Robert Laplaca is a Senior Software Engineer at Verizon Business. Colleagues describe him as "Robert worked for me for more than a decade in the Systems and Network Engineering group that I managed at what was then MCI International. This was a team of our most talented engineers cherry picked to handle the most complex, difficult technical cross-discipline issues in the very dynamic area of international telecommunications. Robert was a star performer on this elite team. Although he came to us as a network engineer and excelled in that discipline, he rapidly demonstrated his talent in other areas as well. These include distributed processing architecture, middleware engineering using various technologies, the arcane international currency exchange back end processes, and just about anything else I could throw at him. Robert was highly respected by his co-workers and his entire management chain for his excellent technical insight, his strong work ethic and his ability to consistently deliver under often very difficult conditions."