After 10 years leading Florida LambdaRail through a series of achievements, CEO Joseph Lazor has retired, effective December 31, 2021.  Prior to serving as CEO, Joe represented Florida State University on the Board of Directors and chaired the Finance Committee. Under Joe’s leadership, FLR grew its reach, expanded its impact, and nurtured its mission driven focus: serving the networking needs of Florida’s Research and Education Community.

 

What was a 10Gbps network in 2012 expanded to 100 Gbps in 2015 under Joe’s leadership. Joe ensured FLR fully leveraged that expansion when he followed it up by creating a network-wide Science DMZ and later the Atlantic Research Platform.

 

Joe’s foresight and fiscal discipline is now leading FLR to the next stage on our journey.  Effective January 2022 FLR will begin implementing another upgrade to our backbone network, this time to 400Gbps.  With this achievement, FLR will join just four other regional networks in the country as we work with Internet2 to implement 400G connectivity to their national infrastructure.  In planning for over a year, Joe’s work has ensured this expansion will strengthen FLR as an international leader in Research and Education networking.

 

It is thanks to Joe’s tireless work that FLR has achieved these and many other successes for our members.  His service is greatly appreciated.  He will be missed as a leader and a friend.