Paul V. Fontaine is the Senior Associate Vice President and CIO (Chief Information Officer) for Providence
College, providing strategic leadership, management, and oversight for the academic
and administrative information technology services and systems. Paul is also directly
responsible for providing leadership and strategic direction to the College’s Chief
Information Security/Data Protection Officer, as well as the Digital Accessibility
Coordinator. Paul is an award winning, innovative, adaptable, and focused technology
professional with 30+ years of success delivering outstanding results through vision-driven
leadership, continuous improvement, and accountability. An enthusiastic, strategic,
community minded, team player with a diverse technology, information security, and
operations background combined with an excellent reputation for leading and developing
teams that deliver On-Time, On-Budget, and On-Plan within demanding environments.
Paul is a professional educator and industry subject matter speaker and consultant.
Prior to joining Providence College and spending his last 28 years in information
technology roles within higher education, Paul spent 11 years in Corporate Information
Technology and Corporate Information Security, last serving as Vice President and
Information Security Officer for a top 10 national financial institution. Since 1997,
Paul has also been an Adjunct Faculty member for the Community College of Rhode Island,
teaching courses leading to undergraduate degrees and certifications, in both the
Engineering and Technology department, as well as the Computer Studies and Information
Processing department.
Paul holds various industry and leadership certifications, and has earned degrees
in Electrical Engineering, Liberal Arts, and Computer Science from Johnson & Wales
University and Providence College.
Paul has been an active member on Higher Education Advisory Boards and Councils, for
companies such as IBM, HPE, and Cisco, and serves on the Board of Directors for multiple
non-profits.
Jacqueline Knight-Barber is a Network Engineer for South County Health. With nearly 8 years of experience she
brings great knowledge to the workforce. Jacqueline started her career at OSHEAN.
OSHEAN is an Internet Service Provider for a highly diverse membership consisting
of Higher Ed, K-12, hospitals, government agencies and other non-profit organizations.
After being there for 7 years she decided to take a leap into the medical side of
technology and has made great contributions. South County Healths main focus is delivering
high quality healthcare with advanced technologies to all. She maintains in depth
knowledge of Network and CyberSecurity for fast-paced environments. Jacqueline came
into the technology field later in life, but she quickly realized this was a passion
and has not looked back. She is client focused and constantly looking for innovative
ways to help her team run smoothly. Outside her day to day work she enjoys spending
time with her family and working on being the best version of herself.
Ryan Nicolace is a Technical Success Manager and IT Lifecycle Consultant for C1 based in Bloomington,
Minnesota. He began his IT career as a PC and network technician for Chariho Regional
School District while still a student in both vocational and honors programs. There,
he deployed desktop PCs, cabling, and network infrastructure funded by grants obtained
by the rural school district. Ryan also served as a night school instructor for Continuing
Education students while at Chariho.
After running a successful PC repair business serving home users and small businesses
throughout the 2000s PC boom, Ryan returned to school and graduated from CCRI, immediately
securing a position at Carousel Industries, a global telecommunications and IT services
provider based in Exeter, Rhode Island. At Carousel, he supported critical communications
infrastructure for secure DOD customers, 911 Public Safety systems across the US,
and major healthcare providers and utilities in a fast-paced 24/7 operations role.
During the height of the COVID pandemic, Ryan joined ConvergeOne (now known as C1)
as a Principal Engineer/Services Architect to help Fortune 500 customers migrate their
Unified Communications and Contact Center platforms to secure work-from-anywhere cloud-based
solutions. Today, he advises these enterprises in maintaining their IT modernization
momentum, including implementing cybersecurity offerings and AI deployments. In his
spare time, Ryan is an avid PC enthusiast.