MINUTES

General Membership Meeting

January 16, 2003                3:00 p.m.

MasterCard Recovery Center

 

Attendees:

Arnold, Richard.................... Disaster Recovery Journal                         Kriegshauser, Herman....... The Salvation Army

Bathon, Anna....................... Bank of America                                         Laney, Merlin.................... A. G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.

Battig, Kim.......................... U. S. Bank                                                   Larson, Dan...................... MobileLynx

Bender, Jay......................... J. G. Bender & Associates                         McDonald, Pat.................. Fundamentals, Inc.

Bozada, Rick....................... Enterprise Rent-A-Car                                McKinney, Dean................ BMS Cat

Brooks, Carl ........................ Union Pacific Technologies                         Musson, Mel..................... Edward Jones

Chesson, Jehu..................... MasterCard International                             Paddock, Milan................. Consultant

Conner, Herb........................ Consultant                                                   Pearce, Edward................. First Services, L.P.

Davies, Tad.......................... Bick Group                                                  Pollard, David.................... Steamatic Catastrophe

Davis, Steve......................... Bick Group                                                  Reilly, Michael.................. WorkSafe Technologies

Dolgin, Harlan...................... Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Missouri             Rolle, Janet....................... First Bank

Donley, Dean....................... Guardsmark, Inc.                                         Seals, Jon........................ Disaster Recovery Journal

Drury, Kelly.......................... MasterCard International                             Smiley, Michael...................... St. Louis County Police OEM

Flanigan, Susan................... Consultant                                                   Spears, Keith.................... Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Gonzalez, Carolyn................ MasterCard International                             Stauber, Maureen.............. MasterCard International

Heard, Tom.......................... A. G. Edwards & Sons, Inc.                        Swartz Peterson, Angela.... Enterprise Rent-A-Car

Hoffmann, Jim...................... Recall Total Information Management          Thomas, Paul.................... DRI International

Joyce, Jeff........................... MO Higher Education Loan Authority          Till, Randy........................ MasterCard International

Koehn, Ken.......................... SBC Services, Inc.                                      Woerther, Timothy............. SBC Services, Inc.

 

 

The regular General Membership Meeting of the MidAmerica Contingency Planning Forum was held on Thursday, January 16, 2003, at the MasterCard Recovery Center, beginning at 3:00 p.m.

 

President Angela Swartz Peterson welcomed everyone to the meeting and introductions around the room were made by all.  She thanked Randy Till and MasterCard for their hospitality in hosting and providing the refreshments for the meeting.  Angie commented the group was interested in meeting sites, presentation topics, and speakers for future meetings.  If anyone has suggestions for any of these items, please contact one of the Board members.

 

Copies of the annual President’s letter were available.  The annual membership solicitation mailing, including the President’s Letter, will be distributed by the end of January.  The mailing will include the application form for membership renewals. 

 

There were no previous meeting minutes for review.

 

Vice President Dean Donley commented on the concept of sharing resources among the memberships and possibly developing a “yellow book” of available resources.  He requested member feedback on the concept that one or two members at each meeting talk about their company, what the company does, and how the business continuity program is managed.  Dean proceeded to talk about his role at Guardsmark, Inc.

 

Ms Swartz commented work was continuing on the website for the Forum at http://mcpf.0catch.com/.  Meeting minutes and announcements, as well as other pertinent information will be available through this site.  Librarian Carl Brooks was managing this project, and additional information would be relayed to the membership as it becomes available.

 


Under new business, Paul Thomas of the Disaster Recovery Institute provided an update on the DRII.  He commented that a lot of information and tasks are now available through the website www.DRII.org.  Anyone maintaining their certification or those interested in becoming certified in the field of business continuity can find a wealth of information, including reporting educational credit information, paying your fees online, locate other professionals, enroll in classes.  Future changes are planned and Paul will keep the group informed of this.

 

There being no additional new business, the meeting then moved to the featured presentation – Pentagon Restoration Efforts Following 9/11/01.  The featured presenter was Dean McKinney, Vice President of BMS Cat.

 

Mr. McKinney began his presentation by providing a brief history of BMS Cat and his career.  He then moved into things realized and learned during and following the restoration of the Pentagon resulting from the terrorist activities of 9/11/01. 

 

Ø       Personnel is the single most important asset a company has.  Any associate’s personal impact may prevent or hinder recovery efforts.

Ø       People are expecting their managers to prepare for their safety.

Ø       The plane penetrated four rings of the Pentagon structure, with landing gear dislodging and hitting the wall of the library at the fifth ring.  Smoke odor and soot was all over the area.

Ø       The press showed up almost immediately.  You must be prepared to deal with the media.

Ø       First walk-thru was two weeks after the attack, resulting in water damage throughout.

Ø       The library contained documents of historic significance in that there was classified material, unique documents.

Ø       A security nightmare was encountered.  Once you were in the area, it was best to stay in for the duration.

Ø       Some constitutional issues were raised through separation of duties given that the building is in the Commonwealth of Virginia but it is a Federal building.  There must be a justified reason to overrule the commanding fire department.

Ø       Consider recovery impacts if neighboring buildings have been impacted as well.

Ø       Soot plates, serious mold growth, asbestos from the ceiling damage, microfiche contamination by soot, work-in-progress damaged by water were all encountered.

Ø       First step is to stabilize the environment by halting mold and microbial growth in the structure and contents, prevent distortion of books and paper media and ink-bleeding, prevent corrosion to electronics.  The mold growth was contained through the use of a HEPA filtered negative air machine.

Ø       All disposable contents and media were removed.  All structures had been decontaminated, encapsulated, or removed.

Ø       In the library, the only books that were a total loss were those that could be easily replaced.  Books and special papers that sustained only light to moderate mold growth were decontaminated and returned to the shelf.

Ø       Freeze-drying was limited to a small quantity of records that were part of a special collection of military documents.  Some were classified and required special handling.  All other media was recovered on site.

Ø       Each book was cleaned with a HEPA vacuum and hand cleaned, shelf by shelf.  The critical path work flow was to cover and protect each area as the work was completed and before moving on to the next area.  There was soot on the shelves even after the books were removed, which required additional cleaning steps.

Ø       There was soot contamination inside and outside of electronic equipment.  Following cleanup, a careful and thorough examination took place to declare the equipment clean and safe.  This cleaning required detailed hand cleaning techniques.

 

Mr. McKinney then fielded questions from the audience.  A copy of Dean’s presentation can be obtained by contacting Secretary Bathon for a copy.

 


The next General Meeting will be held on Thursday, February 20, 2003, beginning at 3:00 p.m.  The topic will be Credentialing for Emergency Access to Buildings with Sergeant Vince Stehlin, the Emergency Management Coordinator of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department, as the featured speaker.  Location will be the St. Louis County Emergency Operations Center.    

 

Following the presentation, Randy Till offered the group a tour of MasterCard’s recovery facility.  The tours completed, the meeting ended at 5:00 pm.

 

 

Recorded by:     Anna M. Bathon, CBCP

                        MCPF Secretary

                        Office:   314-466-3509

                        Fax:      314-466-3939

                                Email:   anna.bathon@bankofamerica.com


 

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