Years of business experience, augmented by an MBA and multiple certifications, helps keep my eye on the top and bottom lines while ensuring the value of data as a business asset, capable of helping firms to find, retain, and serve customers’ needs and wants.

My talent for being in the wrong place at the right time formed my views on International business, law, and corporate governance, and reinforced my views on the importance of the monetary value of data and information.

Some events made headlines while others fortunately did not. The ones that are public-knowledge include:

• Black Monday (1987)
• World Trade Center Bombing (1993)
• Oklahoma City Bombing (1995)
• Defection of N Korean pilot in a MiG-19 fighter jet (1996)
• Fort Worth Tornadoes (2000)
• San Diego wildfires (2003)

Corporate, Privacy, Security and Audit Governance

Involvement in Economic, Privacy, Security, Business Continuity / Disaster Recovery events began on Wall Street and expanded as I consulted with well-known firms across the US, in the EU and Asia.

The result is people and corporate-focused leadership that blends business, legal, psychology and technical aspects into a methodology, added to during each subsequent event.

I have employed and taught the approach in creation of international privacy programs, implementing and training staff in security governance & audit programs. Draw from multiple International frameworks including:

• OECD Principles of Corporate Governance
• NIST Risk Management Framework, (FISMA Certification & Authorization)
• DoD Trusted Computer System Evaluation Criteria (TCSEC)
• OECD Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data
• ISO 17799 /27001
• COBIT Framework for IT Governance and Control

Wall Street

Black Monday (1987)

A sudden unexpected plunge in stock markets around the World that altered customers’ financial profiles over the course of a few days. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped by 508 points, almost 23%.

Action

• Evolved leadership skills over the following years by developing methods to provide corporate collections staff faster access to customer data, stored on mainframes, on personal computers. Faster access to data that previously required waiting for IT to print reports on paper, meant a more efficient collection effort and greater return on invested resources
• Leveraged my psychology research and people skills to adapt a Sales customer profiling tool from the book How To Swim With Sharks to profile clients for more effective negotiations. I applied sales, marketing and behavioral psychology principles to identify problems, target clients’ motivation to resolve outstanding debt collection and contract disputes.
• Spent several subsequent years in Wall St Finance / Credit roles before moving into an operations project management role.

Corporate Collections Gains

• REUTERS, International news services & sale of financial data (33%)
• ADP Brokerage Information Services, investor communications (25%)
• Contel IPC, manufacturer of specialized telecommunications equipment for financial services institutions (30%)

1993 World Trade Center Bombing

Jolted out of my chair by a terrorist explosion across the street, in the basement of the World Trade Centers.

Friday, February 26, 1993, Middle Eastern terrorism arrives in America —with a bang.

From my office at REUTERS downtown District Offices, I watched as emergency crews brought out the injured and office workers scurried about. The following is excerpted from the FBI’s website.

The epicenter was the parking garage beneath the World Trade Center, where a massive eruption carved out a nearly 100-foot crater several stories deep and several more high. Six people were killed almost instantly. Smoke and flames began filling the wound and streaming upward into the building.

Those who weren’t trapped were soon pouring out of the building—many panic-stricken and covered in soot. More than a thousand people were hurt in some way, some badly, with crushed limbs.

Ramzi Yousef, a suspect questioned by the FBI, and later convicted, revealed the terrorist plan intended the bomb to topple one tower, with the collapsing tower knocking down the second. The attack turned out to be something of a deadly dress rehearsal for 9/11.

The events of that day reinforced the knowledge that working in one of the World’s major financial markets exposed me, and my clients, to previously unrecognized risk and opportunity.

Action

• Provided leadership during crises. Walked the floor to see who might need assistance. I even got to kick open a couple of doors that had been jammed to get people out of their offices. That should have been fun, but we were all so busy being scared it didn’t register until days later.
• Assisted others in management with getting people to line up by stairwells, and led a group down to street level. We got word that NYFD was concerned about gas pockets being ignited when power was restored to our building. Still in the moment, I walked back up the stairs and assisted with the task of making sure all of the power buttons on computers, lights, copiers, etc. were physically set to the off position.

Governance Leadership

Determined to be prepared for the next event. Identified government and International frameworks for disaster recovery, privacy and security governance. Advocated importance of data and systems classification as the basis for business valuation of data. Worked with the business to prioritize data; mapped the data to systems to establish importance that had a direct impact on architecture and restoration processes, e.g. order of recovery.

St. Louis

• Working as a management and technical consultant in an AT&T server farm, near St. Louis, the (1995) Oklahoma City Bombing – further away than my across the street proximity to the WTC Bombing – grabbed my attention, and that of my employers and their customers.

Once again, I was teaching what I learned about crisis management and the importance of corporate and information governance.

South Korea

• On May 23, 1996, Captain Li Chol-Su of the North Korean air force defected in a MiG-19 fighter jet. A series of blunders and security lapses allowed the fighter to enter airspace near Seoul without raising any alarm in the South Korean capital. An automatic switch that should have triggered warning sirens had been turned off, and operators ignored repeated computer and telephone messages to sound the sirens.

Following the defection South Korea’s president ordered a nationwide inspection of air-raid warning systems. Prosecutors summoned six civil-defense officials in Seoul for questioning. Four were quickly relieved of their posts due to negligence of duty. A vice mayor and another high-ranking city official also were reprimanded.

• Nation-wide multi-day disaster response exercises were staged in mid-June, in addition to a scheduled drill in August, codenamed Ulchi Focus-Lens, included the military and city emergency services.

Two F-16 and two F-4 jet fighters streaked out of the northern skies, swooped over the city and headed back north. Mock casualties littered the streets, as fire trucks responded to extinguish flames in buildings designated as being hit by bombs from enemy planes.

In an office high above the streets of Seoul, I watched as South Korean military jets appeared on the horizon and raced toward the city on mock bombing runs through the city. Watching a fighter jet racing toward me provided a sight that most civilians back in the States would only see in movie theaters.

Later, that same trip…

• During a walk on a forest trail in the hills outside of Ulsan, found myself surrounded by people in camouflage carrying lots of weapons. Fortunately this was another of many preparedness drills.
• After an incursion by a North Korean submarine, found stranded on the east coast. South Korea launched a deadly manhunt for communist agents that came ashore, and the South has vowed ”hundredfold and thousandfold” retaliations.

I was once again redesigning architectures and business process to strengthen sustainability, business continuity and disaster recovery.

Fort Worth, TX

• While living in Ft. Worth, 2 tornadoes tore through the city (2000). One missed my loft by 2 blocks. I was able to watch the tornado rip across the landscape toward me before retreating to the basement. For weeks afterward, Fort Worth resembled a war zone, with parts of my neighborhood closed due to falling glass.

These pictures are courtesy of the FEMA and Fort Worth Architecture websites

San Diego, CA

• In 2003, while living outside of San Diego, some of the largest wildfires in recent memory killed 16 people and burned down 2,427 homes and businesses. I watched the flames come over the ridge as the police pulled into my driveway to tell me I had 2 minutes to evacuate. I piled 3 dogs, computers and clothes into my truck. We pulled away, hoping the house would be there the next day.

Career Summary