MINUTES
General
Membership Meeting
April 18, 2002 3:00 p.m.
Attendees:
Bathon, Anna....................... Bank of America Lohner, Derek................ Missouri SEMA
Bonno, Tim.......................... SBC Services, Inc. Musson, Melvyn............. Edward Jones
Crosswhite,
John.................. State Farm Insurance Pearce, Edward.............. First Services, L.P.
Davies, III
Tad....................... The Bick Group Pelliccione,
Peggy.......... First Services, L.P.
Davis, Steven....................... The Bick Group Pollard, David................. Steamatic Catastrophe
Dolgin, Harlan...................... Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Missouri Swartz, Angie................ Enterprise Rent-A-Car
Donley, Dean....................... Guardsmark, Inc. Thomas,
Jr., Paul
Eyres, John......................... Rentsys Wiesmann, J.
R............. Inflow, Inc.
Faintich,
David..................... Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc. Woerther, Timothy.......... SBC Services, Inc.
Harper, Brad........................ Enterprise Rent-A-Car Young,
Kathleen............. SBC Services, Inc.
The regular General Membership Meeting
of the MidAmerica Contingency Planning Forum was held on Thursday, April 18,
2002, at the offices of The Bick Group, beginning at 3:00 p.m.
President Angie Swartz welcomed
everyone to the meeting and introductions around the floor were made by
all. She thanked Tad Davies and Steven
Davis for their hospitality in hosting and providing the refreshments for the
meeting.
The minutes of the February and March
Meetings were reviewed. Mrs. Swartz
asked that any changes or additions to the minutes be sent to Secretary
Bathon.
Miscellaneous
business discussed included comments regarding the SEMA-MEPA conference held in
early April. Member Paul Thomas noted
how successful the conference was and continues to be. It was very informative for both new
planners and experienced planners.
There were over 700 people in attendance at this year’s conference.
Program
Director Harlan Dolgin passed on his thoughts about the DRJ conference in March
in San Diego. He felt that the
conference was good with a lot of focus on 9/11/01 events.
The
meeting moved to the featured presentation – Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery Lessons Learned from 9/11/01 –
A Panel Discussion. Panel
members were Anna Bathon of Bank of America, Harlan Dolgin of Blue Cross/Blue
Shield of Missouri, and Ed Pearce of First Bank. Mr. Pearce was presenting lessons that Deutsche Financial learned
when he was in their employ during that period.
Mr.
Pearce began the discussion about Deutsche Financial’s experiences, both in New
York and Missouri. None of their
offices were functioning for reasons of shock and the impact to the NY
office. A timeline for their NY
activities was provided. Deutsche lost
one associate in the building collapse.
Management felt their recovery plans were inadequate for this type of
event.
After
the recovery, a debriefing between St. Louis and New York was held to review
the activities. Some points to improve
the plan included communication to senior management and to personal
residences. E-mail, internet, text
messaging all were successful while cellular communications were jammed and
unreliable. The challenge for planning
for the future is not to create a plan for another 9-11-01 event. It must be a universal plan.
Following
the events, management was fired up about contingency, but executive management
is not willing to commit the resources to develop detailed plans.
In Mr. Pearce’s current position at
First Bank, he feels they are very aggressive about recovery and
contingency. They are designing a
quarterly newsletter for associates to promote the awareness of business
continuity. Physical security and
access control responsibility has been centralized within their risk management
area. Robust plans currently are in
IT. However, plans exist across their
organization.
The next presenter was Anna Bathon of
Bank of America. Regional support teams
are utilized for coordination of recovery events throughout the bank’s
enterprise. Bank of America utilizes
workarea sites in multiple regions, which allow business units to establish
recovery sites that can be tested periodically. The bank had 400+ associates located in the Trade Center, in
addition to over 200 in Washington, D.C.
Three associates were lost in the New York activities. Critical functions and associates were
relocated to a nearby regional recovery center. All regional support teams were activated through the first
couple days following 9-11-01, with the bulk of activities occurring in the New
York region. The bank utilizes a
central database for event tracking during emergency events.
It took the bank several days to verify
the status of all associates. However,
payroll was processed, Corporate Affairs prepared media communications, and
maintained the intranet current with status reports. Required travel arrangements were made through a central agency
normally utilized by the bank.
Some points to highlight included
picture ID cards for all associates must be kept current. Providing a driver’s license is not sufficient
to identifying individuals are actually bank employees. Network groups worked with alternate
communication providers due to Verizon communication issues and subsequent
building collapse. In addition to the
attacks, the “Code Blue Worm” – NIMDA – infected some of the equipment and
required support for resolution.
Onsite counseling was available for all associates, and the associates
were encouraged to use the EAP services as well as flexibility on time off
nationwide. The regional recovery centers
worked well, but were not a solution for every department. Some groups utilized a “buddy office”
approach to redirect functions to another office providing the same
services. Additional associates should
be trained for coordination of recovery efforts to be available for longer-term
needs.
Communication of events is a major
component to a successful recovery.
Verification of contact information should occur periodically throughout
the year to ensure correct numbers are available when necessary. The bank utilizes an event database to track
issues throughout recovery situations, accessed through our intranet. With the regional team concept, individual
unit issues should be resolved within the unit and status/issues reported
through the team status calls; use the team status calls as just that and not
as an attempt to resolve the issues during the call. Vendor recovery plans should be reviewed. Critical vendors may be included in status
calls, if appropriate.
The final panel member was Harlan Dolgin
of Blue Cross. He has attended several
seminars on 9/11 activities and lessons learned. Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Missouri was not directly impacted by
the events; so, Harlan discussed highlights from the sessions.
Morgan Stanley put their trust in their
staff and were richly rewarded. First
priority was to find people. They
employed a locator service, set up a website and an 800- number, and worked
closely with the media throughout the recovery. MS had established procedures with an employee-assistance
provider in advance and counseling was available. A leadership strategy needs to be established for handling
immediate response, management among the staff, and decision-making to support
the people. Providing good meals for
the associates going through the recovery is a major plus.
Harlan commented that terrorism is
among us and needs to be confronted and dealt with. Consider expanding recovery plans to consider magnitudes of the
9/11 events. Don’t start with something
this large, but expand existing plans to this extent. Michael Hammack of CATCO Restoration emphasized that an
earthquake could have similar impacts.
First, plan to cover a disaster that impacts your immediate building,
then build upon that.
Critical service providers should be
considered. Identify alternates for
critical vendors, and ensure the vendors have contingency plans in place and
are tested. Email and intranet usage
within a company may be considered critical to communication during an event
and aid in continuing their work. There
can never be too much communication.
The panel then fielded questions from
the audience, and an interesting discussion proceeded.
The
next General Meeting will be held on Thursday, May 16, 2002, beginning at 3:00
p.m. The topic will be Facilities Restoration. The speaker will be Michael Hammack,
President of CATCO Catastrophe Cleaning, and the meeting will be at Mr.
Hammack's facilities.
There
being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 5:00 p.m.
Recorded by: Anna M. Bathon, CBCP
MCPF
Secretary
Office: 314-466-3509
Fax: 314-466-3939
Email: anna.bathon@bankofamerica.com