Mark and the team at VCS Technologies has helped us at Sugar Loaf Ford Lincoln with all of our IT services. From setting up our business emails to building our network platform to providing data storage and network security. We have been working with VCS for a long time, and I would recommend them for all your business needs. Thanks Mark for a great job!

PJ Erickson – Sugar Loaf Ford

VCS Technologies has been very helpful for my business since I moved to town. They advise me on purchasing equipment that best fits my business needs. VCS Technologies keeps all of my confidential client information safe and secure with offsite data Cloud storage and backup. When I need technical assistance, qualified technicians assist very promptly and professionally. My staff and I love working with them!

Jennifer Knapp, Attorney at Law – Libera Knapp, P.A.

Our business relies on remote employees and so we absolutely needed a venue to store all of our data securely and be totally certain it was protected and backed up. This also required a relatively seamless way in which our employees could attain access and had to be as quick as being on the premises. I was also looking for a solution to me having to pretend to be knowledgeable in the IT field and a solution for when things went wrong.

VCS Technologies filled all of those needs. We are all able to log in securely very quickly no matter where we are. I have the satisfaction of knowing our data is secure and constantly backed up. We also have 24 hour support so if any of our employees have any issues, no matter where they are, they can call the help desk and get the situation handled very quickly and correctly. My attention is now off this area of the organization as I have total trust in VCS getting IT handled most times before I am even aware there was a problem.

Additionally our emails are filtered to avoid all the junk hitting our inboxes and regular maintenance is scheduled away from our work hours so we do not lose production time. It is extremely comforting to know that as our business is expanding my attention is not required in this area of the organization and I know my staffers are being taken care of accurately and expediently if there are any issues that come up. They have been a pleasure to work with and I would strongly encourage anyone searching for their IT needs to put them atop their list.

Kevin Cappel – Ledger Resolutions

It is a heart-sinking feeling to have your server go down and be unable to work at the start of a busy Monday during busy season. This happened to us this spring, but luckily we had the managed backup service from VCS Technologies. In literally less than 2 hours from the first call we made, we were back up and running. We went from being horrified to all smiles and went about our daily business from that point on—no hiccups. I know there were some behind-the-scenes repairs/maintenance that happened after-hours that night, but we didn’t have any bumps in the road, and the next day was completely business as usual.

You hope you don’t need it but chances are good you might…the managed backup service is peace of mind and well worth the money. We couldn’t afford to lose our productivity; VCS Technologies knew that and were able to take care of us quickly through this service they provide.

Becky Benson – Winona Nursery

To be honest, we rarely think about our Managed Back-up Service from VCS Technologies. It is an effortless process which we often take completely for granted. Last week, however, we were deeply grateful for both the back-up and the knowledgeable staff at VCS. We run a small, busy retail shop and our computer is our inventory, our cash register, and our customer database. Imagine our distress when it self-destructed in the middle of a work day! Thanks to a solid off-site back-up and the nimble response of VCS, we were up and running—with all of our data in place—within five hours of the crash. The quarterly fees we pay for the VCS Managed Back-up Service are probably the best “insurance” money we spend.

Gaby Peterson, Owner – Yarnology

I have done business with Mark and VCS Technologies since he first started the business back in 2001, and have always been pleased with his expertise, persistence, and “think out of the box,” solutions to sometimes complicated problems. He has rescued the Post’s computers from some serious scrapes over the years, but last May he literally saved the day for us, and helped us get a paper out when all seemed lost.

Mark is the epitome of the strong, silent type. Unassuming, modest, mild mannered. However, after that Friday in May, I always imagine that he wears a Superman Costume underneath his crisp white shirt and conservative tie.

The Winona Post is one of the few independent newspapers in the country that still prints our own paper. Our printing presses are in the basement of our historic building on Second Street. The presses are old, but well maintained by our talented printing team. However, I always have worried about equipment failures. We have contingencies in place where other newspapers can print our paper for us, and ship them back to Winona, but it is very cumbersome and expensive.

I never dreamed that the biggest threat that could stop our production in its tracks would be a cyber attack.

On this Friday morning our Press Superintendent called me into his office and showed me the screen on the computer called “The Rip,” that takes PDF’s from our creative department and converts them to negatives. It informed us that we had been infected by “Ransomware,” and that if we didn’t pay the ransom, all of our files were going to be encrypted. We were on deadline for our Sunday paper and were printing out the negatives for our “B” section. We were still able to get negatives out, but things were slowing down…fast.

We called Mark Krinke. He arrived at the Post within minutes, and quickly told us that we had a potentially devastating problem on our hands. He ordered us to shut down all of our computers because this virus easily spreads through networks, and can infect your whole operation.

We were in a world of trouble. This virus is so horrible and effective that police departments and hospitals have had to pay the ransom to get their data back. We couldn’t send our pages to another newspaper to print because of the risk of infecting them with the virus, and despite the fact that I wanted to use our infected computer to print our negatives so that we could get the paper out, Mark stopped us: He said: “Patrick, you might be having a bad day, but if we don’t do this right, you could have a bad five years.”

To make a long story short, we had a ten year old computer sitting on the shelf that had been our past “Rip.” It was so old that it still had a CD and no USB Port. We later discovered that the CD drive was broken.

Mark took that computer (along with all of our other PC’s) back to his office. He was able to find a replacement CD drive, re-install the software, and get back to the Post in time for us to get a paper out that weekend.

Then he followed me into my office and said that we needed to put together a plan so that the Post would be protected in the future. We now have a firewall, virus protection, and have our files backed up on the Cloud. It was very reasonably priced…but when you think about it, what’s it worth to be protected from disaster?

So, when we needed help the most, Mark Krinke and VCS Technologies dropped everything and saved us. I will always be grateful.

Patrick Marek, Publisher/Owner – Winona Post