What Happens When Your Best IT Person Has Room to Think?

Where It Started: A Specialized System, a Specialized Partner

The relationship between All-State and Koltiv goes back to the early 1990s, when All-State was running their business on an IBM AS/400, a platform powerful enough to run a multi-location manufacturing operation, but specialized enough that very few partners could actually support it.

Koltiv was one of them. That single capability became the foundation for everything that followed.

"The AS/400 phones home if it has a problem, and people show up at your door going, 'Hey, did you know you have a bad hard drive?' Peace of mind is phenomenal on that."

Today, Koltiv continues to manage system-level updates for the IBM i and is actively working to modernize Wayne's legacy code to run natively on the current platform, protecting the programs that run All-State's plants for the long term.

When Your IT Manager Is Also Your Competitive Advantage

Here is something most people outside of All-State do not know: every plant in the organization runs on programs that Wayne wrote himself on the IBM i. Production scheduling. Inventory tracking. Floor operations. If those programs stop, the plants stop.

That is not a vulnerability. It is actually one of All-State's greatest strengths: a fully customized operation built by someone who has spent 35 years learning every corner of the business. But it does mean that the infrastructure supporting those programs has to be rock solid.

That is exactly what Koltiv is there for.

Take one example. All-State uses rolls of conveyor belting in their production process, and for years the leftover rolls from production were treated as waste. It was the late Bob Pulver, founder of All-State Industries, who first saw something different in those spare rolls and recognized their potential value. Wayne took that idea and built it into something lasting: a program on the IBM i that tracks exactly how much usable product remains on every spare roll across the organization. What Bob saw as an opportunity, Wayne turned into a system. What had been written off as waste became a recoverable, sellable product.

That is the kind of work Wayne does when he has room to do it. Koltiv's job is to make sure he always has that room, by keeping the systems he has built running without interruption and without pulling him away from the work that actually moves the business forward.

The Infrastructure Behind the Innovation

Over 34 years, the infrastructure Koltiv manages for All-State has grown with the business. What started as IBM i support now covers the full technology stack across every location.

Every piece of the network runs on Cisco Meraki, managed by Koltiv: firewalls, switches, access points, cameras, and environmental sensors, all visible from a single pane of glass. On-premise phone systems across multiple sites have been replaced with Cisco's cloud-based platform and WebEx. Tape backups have given way to continuous replication to Koltiv's Kansas City facility, providing off-site disaster recovery with the geographic separation that actually matters when a storm rolls through.

"Everything that we touch, network-wise, is a combination of Koltiv and All-State. Koltiv has always been the networking piece of it."

Wayne's take on the phone migration: "We would never go back to the way things were before."

The Moments That Proved the Partnership Was Real

You don't know what a partner is worth until something goes wrong.

The Freeze

During a severe winter, snow entered one of All-State's makeup air units, extinguishing the pilot light and sending sub-zero air through the building instead of heat. Pipes froze. The sprinkler system was compromised. The water damage was significant.

Koltiv's response was straightforward: put something in place so it can never happen without warning again. All-State now has Meraki environmental sensors near every water riser in the building and across the production floor, where temperatures can reach 110 degrees when the facility is closed. One incident. A permanent fix.

The Derecho

When a major derecho swept through central Iowa, it made the case clearly: disaster recovery infrastructure sitting in the path of a storm is not disaster recovery. That event accelerated a move that was already taking shape, relocating All-State's DR environment to Koltiv's Kansas City facility, far enough south to be geographically clear of the weather systems that routinely test the Midwest.

Today, All-State's data replicates continuously to that facility. The derecho made the urgency real. Kansas City became the answer.

"It's still my hardware, my software, my licensing. I control it and I'm not sharing with anybody else. This is truly a best-of-both-worlds option."

As Much or As Little as You Need

One thing Koltiv does not do: come in and take over when you don't need it.

For some organizations, full managed IT is the right answer. For All-State, the right answer has always been a partnership: Koltiv handling the infrastructure, the networking, the monitoring, and the systems support, while Wayne focuses on the custom development and operational programs that make All-State run the way it does.

That distinction matters. The goal was never to replace Wayne. It was to give him the kind of reliable foundation that lets him do his best work without spending his time keeping the lights on.

"I've had so many partners that just want to take over the whole thing, or they've got a system and they won't tell you how it works. Koltiv has always treated me as an equal and not just as a customer. They're willing to do as much or as little as I need on a project."

As All-State grows, recently adding two Chicago-area affiliates, Koltiv is actively bringing each new location onto the same infrastructure model that has served the business for decades. Consistently. Without surprises.

"It's like having another whole person down there."

What Thirty-Four Years Looks Like

A brilliant IT Manager. Five locations. Programs that run the whole operation, and a partner making sure they never stop.

Your People Deserve a Partner Like This.

If you're lucky, your organization has someone like Wayne: a person who knows the business deeply and builds things that matter. The question is whether your infrastructure gives them room to do that work, or pulls them into problems they should not have to solve.

Koltiv is built for organizations that want both: capable people and the infrastructure to back them up.

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