Tulsa Chosen for Blue Cross Blue Shield IT Facility
ALL SMILES: Ready to cut the ribbon fot the BCBSOK IT Facilty in Tulsa are, from left, Stephania Grober, vice president of Oklahoma marketing and sales, BCBSOK; Mike Neal, president and CEO, Tulsa Regional Chamber; Steve Betts, senior vice president, chief information officer, HCSC; Ted Haynes, president, BCBSOK; Bernadette Rasmussen, divisional senior vice president, Enterprise IT Services, HCSC; Ron King, BCBSOK affiliate board member; and Marvin Richardson, divisional senior vice president, application development, HCSC.
Courtesy Tulsa Regional Chamber
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma (BCBSOK) unveiled a state-of-the-art information technology center and hosted a ribbon cutting April 3 at its Tulsa headquarters, 1400 S. Boston Ave.
Tulsa was one of three cities considered by BCBSOK’s parent company, Health Care Service Corporation (), for the high-tech “Blue Workplace for ” that will support dozens of IT professionals. The Blue Workplace is uniquely designed to promote brainstorming and innovation as well as greater efficiency, flexibility and cross-team collaboration.
“Tulsa is only the second satellite facility within our parent company, , to create a center for innovation and collaboration like this,” said BCBSOK President Ted Haynes. “Our Blue Workplace for will be ground zero for creative ideas that will help us better serve our members.”
Haynes noted that 13 years ago, the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce started a program called “Tulsa’s Future” to make the city an attractive place for businesses to locate and stay. Tulsa’s Future initially focused on six target industries: energy, health care, professional services and regional headquarters, aerospace and aviation, transportation and logistics, advanced manufacturing, but added information technology as an emerging industry. Later, the chamber designated IT as a target industry. That is, the city wanted to attract and retain more IT professionals to the metropolitan area.
“The IT leadership at picked Tulsa for this investment, which indicates that the chamber’s focus on building IT as a target industry for economic development in our city is working,” said Haynes. “I couldn’t be happier that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Oklahoma is part of that growth.”
Haynes said the fact that Tulsa was named for this information technology center reflects the strength and quality of area college graduates from schools such as Oklahoma State University, the University of Tulsa, the University of Oklahoma and others, as many of the positions here have been filled by recent graduates. The facility will provide access to modern tools and collaborative technology needed to drive speedy development of quality solutions that BCBSOK clients and members need.
The ribbon-cutting ceremony included statements from the Tulsa Regional Chamber as well as chief information officer Steve Betts.
For more information, visit bcbsok.com.
Updated 04-27-2018
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