Internet Company Versifi Gives Reins to Industry Vet Plekenpol

Don Plekenpol has been named president and chief executive of Versifi Inc., a Newport Beach Internet software company. Most recently, he was vice president and general manager of Saic. Plekenpol also held executive positions at Webify, IntegrationWare, Unisys and Ameritech and held various positions in the marketing and development divisions at IBM.

* Catherine Aldrich has joined EBackground Inc. in Lake Forest as vice president of product development and marketing. She had been vice president of product management at ChoicePoint in Santa Ana.

* Helen Mitchell has been named area sales vice president for Southern California, Washington, Montana, Idaho and Oregon for Avaya, formerly the Lucent Technologies Enterprise Networks Group in Irvine. Previously, Mitchell was area vice president of sales in the Pacific Northwest for Lucent. She also served as the general manager for sales in north Texas and Oklahoma and was a staff director for Lucent’s Southwest region, also headquartered in Irvine.

* Victoria R. Fash, Willard A. Johnson Jr. and Eric D. Sipf have been added to the board of directors of TriZetto Group Inc. in Newport Beach. Fash is president and chief executive of IMS Health Inc. Johnson was managing partner for the Denver office of Andersen Consulting before retiring in 1998. Until his retirement this year, Sipf was president and chief executive of PacifiCare of Colorado and regional vice president for PacifiCare’s central region.

* Kirsten Brundahl has been appointed account executive for Shafer Advertising & Public Relations in Irvine. Before joining Shafer, Brundahl managed the public relations department for IMRI, an e-business consulting and information technology staffing firm.

* Tom Seip has joined the board of directors of SaveDaily in Irvine. Seip is general partner of Seip Investments LP. Before that, he held management positions at the Charles Schwab Corp., including chief executive of Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. He also served as executive vice president of retail brokerage.

* Stacey Thorn has joined Paragon Decision Resources Inc. in Rancho Santa Margarita. She was previously marketing manager for SafeAmerica in the Bay Area.