Battle-Hardened Director Of Information Security

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When Wal-Mart's director of information security joined the company 17 years ago as a field-support tech, his only formal IT experience was as a volunteer installing one of the first LAN systems at the University of Arkansas, where he graduated with a degree in architecture (the brick-and-mortar kind). "I don't think any other company would have looked at me," says Mark Porter, an Arkansas native who shopped at the original Wal-Mart five-and-dime.

Today, Porter is responsible for the security of Wal-Mart's worldwide information network. Getting a handle on IT security is no easy task, as security threats and responses "change faster than anything else out there in technology," he says.

Porter, a Desert Storm vet, can draw on his experience processing battlefield intelligence and classifying data in the Arkansas Army National Guard, but also on an integrated approach to security that brings engineering, policy, architecture, administration, and resource help and education staff into the effort. Additionally, Porter is working on implementing the ISO 17799 framework, a due-diligence model for security and operational execution.

Not that his architecture degree hasn't come in handy, too. Wal-Mart tapped him to help redesign the old aluminum plant that in 2001 became the three-story David Glass Technology Center where the IS group is located.

Photo of Wal-Mart courtesy of Knight Ridder