The JDI Team – JDInet

Roger Hoyum

Roger Hoyum is an executive with over 25 years of experience in engineering, IT, and project management. He began his career at LTV Steel Mining Company as an electrical engineer and maintenance supervisor, and later transferred to Cleveland Cliffs Inc. as a process automation engineer, where he was responsible for large-scale integrated automation projects justified through personnel reallocation and energy reduction. Notable early successes included development, engineering, and startup of the first large-scale integrated truck and train dispatching system, and several systems integration and information management projects at six different processing facilities in the U.S. and Canada.

In 1993, Roger accepted an engineering position with Minnesota Power, where he was responsible for several major capital improvement projects. He was promoted to Unit Manager in 1998, where he was responsible for financial and operations performance of two 75 MW central station coal-fired electric generating units. He was promoted again in early 2000 to lead a co-generation facility acquisition team. In his new role, he was responsible for due diligence, purchase closing, and overall integration of the new plant into Minnesota Power, as well as for engineering, construction, and startup of a plant expansion at the same location. The project grew into a development position for a 225 MW power plant proposed by a consortium formed by Blandin Paper and Minnesota Power. Roger was also assigned to leadership roles in environmental planning, emerging technologies development, and enterprise management systems implementation.

In 2003, Roger left Minnesota Power and founded JDI Contracts Inc., a management and technical consulting firm. JDI offers professional management, engineering, IT and technical support from a robust background in strategic planning, project management, operations, and engineering experience. Roger has repeatedly demonstrated new and innovative ways to solve complex problems involving technical and business components, often utilizing new technology and organizational methods.

Roger is a graduate of the University of North Dakota and holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering with a minor in computer science. He completed his Master of Arts in Management at the College of St. Scholastica. Roger and his wife Susan live near Cohasset, MN.

Louis A. Vidal

Louis Vidal is a professional Information Technology (I.T.) resource with more than 20 years of experience in numerous roles. As JDI’s Network Manager, Louis is responsible for VMWare ESXi and View server clusters, multiple vLAN and physical network installations at several JDI and client sites. Client responsibilities also include server, workstation, network configuration and management, backup, security, peripheral and other items.

With IT experience in legal, banking, manufacturing, distribution, and consulting, Louis has been responsible for hundreds of physical and virtual server builds, a broad variety of network technology and configuration, and countless desktop and remote computers and peripherals. His consulting clientele have ranged from small single lawyer firms to Fortune 500 companies. His project experience includes initial project planning, budgeting and estimating, scheduling, and executing projects. Follow up work has often included comprehensive documentation and training materials, as well as ongoing operations support.

Application experience includes a broad variety of suppliers including Dell, HP, and others; hardware technologies including Dell, Cisco, Nortel, and others; and software including Microsoft, VMWare, VEAMM, and many others.