Over the past forty years, Dr. Westin has been a member of federal and state government privacy commissions; an expert witness before state and federal legislative committees and regulatory agencies; and the academic advisor to Louis Harris & Associates (since 1978) for 15 national public opinion and and leadership surveys on privacy. These activities has have covered privacy issues in the financial services, consumer-reporting, medical and health, telecommunication, employment , law enforcement, and social services areas.

Dr. Westin has been a privacy consultant to more than one hundred major and start-up companies, including IBM, Security Pacific National Bank, Equifax, American Express, Citicorp, Bell Atlantic, Prudential, Bank of America, Federal Express, Sentry Insurance, Control Data Corporation, AT&T, Equitable Life, Exxon and Nabisco. He has written employee and consumer privacy policies and codes for companies; conducted one-time and continuing privacy audits of company information products and practices; led manager and employee training programs on privacy; and briefed CEOs, Senior Management Committees, and Boards of Directors on emerging trends, peer-group activities and company choices relating to privacy.

He has also spoken at more than 500 national business and industry meetings on privacy issues since early 1960s as well as appearing on all the national television networks to discuss current privacy developments in business or government.

Dr. Westin was born in New York City. He earned his baccalaureate degree from the University of Florida, an L.L.B. from Harvard Law School, and his Ph.D. in political science from Harvard University. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar, and has been listed in Who's Who in America for two decades.

Click here to read the The Wall Street Journal April 2000 article about Dr. Westin. (This is a PDF file. You can download the free Acrobat reader needed to read this file by clicking here.)

Robert R. Belair, partner in the Law Firm Oldaker, Biden & Belair, is a nationally-known specialist in privacy and information-policy matters. He served as a staff attorney in the Federal Trade Commission; was Deputy Counsel of the White House Office on the Right to Privacy (under President Gerald Ford); and serves as General Counsel to SEARCH, the National Consortium for Justice Information and Statistics. He was also General Counsel in the 1970s to the National Commission on Confidentiality of Health Records.

He has been a consultant on privacy issues to many government and professional organizations, such as the US Office of Technology Assessment, National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Social Security Administration, and National Science Foundation. He has been a reporter on medical privacy for the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and chairman of an American Bar Association privacy committee.

Like Dr. Westin, Mr. Belair has been a privacy policy and legislative consultant to many companies and industry associations, including Bell Atlantic, Equifax, Chrysler Corporation, Phillip Morris, Shared Medical Systems, Reference Point Foundation, and the National Associations of Manufacturers. He has worked on business-privacy policies in credit reporting, direct marketing, telecommunications, medical and health, information media, and employment.

In 1989, he drafted the lead amicus brief in the Supreme Court's landmark decision on privacy and freedom of information, Reporters Committee on Freedom of the Press v. US Department of Justice.

Mr. Belair was born in Hartford, Connecticut. He received a baccalaureate degree from Kalamazoo College and a J.D. from Columbia University Law School. He is a member of the District of Columbia Bar and the American Federal Bar Associations.

Lorrie Sherwood is an experienced editor and professional journalist who has served as both a general and special assignments reporter on several city newspapers. She was the manager of press, promotion and advertising WIBG Radio and Storer Broadcasting in Philadelphia. Mrs. Sherwood held several management positions at NBC Radio and TV, where she developed award-winning community service outreach programs and was cited by the Philadelphia Women in Radio and Television for her work there. She was also a departments editor for the Instrument Society of America's ISA Journal.

Lorrie Sherwood was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She earned a Baccalaureate degree in English from Chatham College in Pittsburgh and attended graduate school at the University of Pittsburgh.