For immediate release: April 15, 2004
Contact: Leigh Tofferi - (802) 371-3205

DEBORAH GRANQUIST NAMED TO CHAIR BLUE CROSS AND BLUE SHIELD OF VERMONT BOARD OF DIRECTORS

Berlin - Deborah Granquist has been elected to chair the Board of Directors of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont. Ms. Granquist, of Weston, Vermont, is an attorney active in civic affairs. She was elected at the Board's recent annual meeting, and will succeed Seth Bongartz, who retired from the Board after 12 years of service. John T. Ewing, of Burlington, a former bank president and chairman of the Vermont Environmental Board, was elected to succeed Ms. Granquist as vice chair of the Board of Directors of Vermont's largest health benefits and financing company.

"Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is an important Vermont company and a key piece of our state's unique, community-based health care financing and delivery system," said Ms. Granquist. "The company's mission is to serve its customers with high quality, financially sound health benefits products, and to support our state's unique, community-based health care system."

"As an independent, Vermont-based non-profit company in an industry dominated by large regional or national health plans, the challenges we face have never been greater. We look forward to guiding the Plan through the difficult environment in health care to meet the challenges and opportunities ahead and to preserve Blue Cross and Blue Shield as a locally focused, Vermont company."

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is the state's only Vermont-based health insurer and is the largest private health plan in Vermont. It employs about 400 people and provides health care benefits for more than 200,000 Vermonters. The company offers benefits and services to virtually all Vermont populations through its array of indemnity and managed care products and through its partner companies, The Vermont Health Plan and Comprehensive Benefits Administrators.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont Board of Directors comprises 13 men and women from all corners of Vermont and all walks of life. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Vermont is an independent corporation operating under a license with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, an association of independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield Plans.

Ms. Granquist, who joined the BCBSVT Board of Directors in 1999, is principal of Granquist Associates, a private firm that consults with and invests in emerging Vermont businesses. She has served as the Chair of the Vermont Certificate of Need Appeals Board and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Mountain Valley Medical Center of Londonderry, Vermont. She is the Treasurer of the Vermont Community Foundation, a member of the Selectboard of Weston, Vermont, a Director of Vermont Public Radio and former President of Vermont Institute of Natural Science. Ms. Granquist holds a B.A. from Cornell University and a law degree from the University of Connecticut Law School.

Mr. Ewing is an attorney who has served as Chair of the Vermont Environmental Board and who is Chair of the Vermont Forum on Sprawl. A former President of Bank of Vermont, he is Chair of the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and a board member of the Lake Champlain Basin Science Center (ECHO). He serves on the Governor's Council of Environmental Advisors, and is a Commissioner of Burlington Parks and Recreation. A graduate of Amherst College and Yale Law School, he joined the BCBSVT Board of Directors in 2003.

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