Laurie was initially involved in the development of voice switching products. In the early 90's he took a leadership role in Nortel's entry into the optical networking business, holding positions in both Canada and the United Kingdom. Since the mid 90's he has been involved in data communications, initially with frame relay and ATM networks, and later with IP networking. Laurie's last project at Nortel was the launching of a terabit router program for carrier networks.