It has been a busy time here at Disaster Recovery Journal. I guess that’s a good sign for our industry. There always seems to be some new project, product or meeting that needs attending.

The amount of interest in the contingency planning field is unbelievable and there are always new people entering the field. My staff and I see evidence of the industry’s growth everyday.

And we see evidence of the changes in the industry, also. With the continued growth, it’s only natural the field should continue to evolve. It has come a long way since I entered the industry some 20 years ago. Then, disaster recovery was simply backing up your data. Now it’s that and a whole lot more.

A recent trend has been the merging of several related areas, such as emergency management and disaster recovery principles, and public and private sectors.

One not-for-profit organization, Public and Private Businesses, Inc. conducted workshops before our recent Atlanta conference. The goal of the workshop was to promote the merging of disaster recovery and emergency management principles. The workshop was well attended and quite informative. For more information about the workshop and the emerging relationship between the EM and DR fields, see the article titled "A New Look" by Tim Bonno.

Another sign of the interest in our industry has also become evident to me. FEMA and other public agencies are finally realizing disaster recovery can be a great resource for preventing or reducing loss from disasters. I have conducted several meetings with FEMA officials and feel they are genuinely interested in working with DR representatives in the private sector. Another good sign is the fact that one of our industry’s leaders, Jim Hammill of AT&T, is working in conjunction with FEMA. Another DR leader, John Copenhaver, previously with IBM, is now also working fulltime with FEMA.

Another indication of our industry’s growth was the attendance at our recent Ninth International Disaster Recovery Symposium and Exhibition. This conference was held in Atlanta, Georgia, September 14 - 17, 1997. There was a total attendance of some 1,000 people. That’s an all-time high for our Atlanta show. An informal poll taken at the conference showed that almost 60% of the attendees were new to the DR field. For more information on the conference, see our article and photo layout in the article titled: "Conference Provides Great Learning Opportunities to 1000+ Participants" in this issue.

My staff and I try hard to make our conference the best buy in the industry and I feel we succeed. We provide as much information as possible within the three-day conference, and we provide extra details, too, like lunch every day, continental breakfasts, and one convenient location for every thing. We also schedule our conference so you can travel on a weekend - making it better for your budget!

DRJ recently has also formed a partnership with Quake Japan, an organization based in Tokyo, Japan. With our combined resources, we plan on producing a Japanese translation of current issues of DRJ for the overseas DR and EM planners. Quake Japan itself was created after the devastation of the Kobe earthquake. This organization is attempting to inform the Japanese businesses and public of the importance of preparing for the next quake or other unpredictable event.

Also in the near future DRJ will have the BPA International Membership that was applied for back in June of 1996. It has taken a long time to reach this goal because we didn’t have adequate subscription cards. Some of you will begin receiving renewal notices; it is important that we have a signature and a date on the forms for proper processing for the BPA auditors.

I’m very proud of what we’re accomplishing at DRJ and very proud of the industry as a whole. It’s great to see such growth and interest everyday!

--Richard L. Arnold, CBCP