Excellus BlueCross BlueShield Chief Financial Officer Zeke Duda to Retire at End of 2011

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Zeke Duda

ROCHESTER, NY (07/21/2011)(readMedia)-- Zeke Duda, senior executive vice president and chief financial officer for Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, today announced his retirement at the end of 2011 after 39 years with the company.

"I'm very proud to have played a role in building a small health plan serving the local Rochester area into a much larger mission-oriented enterprise," said Duda. "Today, we offer health coverage in most of upstate New York, sell long-term care coverage in 50 states, and provide direct patient services through our home care business, medical professional offices and hospices."

For many months, the company's board of directors has known of Duda's retirement plans and has conducted a search for his soon to be named replacement.

"Zeke has overseen a series of successful mergers and acquisitions in both the core health plan business and the growing, for-profit long-term care insurance business," said David Klein, chief executive officer for both the health plan and its holding company, The Lifetime Healthcare Companies. "That simply could not have been accomplished without his enormous talents and insights."

Duda is responsible for accounting, reporting, pricing, treasury, administrative services and property plant and equipment oversight functions. In addition, he supervises the corporation's subsidiaries and affiliates, including MedAmerica and the direct health care service providers, Lifetime Care Home Health and Hospice and Lifetime Health Medical Group in Rochester and Buffalo.

"Zeke's strong financial stewardship of this corporation has built a solid legacy for the upstate community's health care system," said Randy Clark, board chair. "So many of us who know the role he has played cannot thank him enough."

A 1973 graduate of Rochester Institute of Technology, Duda began working for the company in a variety of financial positions that started while he was a student. In 1986, he was appointed senior vice president and chief financial officer. His titles and responsibilities have expanded as the company merged with some companies and acquired others. Today, the family of companies has $6 billion in revenues and finances and delivers health care services for nearly 2 million New Yorkers from Lake Erie to Lake Champlain and from the Canadian border to the Pennsylvania border. The company has more than 6,000 employees.

Duda volunteers for numerous professional and community organizations, principally in the Rochester area, where he lives. Community organizations that have benefited from his donations of time and expertise include the Al Sigl Center Foundation; the Strong National Museum of Play; the American Red Cross, Rochester Region; and Nazareth College.

His outside professional activities include board membership with the Monroe Fund, a venture-capital fund organized by the Monroe County government; Plan Investment Fund; and JP Morgan Chase metropolitan and regional advisory boards.

He and his wife, Jane, have three adult children and live in Penfield, N.Y.

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Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, a nonprofit independent licensee of the BlueCross BlueShield Association, is part of a family of companies that finances and delivers vital health care services to 1.8 million people across upstate New York. Excellus BlueCross BlueShield provides access to high-quality, affordable health coverage, including valuable health-related resources that our members use every day, such as cost-saving prescription drug discounts and wellness tracking tools in our Step Up program. To learn more, visit www.excellusbcbs.com .