How a community college serving 13,000+ students modernized communications with Zoom Phone, supported every step by Maverick Networks.
Merced College is a community college in California's Central Valley. With a main campus in Merced, a growing satellite campus in Los Baños, a downtown Business Resource Center, and a dedicated welding and industrial technology facility, the college serves more than 13,000 students each term and employs roughly 1,000 faculty and staff.
Arlis Bortner, Vice President of Technology and Institutional Effectiveness, oversees a portfolio that spans enterprise applications, networking, help desk, institutional research, grants, and an innovation team exploring virtual reality and AI. Maverick Networks has supported the college since 2015.
By 2024, the college's needs had outgrown what their on-prem platform could deliver.
The pressure started during COVID. When the team deployed softphone licenses so staff could work remotely, the experience fell short. The system's features weren't evolving at the pace the college needed, the interface wasn't intuitive, and it carried the weight of legacy PBX configuration that required dedicated expertise to manage.
Then came a bigger shift. Merced transitioned from 18-week to 16-week terms and introduced "High-Flex Fridays," a model where most buildings close, a single location handles walk-in student services, and staff work from wherever they choose. The existing phone system wasn't built for that level of flexibility.
On top of that, the physical infrastructure was aging. PRI trunks from AT&T fed the district's phone lines, and a network of analog copper wiring connected extensions across campuses. Backhoe incidents and flooding had knocked out segments of that wiring. The college also carried a surprising number of fax lines running through ATA converter devices, and the maintenance burden was growing.
It was time to move to the cloud. Our existing system just wasn't keeping up with what we needed. Arlis Bortner, VP of Technology and Institutional Effectiveness, Merced College
Merced already used Zoom for instruction and meetings through a licensing agreement with the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office. The team also looked at Microsoft Teams but found it more complex to configure and manage. Zoom was already familiar, already trusted, and the Chancellor's Office contract offered competitive pricing for Zoom Phone.
Maverick led the migration from start to finish. The project team, led by Harrison and Susan, worked alongside Merced's internal project coordinator to plan and execute every detail: inventorying every phone and extension, mapping call routing and auto-attendant trees, coordinating number porting from AT&T, and managing the physical swap of handsets across multiple buildings.
When Maverick offered to bring their team in and manage the entire process for us, that was exactly what we needed. Arlis Bortner
The team found ways to stretch the budget. Merced's newest handsets turned out to be compatible with Zoom and were reused. Inexpensive Poly phones filled the remaining gap. Before the cutover, the college encouraged users to drop physical phones entirely in favor of the Zoom desktop and mobile app, a trade many were happy to make.
Fax lines had been a lingering concern, but a timely Zoom licensing update added fax capabilities at no additional cost. E911 compliance was resolved through Zoom's per-user building identification. Emergency devices like elevator phones and code blue stations transitioned to a dedicated provider.
Phone handset moves were staged over the weekend leading up to cutover. By cutover Monday, the phones were online. Harrison remained on-site for several days, resolving call-routing adjustments, working directly with departments like the police department, and fine-tuning configurations in real time.
Impact felt almost immediately across staff, students, and IT operations.
Staff can take and make calls from campus, home, or any satellite facility. On High-Flex Fridays, calls route to the right people no matter where they sit.
Every user receives voicemail transcriptions delivered to their email, a feature previously limited to a small group on a higher-tier license.
Eliminated the analog copper line network and ATA devices, reducing maintenance and physical infrastructure across campuses.
Faxing now runs through Zoom at no extra cost. Group and individual fax capabilities replaced dedicated hardware.
All the features and functionality of a traditional phone system, but available from anywhere you are. That's huge for us. Arlis Bortner
Maverick Networks had supported Merced's communications for a decade. That history meant the project team already understood the college's infrastructure, call flows, and operational quirks. There was no ramp-up period, no discovery from scratch.
Maverick already knew our environment. They guided us through the entire process so we didn't have to figure it out on our own. Arlis Bortner
Maverick coordinated number porting, managed the phone inventory, configured the new platform before the cutover, and worked directly with departments to design call routing that matched how people actually wanted to work. Training sessions helped staff build confidence before go-live, and post-cutover support resolved issues on the spot.
The team is dedicated to getting it right. They have real expertise, and when they don't know something, they find out. You never feel like a burden. It's always about solving the problem. Arlis Bortner
When an issue surfaced early in the project, Bortner reached out to Maverick CEO Aaron, who took the call while on vacation and made sure it was handled. It turned out to be a non-issue, but the responsiveness left a lasting impression.
Even at the CEO level, Aaron was always there for us. That tells you a lot about the kind of company Maverick is. Arlis Bortner
All the features and functionality of a traditional phone system, but available from anywhere you are. That's huge for us.Arlis Bortner, VP of Technology, Merced College
Maverick Networks helps colleges and universities move from legacy phone systems to modern cloud platforms with less stress, stronger coordination, and support that lasts well beyond go-live.
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