drag a slider or click a number and type. Counts default to the assumed environment on the Overview panel. Everything below, including the in-house comparison, follows this scenario.
| Service | Qty | Unit / mo | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Subtotal, recurring | $0 | ||
| Term discount | $0 | ||
| Monthly total | $0 | ||
Recurring services bill monthly in arrears. Prices in USD, exclusive of applicable taxes.
| Service | Qty | Unit / mo | Monthly |
|---|---|---|---|
| Seasonal total, per active month | $0 | ||
| Seasonal total, per year | $0 | ||
Billed at the list per-device rate only for the months they are active. No term, no discount, no additional setup fee. Add and remove seasonal devices through the client portal; billing follows the active device count each month.
| Setup waiver | $0 | ||
| Setup total | $0 | ||
| Term | Monthly | Setup waiver |
|---|---|---|
| 1 year | List | None |
| 2 years | 5% off | None |
| 3 years | 15% off | 50% |
| 5 years | 20% off | 100% |
Setup waivers apply to Vicinity's own setup fees. Renewals waive all setup fees.
- Microsoft 365 licensing (GVEA-provided, or quoted separately)
- Backup and disaster recovery: GVEA's existing in-house BCDR platform stays in place. Vicinity verifies backups as part of server management and can review or quote a replacement separately if GVEA wants one.
- Managed Detection & Response and SOC services (available as a security add-on)
- Projects: migrations, network redesigns, data center work (scoped and quoted separately)
- On-site visits, billed time and materials when they happen. In the co-managed model GVEA's own team handles most hands-on work and Vicinity adds surge capacity when it is needed, so the per-device price does not carry on-site capacity GVEA would rarely use.
- Hardware procurement (quoted through Vicinity's VAR practice)
What the same scenario costs to staff and tool yourselves.
Using the scenario above, this estimates the team GVEA would need to deliver the same coverage and service levels, what it would cost, and what a smaller team would actually deliver. Every assumption is visible and adjustable. It is an estimate, not a quote.
| Annual | $0 |
| Monthly | $0 |
| Headcount | 0 |
| Annual | $0 |
| Monthly | $0 |
| Headcount to manage | 0 |
Priced at the term selected above.
A team of is not a managed IT program. This is what it actually delivers.
The cost comparison above is against the team that meets the objectives. A smaller team does not deliver the service, so it is not priced. Drag to any headcount to see what it can sustain, using the same assumptions as the model.
| What a team of 2 delivers | What Vicinity delivers | |
|---|---|---|
| Calls answered within 60 seconds at peak | 0% | 70% objectiveManaged to every day, with 75% of issues resolved on the first call. |
| Help desk hours staffed | 0 of 45 | Every business hour8 AM to 5 PM, Monday through Friday, with 24/7 monitoring and alerting on every device. |
| Server and network administration | 0 h | Dedicated, 24/7 monitoredPatching in agreed windows, daily configuration backups, critical server alerts to engineering within 30 minutes. |
| When someone is on leave | 0 wk | A bench, not a gapVacation, illness, and turnover are Vicinity's problem. Service levels do not change. |
| Hands-on work in the field | Desk unattended | Dispatched, desk stays openA Fairbanks technician or GVEA's own staff goes to the device while the help desk keeps answering. |
Assumptions behind the in-house estimate
Fixed assumptions: 70% of calls answered within 60 seconds (Erlang C), 30% peak surge, 6 weeks per year of leave cover, 4.2 FTE per seat for 24×7 rotation, 3 system administrator hours per server and 1 per network device each month, $150 per staff member per month for ticketing and admin tools, $25 per server and $10 per network device per month for monitoring licenses. Seasonal devices add tickets and tooling for the months they are active. Microsoft 365 licensing is excluded on both sides.
Beyond salary and tools.
Scales with the fleet
Add or remove devices month to month. No hiring lead time, no idle capacity.
Measured service levels
70% of calls answered inside a minute, 75% resolved on the first call. The help desk is managed to these objectives.
Bench depth
A help desk and engineering team behind every ticket. Vacation, illness, and turnover are Vicinity's problem.
Tooling included
RMM, endpoint protection, ticketing, Microsoft 365 backup, and network monitoring are in the seat price.
Hands-on dispatch
Technicians in Fairbanks for the problems that need hands on hardware, or a ticket routed to GVEA's own IT staff when they are closer. One queue either way.
Predictable budgeting
One line item per unit. No overtime, no recruiting fees, no surprise license renewals.
Onboarding in eight weeks. Service levels from day one.
Most clients complete onboarding in 6 to 8 weeks. The majority of implementation work happens after hours (9 PM to 6 AM) to avoid disrupting GVEA staff.
Four phases, one dedicated project manager.
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Kickoff meeting
Week 1Meet your dedicated project manager, review the timeline, and align on expectations. GVEA assigns an internal point person and shares existing IT documentation.
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Discovery and workshops
Weeks 2 to 5Our team documents systems, applications, and workflows through two or three facilitated 90-minute workshops. GVEA provides system access and credentials.
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Help desk activation
Week 6We deploy monitoring agents to devices, servers, and network gear, configure endpoint security, and open help desk access. Staff get a 30-minute walkthrough of the support portal.
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Technical roadmap and closeout
Weeks 7 to 8We present a 12 to 24 month technology roadmap, finalize documentation, and schedule the first quarterly business review.
The help desk objectives we manage to.
Patches and reboots run in the window GVEA selects, and the selection is made per group of devices, not once for the whole cooperative. The Standard window applies to anything not assigned otherwise in writing.
- Standard 9:00 PM to 6:00 AM, every day
- Conservative 11:00 PM to 5:00 AM, every day
- Ultra conservative Saturday and Sunday only, 12:00 AM to 5:00 AM
- Custom A window written with GVEA for systems that never have a quiet overnight, such as dispatch, operations, and on-call equipment: staggered reboots, shift-change timing, or change-controlled slots agreed in advance
A typical mix for GVEA: business office devices and servers on Standard or Conservative, member-facing systems on Ultra conservative, and the 24/7 operational functions on a Custom window, each group patched on its own schedule.
- Monthly service summary: incidents, resolved tickets, patch compliance, performance metrics
- Quarterly business review against the technology roadmap
- Annually roadmap refresh and budget planning with GVEA leadership
- Always a named account team and the self-service portal for status and tickets
From this proposal to a signed agreement.
Here is how we suggest moving forward. Each step is short, and none of them commit GVEA until the agreement is signed.
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Discovery session
90 minutesConfirm device, server, network, and location counts, current tooling, and which roles need 24/7 coverage. This replaces the placeholder environment shown on the Overview panel.
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Final pricing and statement of work
Within 5 business daysWe issue a formal quote with the agreed counts and term, with the service descriptions, service level objectives, and onboarding plan as appendices.
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Master Service Agreement
Your reviewGVEA legal and board review as needed. We are happy to present to the board or the finance committee.
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Kickoff
Week 1 of onboardingMeet your project manager and account team, and start the eight-week onboarding plan.
Always in your vicinity. Always within reach.
Thank you for considering Vicinity. This proposal is valid through December 31, 2026. Vicinity Group Inc.