Mellon Financial Vice Chairman Allan P. Woods has told the Downtown financial services firm he intends to retire Sept. 1 to become a paramedic.

Allan P. Woods

Woods, 59, told Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Martin G. McGuinn he would begin training to become a volunteer emergency medical technician and hoped eventually to become a certified paramedic.

The new career promises to be a lower-paying position than Woods' current job as Mellon's chief information officer. His duties include overseeing Mellon's emergency management team, which develops plans for maintaining computer records and resuming normal operations after crises such as 9/11 and the London bombings last month.

Woods, a former Marine Corps captain and Vietnam veteran, is not one of the five highest-paid executives listed in Mellon's most recent proxy statement. Three other Mellon vice chairmen who were listed had 2004 salaries ranging from $470,000 to $525,000 and bonuses ranging from $1.1 million to $2 million.

Woods, who joined Mellon in 1986, declined yesterday to comment on his impending career change.

Prior to joining Mellon, he was president of several subsidiaries of Fidata Corp. and an officer of Bankers Trust of New York. Last year, he was named one of the industry's top financial technology executives by Bank Systems and Technology, an online industry magazine.

He has been a hospice volunteer and serves on the technology committee of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

Kevin Shearan, who currently oversees Mellon's technology strategy and information security, will succeed Woods as chief information officer.