Before he retired in May 2007, after 40 years of information technology management, Lowell Starling was Vice President of Infrastructure Management at Highmark in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania, where he managed a staff of 430 workers and a budget of $135 million. Mr. Starling was responsible for integrating hardware, software, communications, security, desktops and telephone systems into one company-wide computing resource to support Highmark’s business needs. Throughout his five years in the position, he achieved measurable improvements in service delivery and customer service and was able to save Highmark $31 million in software costs over a six year period. In 2005 Lowell oversaw the opening of Highmark’s state-of-the-art data center near Hershey, Pa. This is one of the few Uptime Institute certified Tier-III and LEEDS Silver certified data centers in the country and recently earned Highmark recognition as the number one Green-IT User by Computerworld magazine.
During this time, Mr. Starling also taught a course on managing informational technology to MBA and MSIS students at Penn State Harrisburg. Between 2003 and 2004, Mr. Starling was also a principal of his High Performance Cultures consulting organization where he worked on an engagement at Callaway Golf to improve the performance of its IT organization in conjunction with Alexis-Gill Inc. Based on engagement surveys, the performance of the IT group improved dramatically after the project.
From 1988 through 2002, Mr. Starling served as Vice President of several other sectors of Highmark, including Network Services, Electronic Commerce and Information Systems. As VP of Electronic Commerce and Network Services, Mr. Starling developed and implemented technologies to link Highmark employees and their trading partners. This included the use of Electronic Data Interchange protocols and designing and operating Wide Area Networks, Local Area Networks, and the infrastructures for Highmark’s connection to the Internet. He also managed the operations of voice equipment and networks, and designed and supported call centers and a company-wide help desk.
In earlier positions, Mr. Starling was responsible for a multi-state network connecting over 4,000 personal computers and 4,000 terminals. He created a separate technology investment budget and positioned the company as a leader in electronic data interchange, imaging, and information warehousing.
Prior to this, Mr. Starling served as Vice President and project manager to develop OSCAR, a state-of-the-art claims processing system. OSCAR became an industry leader for high volume, high productivity claim processing, using expert systems and customer-maintained logic.
Mr. Starling is a board member of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania and an Advisory Committee Member for the Information Systems Program at Pennsylvania State University. He received a B.S. in physics from the University of Maryland and an M.B.A from Old Dominion University in Virginia.