Honoring our working parents.

With 20+ years on the V Team, Katrina Como has served as both a leader in our Customer Support organization and a Boy Scout leader for her son’s troop. Today, Katrina is a Customer Support Coordinator assisting representatives with customer questions submitted via our chat platform as well as handling escalated calls.

Like many parents, Katrina adapted to a virtual learning model over the last year and a half for her third- and ninth-graders. She managed to balance the new normal both at home and work while serving as an acting supervisor to coach and mentor her customer support team. 

On the homefront, Katrina also took the opportunity to give back to friends in need. At the onset of COVID when our teams were being redeployed, Katrina utilized some of her Verizon benefits to help support her kids and two other neighborhood children who needed to adapt to virtual learning.

Katrina’s commitment during this pandemic didn’t stop there. Katrina is also an Assistant Scoutmaster for her son's Boy Scout Troop. She worked with the troop to earn Merit Badges to work toward their Eagle Scout awards. She also attended leadership training over two weekends last November to start her 18-month journey to earn her Wood Badge. 

Senior Trainer Melissa Cream from our Learning & Development team is a member of three ERGs — Verizon WAVE, Verizon SOMOS and Verizon BOLD. She has also mentored college students and has a true passion for helping others beyond her day job. 

Melissa's parents are originally from Puerto Rico so it was especially meaningful for her to spring into action when Hurricane Maria ravaged the island in 2017. Not only did she volunteer to distribute food and water, but she also helped families find their loved ones.

Melissa’s faith plays a big role in her life and she’s heavily involved with her church. She leads the Mission Ministry for She Prayed where she’s helped domestic violence victims and their children by providing meals and taking the families on outings. She also created and delivered hygiene kits for victims of human trafficking and volunteers to feed the homeless each month.

Melissa is equally devoted to her two beautiful daughters. Her oldest recently started at Rider University majoring in Child Clinical Psychology and her 12-year-old plays basketball and travel soccer. She also focuses on making time for herself to complete her personal and career goals. She’s currently pursuing a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Resources with the help of Verizon’s Tuition Assistance Program. 

Maintaining quality standards as part of our VoIP Provisioning team is paramount to Brian George. This is a mantra he carries into his personal life as well. 

At Brian’s core is mentorship, which he views not only as a quality given to an individual, but as something that is cultivated over time with patience, care for others, and a deep understanding of the task at hand. As part of this journey, he feels the willingness to grow and learn from each other built on a solid foundation requires skills, character, and integrity. 

Brian’s innate ability to maintain a high standard of self in the workplace while overcoming personal and professional obstacles simultaneously sets him apart as a V Teamer and selfless working dad. 

He also does a commendable job of maintaining a high standard of self in the workplace while supporting his family. Between caring for his wife who has an autoimmune disease and balancing the lives of three children active in sports and school activities, he’s held it together with love and support. At times, Brian has juggled the busyness of his personal life and kept pace with his co-workers in a gratifying career. He has always shown up as a father, husband, and brother. His sister affectionately sees him as her role model and father figure and had this to say about Brian: “Not only is Brian a mentor, but he’s a really, really good man, and there are not many like him.”

Nick Leblanc leads the Personalization & Optimization Enablement team. Nick is a champion in many ways: 

For our customers. He’s committed to the expansion of the languages that Verizon supports for our customers beyond English and Spanish.

For accessibility. He’s promoted our accessibility features including closed captioning for our video controls.

For practicing "everyday inclusion." Everyday inclusion is a phrase he uses to refer to the little moments in each of our daily lives where we can include others. For example, he makes it a point to give each person the opportunity to voice their opinion or idea in a meeting and takes the time to ensure proper pronunciation of colleagues' names and respectful use of pronouns.

Beyond the workplace, he's an incredible “girl dad” who encourages his daughter to explore and learn without the restrictions of gender norms. 

Nick truly epitomizes advocacy as an innovative leader and awesome dad.

Who better to nominate a Verizon working mom than her daughter and fellow V Teamer - meet Pepsi Lamar, a leader on the Verizon Business sales team and daughter Michayla Taylor from our Retail team. 

Pepsi’s work ethic has been passed down to her three children, especially Michayla who is the oldest of her children and sees mom as an expectational role model and leader.

Pepsi has been at Verizon for the past 15 years all while raising a family, sending her children to college, and earning both her bachelor's and master's degrees with help of Verizon’s tuition assistance program. Her Verizon career path has taken her to three different states for the company within different channels such as business sales, operations, marketing, and network. She’s also participated in the WOW program, serving as a mentor to participants. 

Beyond work, Pepsi is a pillar to her community as an active board member of Habitat for Humanity in California, mentoring female college students to consider a career in business, speaking at leadership summits, and earning STEM grants for her local middle school.

She has mentored fellow V Teamers, including Michayla, to pursue and achieve their dreams of career advancement at Verizon. As a great leader and mother, Pepsi has gone above and beyond the call of duty to inspire all in her personal and professional life.

Joe Nieves has been a V Teamer for five years as a champion of change in Verizon’s  Strategy & Execution (S&E) Team in the WNO Business Operations Support (BOS) Team supporting Wireline Network Operations (WNO). 

Joe grew up poor in an underserved section of Brooklyn, NY in a home living under the shadow of substance and physical abuse. He turned these life lessons into a successful career and family life.

It’s helped him give back to his team and community. Before joining Verizon, he worked with  Per Scholas, a non-profit organization that provides equitable access to education in underserved communities across America, most notably his home borough of the Bronx.

Joe has spent countless hours preparing adult learners for a role in the IT world by reviewing resumes, performing mock interviews and providing regular feedback and guidance as they proceed on their career journey. Joe is also a HISPA (Hispanics Inspiring Students’ Performance and Achievement) role model for the at-risk Latinx youth community. 

Joe is also committed to driving change at Verizon, developing and empowering teams, communicating creative concepts, and delivering innovative approaches. Over the last two years, he has overseen a portfolio of projects that have led to significant capacity and financial savings. He’s led the charge to leverage our Slack messaging platform to remove millions of emails out of the business this year and reduce communication times between the Field and Dispatch Teams by more than 80%. 

In between championing change in and out of the workplace, Joe is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business Management. 

Socheth McCutcheon is a Verizon privacy attorney.  She is a first-generation American who came to the United States with her parents from war-torn Cambodia. Her family survived the Cambodian genocide, and lost many loved ones, including her brother who died as a toddler from a hornet sting in a Khmer Rouge forced labor camp and countless others who were killed by the Khmer Rouge. Socheth and her parents eventually fled to a refugee camp in Thailand and immigrated to the United States, where Socheth learned to speak English. 

Like many immigrants, life was extremely difficult due to financial hardship, language barriers, and anti-Asian sentiment.  In 1990, young Socheth and her family survived arson that destroyed their home and all their belongings.  A court later ruled this event to be a hate crime. Because of these challenges, Socheth and her family persevered.  Her unflinching work ethic led her to graduate from Brown University and the University of Connecticut School of Law.

In addition to being an amazing mom to her sons, partner to her husband, and successful full-time Verizon attorney, Socheth gives back to the community, to Verizon, to her peers, and to others in innumerable ways.

Socheth has dedicated countless hours to mentoring and helping others. She volunteers with various organizations to support their mission to help first-generation students graduate high school, attend and graduate college, and begin careers. She regularly speaks with female law students at her alma mater and other schools on formal panels and informally upon request to provide career advice.  She currently mentors recent law school graduates, current law school students, and Verizon colleagues.  Socheth participates in several social justice and pro bono initiatives and is a fellow at the Leadership Council on Legal Diversity.  As an attorney at Verizon, she models empathy and seeks to normalize discussions about mental health and diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace.  

Socheth gives back to her local community in meaningful ways through organized food drive donations, fundraising for school and community events, supporting and actively endorsing local small businesses, and putting signs of gratitude in her window for the health care workers that drive past her home to work at the nearby hospital.

Matthew "Roc" Roclevitch has been a V Teamer for 12 years, currently serving as a Retail District Manager for Verizon’s Consumer Group.

His positive energy, knowledge of the business and mentorship helps his teams excel. He goes out of his way to meet and engage with every team member when visiting the stores in his district. He is a strong advocate of keeping his team connected to the overall direction of the company to drive change and produce great results.

Beyond work, he is a great father to son Liam and shares his parental pride with his fellow V Teamers. He’s heavily involved in our ERGs and leads PACE (Pan Asian Corporate Excellence) where he engages members to share their history and current role in the company.

“Roc” is a great mentor and continues to evolve in his development while bringing the people he encounters along on his journey at Verizon.