Alan Puzarne

Senior Vice President and Southern Region CEO

Blue Shield of California

With its 1997 deal to acquire CareAmerica Health Plans of Woodland Hills, San Francisco-based Blue Shield of California pulled off an unusual feat: a non-profit company was acquiring a private one. And the man charged with running the new CareAmerica Health Plans division is Alan Puzarne, Blue Shield’s top man in Southern California.

Puzarne, who added the title of CareAmerica president in May, wins plaudits for his ability to retain members and attract new ones.

“He has an excellent grasp of the business and the market,” said Jeff Gottlieb, Blue Shield’s director of finance for the Southern region.

Puzarne joined Blue Shield in 1994 as vice president, and just a year later was named senior vice president and placed in charge of the plan’s Los Angeles-area operations, which have $665 million in annual revenues.

The regional operation that Puzarne oversees includes 820,000 HMO members and more than 1.2 million PPO members. It recently received final approval from the California Department of Corporations to transition the for-profit operations of CareAmerica Health Plans into a non-profit operation.

Jose J. Gonzalez, president and CEO of Latino Health Care in Santa Fe Springs, credits Puzarne for signing the first health care contract with his company when it started out four years ago. “He was unique in the industry. He saw an opportunity and a need before any other HMOs made the commitment,” Gonzalez said.

Also under Puzarne’s leadership, Blue Shield created a director of ethnic marketing position, Gonzalez said.

Puzarne came to Blue Shield from a stint as regional vice president of FHP Health Care’s northern Los Angeles region.

“I admired him as a real capable, serious, low-key guy,” said Maureen O’Haren, executive vice president of the California Association of Health Plans, who used to work with Puzarne at FHP.

Puzarne is a graduate of UCLA, and holds a master’s degree in business administration and finance from Cal State Northridge. He’s also the former executive director and founder of Therapeutic Living Centers for the Blind, an L.A.-based private agency providing residential and rehabilitation facilities for multiply impaired adults.