Now Carey is safeguarding assets of a different sort: the facilities of Depository Trust & Clearing Corp., the securities industry utility that on an average day clears and settles some $3.5 trillion in transactions. Carey says his new position at DTCC, vice president of security, is not as big a career shift as it might seem. “The Secret Service was created in 1865 to maintain the stability of money by fighting counterfeiting, and fighting financial fraud remains a very big part of its work today,” he points out. “It didn’t get involved in protection until 1901,” after the assassination of president William McKinley.
In his 24 years with the Secret Service, Carey, 48, worked on both aspects of the agency’s mission. He took charge of the New York office in August 2001, overseeing dignitary protection while coordinating financial and Internet crime-fighting with local and federal law enforcement agencies and the business community. Those efforts were stepped up after the September 11 terrorist attacks, which destroyed the Secret Service office at 7 World Trade Center.
September 11 also marked a turning point for the DTCC, which has since become a vocal advocate of disaster planning in the financial industry while shoring up its own defenses. Part of Carey’s assignment is to keep the DTCC’s backup sites, which are in unpublicized locations, safe. “The business continuity plan here is second to none, and it has to be to maintain confidence in the financial markets,” says Carey, who is now based at the DTCC’s fortresslike headquarters on Water Street in downtown Manhattan. “The challenge is that you can’t just write a manual and close the book. This is a dynamic business, and the plan has to be refined over and over.”
