Tell me about your family.

My wife and I have two boys; they’re in fifth and third grade. They’re typical boys, you know; they love sports, to laugh and wrestle and all that kind of stuff. My wife stays home with them. We like to be really active as a family. On weekends we go out on our bikes or to hike, and our vacations tend to be pretty active – biking, hiking and kayaking.

What do you and your family think of Greater Des Moines so far?

So far, we like it a lot. Having lived in Richmond, which is a comparably sized city, one of the things my wife and I both realize is that we like smaller cities like these. You get all the benefits of a city – good restaurants, things to do – but at the same time, you don’t have all the traffic and high cost of living or other things that go along with living in New York or Washington, D.C.

Where were you working with Capital One?

I was in Richmond, Va. I was there about 12 years. I’m originally from New York, but I’ve lived in a number of places. I went to college in St. Louis, moved back East, then went to grad school in Michigan, and then lived in Texas a few years before moving to Richmond.

Were you involved with the Capital One “Visigoths” (What’s in your wallet?) television ads?

No, other than the normal debate over how much we were spending on the Visigoths. I never got to meet them, but every once in a while, they would do something on our campus in Richmond. But no, I never got to meet them, or Alec Baldwin or David Spade or any of the other people Capital One had as spokespeople.

How did you decide to work for a health insurance company?

When the opportunity came up with Wellmark, it just seemed like a great fit. The scope of the role was exciting, a real opportunity to create a lot of impact with this organization. I was real impressed with the strategic direction of the company, its focus on the community and on its membership. These are very interesting times in the health insurance business. I like to solve problems, and I like challenging opportunities, and health insurance right now is a challenging opportunity.

Challenges you see with federal health-care reform?

Well, obviously it brings a lot of change, and that always presents challenges. One of the things that’s challenging is that there is still a lot of uncertainty around health reform. Once Congress passes a law, the regulators have to write the rules, and they’re not done yet. So when you have a lot of change coming, and you’re uncertain how that change is going to look, it can be difficult sometimes to make decisions. *

What are your goals as CFO in the next couple of years?

One is to really help make sure that we are managing that transition through health-care reform as effectively as possible. We want to make sure that we also maintain our financial stability at a time when there’s a lot of volatility in the markets. Those are the key things we want to focus on: How do we position ourselves best in this time of a lot of change to come out on the other side a company just as strong as we are today and serving our members just as well?

What are your community interests?

Being so new, I haven’t had a chance to get as involved as I’d like to be. When I was in Richmond, I volunteered and was on the board of an organization called Virginia Voice, which provided reading services to the visually impaired. I’d love to get involved now that I’ve moved here in any number of things. I love that Wellmark is downtown, and I’d like to be part of continuing to make Des Moines an attractive place for businesses to come.

* Editor’s Note: Wellmark CEO John Forsyth said last week that the company has not yet decided whether it will join Iowa’s health insurance exchange.