URI alums to launch Providence branch of Mass. IT firm

PROVIDENCE – Five alumni of the University of Rhode Island, including three native Rhode Islanders, will celebrate their homecoming to the Ocean State with the grand opening on Wednesday of Norwood, Mass.-based IT firm Secured Network Services’ Providence branch.
The Providence office – located at 18 Imperial Place – will be the company’s third branch location, following the opening of a branch in Littleton, N.H.
Secured Network Services President Kevin Low, who founded the company in 2003, was born and raised in Rhode Island, as were Vice President of Sales Brad Mirza and Controller Paul Low. In addition, Director of Operations Ryan Russo, Director of Customer Engineering Josh Abrams and Vice President and Engineering Ted Casassa earned their degrees from URI. All of them except Paul Low are URI alumni.
Secured Network Services serves local clients in the Providence area including Meeting Street, KVH Industries and Embolden Design in Pawtucket, and the opening of their newest location will enable them to serve those customers and other Rhode Island institutions with greater logistical ease, the company said.
Wednesday’s grand opening ceremony will begin at 5:30 p.m., and gubernatorial candidate R.I. General Treasurer Gina M. Raimondo is expected to speak before the official ribbon-cutting with Kevin Low and Laurie White, president of the Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce.
Secured Network Services provides IT support and planning, disaster recovery, private cloud services and data-center hosting. Since its founding, the company has expanded to nearly 30 employees and achieved an average growth rate of 31 percent over the last ten years.
“SNS is a welcome addition to Rhode Island’s innovation economy,” said Raimondo in a statement. “It’s great to see businesses moving in to Rhode Island and it is essential that we find ways to encourage further economic growth.”