How Meridian IT Helped First American Bank Achieve Zero Downtime

“Working with Meridian gave us an opportunity to optimize our technology assets and drive the most value from our investment.”

— Noel Levasseur
Chief Information Officer |  First American Bank

About First American Bank

First American Bank started as a regional bank in Northern Illinois and gradually grew through organic growth and acquisitions. From its humble beginnings, it has expanded to Southern Wisconsin and Miami, Florida, and currently has 59 locations. First American Bank has a clear focus on delivering the personal touch of a local community bank with the leading financial expertise and service of a regional bank. To deliver on this goal, customer experience is paramount, from the local teller to an online or mobile transaction.

• Largest Privately Owned Bank in Illinois
• 59 Offices in Illinois, Wisconsin, and Florida
• $4.5 Billion in Assets
• Enterprise Commvault Backup Solution across Netapp and Nimble Storage Platforms

Industry: Retail Banking

The Challenge: Modernizing IT Without Interrupting Trust

As data regulations tightened and customer information volumes exploded, First American Bank faced mounting pressure to keep its systems secure, compliant, and always available.

• Aging infrastructure made it difficult to guarantee consistent uptime.
• Backup and recovery systems were fragmented, creating uncertainty around data protection.
• The IT team was spending more time troubleshooting than proactively improving operations.
• Without 24/7 monitoring, even small system failures risked turning into major service interruptions.

The bank needed a partner who could modernize its environment without compromising the service and security its clients expected every day.

Technology Challenges Solved

• My environment was at risk of an attack
• My team lacked the skills to architect and deploy a scalable technology footprint
• My systems were old, slow, and failing

Building a Safer, Smarter IT Backbone for Continuous Banking Operations

Meridian IT became more than a vendor — it became an extension of First American Bank’s technology team.

Through 24/7 monitoring and a Commvault backup solution built on NetApp and Nimble storage platforms, Meridian ensured every piece of data was protected and every backup verifiable.

Rather than isolated fixes, Meridian delivered a strategic transformation:

• Unified system oversight for real-time issue detection and proactive resolution.
• Regular health checks to fine-tune performance and prevent costly downtime.
• Strategic guidance aligning IT infrastructure with the bank’s long-term growth and compliance roadmap.

This partnership turned IT from a reactive function into a resilient backbone, allowing First American Bank to focus on growth and customer service and not recovery and repair.

Zero Downtime. Maximum Trust. 100% Customer Confidence.

Initially, Meridian IT helped First American reduce the overall risk of daily operations to reinforce its user protection and overall privacy of data. With a smooth transition from old to new systems, the overall experience for customers was seamless in avoiding any disruption to networks that would have created substantial brand damage for First American Bank. With Meridian's work in place, First American has greatly reduced the potential for reputational damage with little risk of interruption to First American's banking operations. Meridian’s solution strengthened every aspect of First American Bank’s operations — ensuring reliability, compliance, and peace of mind.

Results at a glance:

• Reinforced User Protection — Stronger privacy controls and hardened data security.
• Smooth System Transition — Seamless cutover with zero operational interruptions.
• No Operational Disruptions — Continuous uptime through proactive monitoring.

With Meridian IT’s support, First American Bank eliminated risk, ensured compliance, and earned something invaluable: customer confidence in every transaction.

"We are fortunate that we have found someone that has a really strong core competency in storage and backup, and that's a huge need for us today."

— Noel Levasseur
Chief Information Officer |  First American Bank