Who is the "Atlantic Housing Foundation?"

Atlantic Housing Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing quality, affordable housing solutions for individuals and families across the United States. With a mission to create and sustain vibrant communities, the organization focuses on developing and managing affordable housing properties while integrating educational and social programs that empower residents. By fostering stable living environments, Atlantic Housing Foundation helps individuals achieve self-sufficiency and improve their quality of life.

Beyond housing, the foundation is committed to making a lasting impact through scholarship programs, resident services, and community development initiatives. By partnering with local organizations, educational institutions, and businesses, Atlantic Housing Foundation ensures that residents have access to resources such as job training, financial literacy courses, and academic support. Through these efforts, the organization not only provides a place to live but also equips individuals with the tools to build brighter futures.

Aerial shot of Waters at Oakbrook Apartments, located in Summerville, South Carolina. Photo courtesy of Atlantic Housing Foundation.

Introduction to Damon Hartman- Head of Information Technology

Can you introduce yourself, such as your name, role, the company you work for, and a bit about what your company does?

My name is Damon Hartman. I’m currently the IT manager at Atlantic Housing Foundation. We’re located here in the downtown Dallas area. At Atlantic Housing, our mission is to provide and preserve quality, affordable housing while empowering residents with the resources they need to improve their lives. Technology plays a crucial role when making that mission a reality, ensuring secure, efficient, and innovative solutions that support both our team and the communities that we serve.

Challenges Before Network Elites

What were the main/biggest challenges that you were facing before partnering with Network Elites?

So the biggest thing was that I was a one-man IT department for the first, I’ve been with the company for 15 years now. So we just started managing back in 2010 and that’s when I came on board. And so I was basically every role for IT for I guess the first seven, eight years before we actually looked into getting a service provider.

The Network Elites team hard at work. Photo Credits: Media Pop.

How These Challenges Affected The Business

How did these issues affect your productivity and overall operations for your business?

So as far as operations for the business, obviously we serve residents as customers, but in respect to an IT department, obviously our customers are not just end users externally, but also internally. So our employees, our staff, our corporate team, those are all customers. And so before bringing on Network Elites, basically it was just overloaded, you know, you get tickets, you get requests on-demand requests to fix things. And being one person, you just have to prioritize. And sometimes people had to wait, you know a little bit longer than they probably should have to have issues fixed.

The Motivation For An MSP Partner

What motivated you to start searching for a managed service provider, and what were you looking for in an MSP partner?

So as far as what motivated us to find an MSP was obviously the the ticket load or the service load. We had acquired more properties back in 2018, so we on-boarded 10 to 15 properties at the time over the course of a year or so. And with that obviously brings an increase in users and that goes all the way across the board from managing workspace to hardware.

Front of the Network Elites office, headquartered in Dallas, Texas. Photo Credits: Brandon Sung.

The Most Helpful Services

What services did you find were the most helpful to your business?

The most helpful was definitely the level one, level two support for managed service. We would have repetitive tickets from multiple locations. And so for one person to get to an issue, it takes a lot more time to move on to the next person and help resolve that issue, versus if you have a team of people that are dedicated, such as a managed service provider, you have multiple people addressing the issues under like high workload situations. So it’s obviously more efficient regards to supporting the end user.

Standing Out Against Competitors

Is there a specific service or experience that Network Elites provided that stood out to you the most?

So let me answer that as a two-part question. As far as service goes, they’re all invaluable to us. Having level one, level two support from a team is very crucial in our operations, especially when sometimes we have issues that escalate throughout the day. And we have to have multiple people handle that at the same time. We also have dedicated service that helps assist with some of the projects that we have going on and we’ve also enlisted them, that being Network Elites, in like cybersecurity audits, things like that. And so that has the kind of the broad range of the scope of services that are provided by network leads has all been valuable to me.

Experience wise, the one thing I will say is that I’ve always had great success when working with Network Elites, and especially Ayman. Everybody’s always gone out of their way to fix issues and not just, okay, we fixed it. It’s more of they go above and beyond to fix an issue. They’ll go out of the way to fix an issue.

Some of the Network Elites team having a discussion. Photo Credits: Media Pop.

Results of Partnering with Network Elites

What were the results and/or improvements that your business saw?

So obviously the results and improvements are increased uptime, user satisfaction as far as being supported by the IT department.

Why Recommend Network Elites?

Why would you recommend Network Elites to someone who might be on the fence about partnering with an MSP?

I think it’s the true, like genuine client support business relationship. It feels more like a family working with Network Elites, like a really good friend where when there’s an issue, it’s totally understood. And like I mentioned previously, it always have gone above and beyond to take care of issues.

A team of professionals. Photo Credits: Stock Photos.

Last Comments

Is there anything else you would like to comment on our business or services?

I think the one thing that I would say is every interaction kind of feels like personal. You know, it’s not like you’re just another client to a business, you’re not just another number in their book or something like that. It all comes back to that relationship between who you have helping support your business and the mission that you’re trying to accomplish. And so Network Elites has never let me down. Again, always flexible, not rigid, able to tackle almost any problem. that we’ve thrown at them- within reason. To me, it’s a no-brainer as far as a choice.