COLUMBUS, February 7, 2022:  Vinson, a leading managed service provider for schools and school districts, today announced the appointment of John LaPlante as President.

LaPlante, the former Chief Information Officer and Data Fellow at Youngstown City Schools, is a seasoned educational technology leader with a proven record of providing exceptional customer service, aggressively implementing cutting-edge technology solutions, and creating diverse, reliable, relevant, and scalable applications platforms from which to drive both student achievement and operational excellence.

As the Chief Information Officer at Youngstown, LaPlante led the technology department through significant financial and operational changes.  He consolidated 3 separate IT functions into one cohesive department, renegotiated support and software service agreements, as well as led the modernization of the server and network architecture.  LaPlante’s technology department provided exceptional customer support, yielding an average customer satisfaction score of 9.8 (out of 10) across close to 25,000 service requests.

As the Data Fellow at Youngstown, LaPlante created and sustained the district’s data culture.  His work to extract, aggregate, clean, and visualize data was critical to the district’s ongoing Academic Improvement Plan as well as District Leadership Team, Building Leadership Team, and Teacher Based Team data analysis initiatives.

LaPlante has held additional high-profile positions throughout his career. Prior to Youngstown, he served as the Executive Director at ACCESS, the Information Technology Center serving 2 counties in Northeast Ohio.  Earlier, LaPlante served as the Chief Information Officer at Salt Lake Community College, Integrations Manager at GE Capital, Senior Network Consultant at Network Engineering, in addition to various network and desktop support roles.  LaPlante also spent seven years in the United States Navy, serving as a Submarine Watch Officer, Officer of the Deck, and Nuclear Engineering Officer of the Watch.  

LaPlante holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, as well as a Bachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of San Diego.  LaPlante is also a licensed Ohio School Business Manager.  

“Schools and School Districts are reaching critical inflection points,” said LaPlante. “The stresses on a district’s IT department have never been greater, with the cyber security threat of malware, viruses, and ransomware, coupled with the aggressive pivot to hybrid and remote learning.  Districts are looking for seasoned, trusted, and knowledgeable technology partners to help implement, manage, support, and plan their investments in both academic and administrative technology.  Vinson was quick to recognize and serve this need and continues to grow in both service delivery and the number of districts served.  I’m excited to join Vinson and build on their tremendous successes as we move into the future.”

“We welcome John and his many years of experience as a recognized technology leader in the educational field to the Vinson family. As we continue to provide excellent services to our customer base, John will be instrumental in moving us forward by increasing our knowledge base, advancing our services to our clients, and creating opportunities for our staff. His role will be pivotal as we continue our growth within Ohio and other states,” says Christian Ballmer, Chief Operating Officer.

About Vinson

Vinson is a leading technology managed service provider, specializing in schools and school districts.  The company’s Managed Services, Shield, Educate, Edify, and Backup services allow schools to focus on their core mission of providing exceptional learning environments for their students without worrying about the stability, security, or scalability of their technology platform.  Further, the company’s EMIS Checkpoint software makes it easy for schools to proactively spot errors in their EMIS reporting, and not only help avoid costly mistakes, but ensure that they claim every dollar of state-approved funding.