Obstacles and roadblocks don't discourage Laro.

The US Air terminal at LaGuardia Airport has just awarded its cleaning and maintenance contract to Laro Service Systems, Inc.

This is another decent win for a company that moved into midtown Manhattan less than a year before 9/ 11.

In fact, in the past year, Laro, which was based in Bay Shore, Long Island for 20 years, has enjoyed a string of victories in its new business relationships: a number of New York's Prudential properties, Radio City Music Hall, all of the NBC facilities, and more.

Laro's founder and President, Robert Bertuglia, Jr., knew that it would be an uphill struggle to convince and persuade many of New York City's property managers and real estate developers that he could offer improved quality and service above his heavily entrenched competitors.

While other cleaning maintenance companies underestimated Laro's potential, Robert Bertuglia was succeeding by taking on the projects and assignments fraught with liabilities.

"I always saw the jobs no one else really wanted as an opportunity to demonstrate what my company could accomplish," he explained.

When Bertuglia first started out in his late teens, the Racanelli Family, among Long Island's largest real estate developers, gave him their most difficult cleaning maintenance jobs almost on a dare. Impressed by the way Bertuglia succeeded, they continued to expand their scope of work until Laro had most of their portfolio.

Meanwhile, the Port Authority of New York/New Jersey faced a crisis with the poor condition of its landmark bus terminal on 8th Avenue between 40th-42nd Street. Could Laro meet this challenge and really make a difference?

At enormous risk to the reputation of his young company, Bertuglia came in, shook things up on issues like scheduling, quality control and productivity. Laro's introduction to this property worked.

Laro's ability to keep the property sharp and clean, while the police became more aggressive in crime prevention, led to its striking turnaround.

It propelled Bertuglia and Laro into an even tougher challenge: the transport of seafood and clean-up at the landmark Fulton Fish Market on Manhattan's lower east side.

The Giuliani administration wanted to completely overhaul the operation and Laro's credo of doing things cheaper and better figured into its plans. Here, too, it worked.

Mindful of Laro's achievements, a number of New York's property managers started surfacing with missions and tasks on cleaning maintenance.

They needed Laro to meet their challenges head on. So after a string of milestone jobs for Laro that included everything from Kennedy Airport to Orange County (Orlando, Florida) Airport, Laro moved its headquarters to 240 Madison Avenue.

Bertuglia wanted to demonstrate Laro's serious commitment to being a full-scale, comprehensive cleaning maintenance service provider.

Within months, 9/11 meant Laro lost several contracts it had at the World Trade Center.

To complicate matters, other impending contracts were put on hold during that period.

Here again, Laro was thrown a series of 9/11 projects where it had to demonstrate its performance in responding to a crisis.

As an example, one of them was the clean up and restoration of severely damaged St. Paul's Chapel near the 9/11 site.

"The Laro team took a great deal of pride in handling this job to make sure everything was restored to the way it once looked," Bertuglia explained.

In 2004, Laro is now handling about $80m in annual revenues, with about 3000 employees.

"Every time we are given one of these tough jobs where the odds are against us, we emerge stronger and better," Bertuglia concluded.