Mock Sponsors

Sunday Workshops (March 25 - 1:30 pm - 4:30 pm)

Sunday Workshop Session 1
Novice/Intermediate/Advanced

How To Implement a Successful Corporate Emergency Response Team (CERT) Program

Tim Bonno, CBCP
AT&T

Ron Megert
AT&T

Back by popular demand, this three-hour workshop will provide attendees with hands-on opportunities to learn about CERT and develop a program template that they can walk away with and begin using immediately.
Attendees will learn how to successfully implement one of the best preparedness initiatives available today. Following a major disaster, first responders who provide law enforcement, fire, and emergency medical services may not be able to meet the demand for these services. People will have to rely on each other for help in order to meet their immediate life saving and life sustaining needs.
CERT (Community Emergency Response Teams) is a positive and realistic approach to emergency and disaster situations where individuals will initially be on their own, at home or at work, and their actions can make a difference. Discover how you can adapt CERT to the corporate environment.

Tim Bonno, is employed by AT&T as a technical director-IT service continuity, and manages a team responsible for all service (business) continuity activities within the companies Information Technologies organization.
Ron Megert is employed by AT&T and leads emergency preparedness initiatives within the company’s Information Technologies organization.

Sunday Workshop Session 2
Novice/Intermediate

BCP–101
Session limited to 100 participants

Ed Devlin, CBCP
ES Devlin & Assc.

Norm Harris, CBCP
Norman L. Harris & Assc.

This must-attend workshop has been developed to provide practitioners with the basics of business continuity planning.
It is taught by two industry pioneers and is designed to set the stage for attendees to better understand the lessons they will learn during the DRJ conference.
This session will explain the changes in the scope of the planning required by the many incidents that have occurred during the last 30 years. It will review what is expected of the disaster recovery/business continuity planner in today’s fast paced, ever changing, business world we all live in.
You will be exposed to questionnaires and plan development documentation requirements that every DR/BCP needs in order to do their job.
The information you will receive during this session will save you time and help guide you through your own plan development cycle.

Ed Devlin, CBCP, is a consultant, author, instructor and speaker in the field of business continuity. Devlin is a member of the Executive Council of the Disaster Recovery Journal and a member of the Advisory Board of the National Association of Contingency Planners.
Norm Harris, CBCP, Certified Recovery Planner, chairman, president and CEO of Norman L. Harris & Assc., is recognized as a leader in information technology management and disaster recovery.

Sunday Workshop Session 3
Novice/Intermediate

Training Your Command Team or Bust

Kathy Bork
First Data Corp.

Joni Gates, CBCP
First Data Corp.

Preparation in an organization can be key to a successful recovery and BC professionals work hard to achieve that high level of success. The business units are ready. The Command Team is in place. Then suddenly disaster strikes! Do you really know how your Command Team will respond to the onslaught of disaster? Does your Command Team have a knowledgeable understanding of the critical functions within the organization?
This workshop is designed to cover the importance of training your Command Team to respond to an emergency quickly and effectively. We will be covering team composition, different types of team leadership, roles and responsibilities, team activation, declaring a disaster and decision making tools, documentation critical to successful teams, business recovery teams verses disaster recovery teams, how to conduct a post mortem, lessons learned and much more.
All of this will be followed by role playing and tabletop scenarios to discover some of the critical keys and pitfalls to a successful Command Team.

Kathy Bork is a senior business continuity specialist for First Data Corporation. She is certified in networking and telecommunications and has spent the past 16 years in data centers and disaster recovery.
Joni Gates, CISSP, CBCP is director of business continuity planning at First Data Corporation. She has 23 years experience in the IT field with 15 years in InfoSec management and 12 years in disaster recovery and business continuity management.

Sunday Workshop Session 4
Intermediate/Advanced

Bird Flu: Is Your Business Continuity Plan Immune?

Michelle Cross
Acordia

Charles Yorio
Acordia

This session covers the effectiveness of a business continuity plan in the face of a pandemic.
Participants will receive background information on pandemics, what makes them unique and dangerous; and factors that all plans must address to be effective.
Participants will participate in a group activity - exercise - to reinforce these criteria and assist with evaluating the effectiveness of their plans.

Michelle Cross is a senior vice president and senior risk consultant with Acordia, providing consulting services for both employee and asset-based protection. Cross has extensive experience working with higher education, K-12, real estate, chemical operations, healthcare, as well as financial and service entities. Her business continuity expertise includes developing, writing and testing crisis communications and crisis management plans, emergency preparedness procedures and functional/business recovery action plans.
Charles Yorio, CSP, ARM, is vice president, risk control for Acordia. He has more than 22 years experience in all facets of risk control. He brings experience from the retail, construction and health care industry along with seven years as an insurance company representative to his more than 13 years as an insurance broker risk control consultant. Yorio has worked with all management levels including, Fortune 500 companies on both human element property conservation and business continuity.

Sunday Workshop Session 5
Novice/Intermediate

Business Impact Analysis: Beginning to End

Barney Pelant, MBCP
Barney F. Pelant & Assc.

The Business Impact Analysis (BIA) project is the logical first step in the development of a business continuity program.
The project provides the business rationale for disaster recovery and business continuity planning.
A BIA can help an organization to learn their current capability to recover from a disastrous event. Also, the BIA can help validate that the plan in place is really meeting the organization’s business needs.
During this workshop we will examine the successful methods for achieving timely desired results.
We will cover asking the right questions to learn: What is most important? Why?
This workshop will be interactive, so bring your questions and come share your experiences! This speaker will also present a detailed workshop on Tuesday.

Barney Pelant is owner and director of Barney F. Pelant & Associates. His professional background includes more than 30 years focusing on business continuity planning, disaster prevention and recovery. He has held the certification of Master Business Continuity Professional (MBCP) from DRI International since 1997. Pelant’s technical experience ranges from the design and development of domestic and international business centers, to the development of contingency plans to ensure their ongoing viability.

Sunday Workshop Session 6
Novice/Intermediate/Advanced

Mock Disaster Exercise

Sponsored by MHA Consulting and Pinnacle Training Solutions

Session limited to 200 participants.

Recent high profile disruptions have highlighted the need to improve corporate response at all levels of an organization. During this session, each attendee is an employee of a fictitious Fortune 100 company and a member of its crisis management team as the company responds to -- and attempts to recover from -- a major disruption. Attendees will be assigned to a response or recovery team responsible for executing critical tasks from the corporate crisis management plan including communication with other recovery teams, the media and emergency services, as well as making critical decisions to restore business operations and protect the safety of employees.
This exercise will challenge your thinking (regardless of your experience level), and the critique that follows will help you document ideas to apply to your business continuity planning program at home. This exercise is based on best practices for disaster simulation in use by some of the most mature BCP programs in the US.
MHA Consulting, Inc. understands how critical continuous business operations are to your financial viability and success. MHA is a recognized leader in business continuity planning consulting with successful engagements across many private and public sector industries.
Pinnacle Training Solutions is recognized as an employee development leader across Australia, Europe, and North and South America. We offer: DR and BCP consulting & training; best practices of the BIA; manage projects in the BCP environment; risk assessment: assess, mitigate protect; keynote speeches; assessment instruments, PinnTelSeminars.

The best value. Years of experience. Set Your Course to the industry’s largest conference dedicated to business continuity.