Regence Promotes Infomation Security Vet

David MacLeod, Ph.D., got his "baptism of fire in the convergence of security and information technology," while working in the '90s for Eyedentity, a pioneer in retinal scanning. He was involved in developing security systems for the Department of Defense, the National Security Administration and the FBI, among other clients.

Since 1999, MacLeod has put his information security expertise to work for The Regence Group (Portland, OR, $6 billion in annual premium revenue), where he was recently promoted to director of information systems security. MacLeod oversees a staff of 60 and is responsible for business continuity and key areas of corporate security.

Having been assistant director since September 2000, MacLeod says the promotion is an acknowledgement of the work of the past two-and-half years, including HIPAA remediation, consolidating the entities of the Regence group into a cohesive unit and adding information security to the business continuity planning area.

MacLeod's expertise has been recognized outside of The Regence Group, as well, as evidenced by an invitation to participate in the Healthcare Information Sharing and Analysis Center and in recent White House town hall meetings on cyber-security, he reports. His accomplishments also include authorship of the HIPAA section of the "Handbook of Information Security Management," published by Auerbach Publications. "That chapter captures what we've done here and what has worked, and it's starting to be recognized as an appropriate way to respond to HIPAA," MacLeod says.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio