Michael Olteanu received his Master of Sciences in Computer Engineering at the Bucharest Polytechnic University in June 1970 and has designed and engineered wide area networks for 34 years (five years in Europe and 29 years in California). He worked as a Systems Engineer for Electronic Data Systems (E.D.S.) between February 1976 and November 1984, when he became Vice President of Network Engineering at Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco, California, a position he held for 20 years until his early retirement in April 2004. He designed, engineered and supervised the implementation of the largest native O.S.P.F. (Open Shortest Path First - a routing protocol) wide area network on the planet, connecting over 7,000 buildings and standalone Automated Teller Machines (A.T.M.'s) in fifty U.S. states and Antarctica. The Wells Fargo Bank wide area network received the Smithsonian Institution Award for Excellence in 1998.
He is a lay member of Movimento Sacerdotale Mariano - The Marian Movement of Priests.

Michael joined the Romanian Anti-Soviet underground movement in 1954, rose through the ranks and became a leader in 1958. He was captured by the KGB in May 1959, tortured for months and then sentenced by a military tribunal ( sentence medium size image - 275 KB, sentence large image - 974KB) to a prison term of 23 years (since he was 17 at the time of his capture, the court could not impose the standard death penalty). He spent five years in the death camps of the Romanian Gulag.

On September 20, 1961, his younger brother Victor Nicholas was forced to jump through a fifth floor window; his death was officially ruled a suicide. Victor was 17 and a mathematics wizard. His only "crime" was that he happened to be Michael's brother.
May his soul rest forever in the Heavenly Kingdom!

Michael owes his life and freedom to Richard and Marian Wilson of Bonita, CA, to Congressman Bob Wilson of San Diego, CA (Ret.), to Congressman Bill Archer of Houston, TX, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, to General Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser, and to President Gerald Ford who all spent a lot of time interceding on his behalf with Ceausescu, the Romanian dictator.
Michael and his family were authorized to leave Romania for the United States in December 1975 and became U.S. citizens in May 1985.

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