A glimpse inside the personal technology arsenal andstrategies
that empower todays leading insurance IT professionals.

BY G. BARRY KLEIN, CPCU, CLU

Dennis Callahans rsum reads like a walk down Wall Street:Standard & Poors; Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette; Goldman,Sachs; Wellington; Fidelity; AIG. He now puts all that experienceto work at Guardian Life Insurance Company, where he is executivevice president and CIO.

But his work with technology predates all the above. While stilla high-school student, Callahan received National ScienceFoundation funds to do some college-level studies and wasintroduced to computers. Frankly, he recalls, I thought they wereprimitive and couldnt conceive of a career with them, but Icontinued to learn more about them when I began my mathematics andengineering studies. After graduating from New York University in1967 with a mathematics degree and a young wife, he enrolled ingraduate school and began looking for a part-time job that wouldpay more than the odd jobs he could pick up around campus. Standard& Poors hired him as a programmer, initially part time duringschool terms and full time during summers, and he ended up stayingin information technology for years, quickly rising through theranks.
Mathematics continued to play an important role in his career, andmany of the projects he headed involved mathematics and modeling.As in all life insurance operations, effectively recruiting andmanaging turnover is a critical success factor for general agents,he explains, so we built a sophisticated field-representativecompensation modeling system, which has met its three goals. First,it helps recruitment by showing [the amount] agents can make andhow [they can earn it]. Second, it helps retain agents by showinghow much more they can make if they stay (and how much theyd loseif they leave). Third, it helps to motivate our current agents tohigher levels of achievement.

Guardian Life is the fourth-largest mutual life insurancecompany in the U.S. Life insurance is our middle name, Callahansays, but we also have group medical and dental insurance, groupand individual disability, variable annuities, and worksitemarketing products. We are a broker-dealer, as well, and we have atrust company, too. Guardian does all this, and significantly more,through a network of more than 2,800 individual agents who operatethrough a network of nearly 100 general agencies. Supporting thoseagents has been one of Callahans successes.
Guardian Life is a mutual insurance company, meaning that itspolicyholders, not shareholders, own it. The insurer also is morethan 140 years old and one of the larger companies in an admittedlyconservative industry. Given all that, Guardian intentionally hadnot tried to be on the bleeding edge of technology, but in October2000, the CEO brought Callahan on board with a clear mandate totake advantage of technology and a free hand to do so. Callahanjoined as senior vice president and CIO and today has risen to EVPand CIO with additional responsibilities beyond IT.

Although Callahan points out a number of impressive products hesimplemented since joining Guardian, he singles out oneGuardians newcomponent- and service-based Enterprise Architectural Frameworkasthe one of which hes most proud. We committed to use technology toreduce IT software implementation and support time and costs by 30percent overall and simultaneously invested in critical technologyfor our business, using strategic sourcing techniques to obtainmaximum financial leverage of these new investments and torenegotiate our sourcing agreements with current vendors. TheEnterprise Architecture, just completed after an on-time andbudget-phased implementation over two years, already has generatedmore measurable cost savings than the entire project cost, hestates, proudly.

So what kind of personal technology does Callahan use to keephim on top of so much activity? I use my BlackBerry far more thananything else, he says. After trying two phone carriers firstsuboptimal attempts at units with built-in phones, he returned tohis original BlackBerry about eight months ago. I turn on myBlackBerry when I get up at 4 a.m., he says, and my day often goesthrough a dinner or evening meeting, so I need a unit withexcellent battery life and one that doesnt have re-synch issuesafter a flight. He quickly points out, however, he just startedpiloting two new BlackBerry units with phones from two differentphone companies, and the early read is theyve eliminated theissues. I also carry an ultra-light HP nc4000 computer and two newpieces of technologya dual-mode cell phone with a built-in digitalcamera and a tiny 4 megapixel 12x optical zoom digital camera(Pentax Optio S4i) that fits in an Altoids tin.
Playing is not a big part of Callahans life. I usually spend whatlittle free time I have thinking about what Id do if I had freetime, he jokes.