In late October of this year we bid one of D & P Communications longest serving employees a fond farewell to the next chapter in his life. Randy LaRocca has served his community both as a technician, a fireman, and coaching his children and grandchildren’s youth sports. We wanted to thank Randy for his years of service by hearing from his manager and the president of D & P, and get in their own words what he’s meant to us and the area for the past 25 years. From all of us at D & P and the Petersburg area, thank you!
Matt Karpinski – Outside Plant Manager
I have known Randy for 25 years. My fondest memory of him is from a late-night fiber trouble call we were on with Bill Schmidt, where a car had run over a fiber pedestal. It was dark, and given the extent of the damage, we anticipated a long night ahead as we would have to pull hundreds of feet of fiber to fix the issue. Randy came up with an ingenious idea to redirect the fibers and feed the customers from a different direction. Thanks to his quick thinking, we were able to get the customers back up and running within an hour. This not only saved us a lot of time working in the dark but also allowed us to return the next day, and fix it properly.
Robert Parisien – President
Personally, I have known Randy for over 30 years. Best memories were playing softball together in Ida on Wednesday nights and watching canoers on the river up north.
Matt Karpinski
Randy was a key asset to our OSP team, helping to strengthen it while mentoring the next generation of OSP technicians. He consistently emphasized the importance of accountability in our work. His willingness to support others fostered a positive, collaborative team environment, leaving a lasting impact on the next generation of technicians.
Robert Parisien
His impact on D & P was significant, particularly in demonstrating what is necessary to maintain effective customer service. He consistently went the extra mile for our customers, often working to restore service during outages even after hours or on weekends. He played a crucial role in the success of our Fiber-To-The-Home deployments in Tecumseh and Clinton, where he helped perfect the installation process and created documentation that streamlined future troubleshooting.
Matt Karpinski
I will miss Randy’s reliability; he was a technician I could confidently assign to any project, knowing it would be completed successfully. I’ll also miss his expertise with our fiber plant and the invaluable support he provided over the years to help complete our fiber deployments. Randy’s retirement marks the end of an era. While he will be greatly missed, his legacy of hard work and dedication will continue to inspire us all.
Robert Parisien
I will miss most his dedication and loyalty to the company and community. His selfless attitude towards making sure D & P services are up and running. Lastly, I will miss his attention to detail in fiber splicing and making sure all the fiber counts are accurate and spliced correctly.
Lastly, I want to personally thank Randy for helping me become a part of this company. D & P would not be the company we are today without his dedication and commitment to putting the company’s needs first throughout his many roles. We are grateful for his over 25 years of service.
