Sunday opened with registration for attendees. At noon, internet access was supplied through GE Capital in the Cyber Café.
Before his presentation, Barney Pelant led attendees in a moment of silence from the DRJ staff in remembrance of the tragedies of the previous week. He also displayed a picture of an American Eagle with a tear falling from its eye. He then spoke on “Business Impact Analysis Beginning to End”.
Sunday evening closed with the Hospitality sponsored by Fall World 2001 Exhibitors and DRJ.
Some of the exhibitors included: 21st Century, Actual Software, amerivault corp., BCP Media, Business 911, Carter & Burgess, Comdisco, Comlanta, Compaq, dRay Tech Document Reprocessors, eBUSCON, E-Net, ENERA, GE Global, Hitachi, Immeon, IntegResource, Iron Mountain, Lyman Brothers, Mail-Gard, Mainstar, Partner’s National Real Estate Group, RSM McGladrey, Inc., Sprint E Solutions, Strohl Systems, SunGard and Tangram.
The hospitality was fun for all. Mickey Mouse posed for pictures with attendees and a magician performed a wide array of tricks.
Monday began with a revised schedule. Breakfast started at 8:15 a.m. and announcements followed. Jeff Justice was the keynote speaker with “Humor and the Workplace”. Morning Session 2 consisted of Mark Morgan and “Contingency Feng Shui”.
The wide array of workshops consisted of Jim LaRue’s “How Far is Really Far Enough Away” and Barney Pelant’s “Developing the BIA Results Into Business Recovery Strategies”. Breakout sessions included: Bud Stoddard’s “Evaluating Competing Solutions”; Eric Dillinger’s “Are You Ready? How Prepared is Your Infrastructure?”; Gerry Printz’ “Seven Rules of Disaster Recovery Planning and Why You Should Break Them”; and Norm Harris’ “More Tips to Improve Your Recovery Planning Skills”.
“Thank you for following through with the conference in light of the world events,” commented Shelly Hogan from American United Life Insurance. “I really appreciated the opportunity to attend additional workshop sessions.”
Tuesday’s breakfast began at 7:00 a.m. The first Morning Session was Kelly Williams and Meg Keehan’s “The Essentials of Building a BCP Program: The Big Picture”. Then Ron Nabors spoke with “IT Asset Management: Your Lifeline to Corporate Productivity”. After a refreshment break, an open mic session was held to allow attendees to speak and ask questions concerning the World Trade Center Disaster. Lunch followed and the attendees chose between Harlan Dolgin’s “Exercising and Maintaining the BCP” and Dennis Hodge’s “Scenario Based Risk Assessment.” Breakout Sessions included: Michele Turner’s “Request for Proposal Development”; Mike Morganti’s “Hirise Construction”; Rich Smith’s “Personal and Family Emergency Preparedness”; Graeme Jannaway’s “BCP and Audit”; Dr. Robert Chandler, Dr. W. Timothy Coombs and Dr. Sherry Holloday’s “When Team Members Speak the Same Language”; John Fiegel’s “Certification Programs for BCPs”; and Ted Brown’s “Selling Contingency Planning to Executive Management”.
Wednesday’s breakfast began at 7:00 a.m. and the first morning session was next. Morning Session Six featured Lloyd Smith with “Terrorism, Sabotage and Avoidance: Lessons Learned.”
The attendee prize drawing followed the first session. John Abuan of Level 3 Communications won the grand prize of $500. Kathy Tiernan of LaSalle Bank, N.A. and Alan McDowell of Williams Communications both won $250. Congratulations to all!
The final Morning Session of the conference was Barry Pruitt with “It’s Not Magic - But it Might Be Miracles”. A deli style sandwich was then served for a sack lunch and attendees were free to break. Post-Conference courses then began.
Many attendees found the conference to be a great learning experience.
Tara Martin-Knight from Applied Card Systems said, “I have thoroughly benefited from attending this conference. This was my first year to attend and despite the rearrangement of classes, I have truly learned so much!”
"Great work considering the circumstances,” replied Gerry Liukkonen from Troy Systems, Inc. “The conference was still very worthwhile and worth the long drive. I sincerely hope this setback doesn’t make you feel that the conferences should not continue. You are vital to the industry.”
DRJ would like to thank everyone who attended its 25th conference. We applaud the efforts of all of the speakers, attendees and vendors that made this conference the success it was. As an industry, we will now be expected to pull together and offer services, information, solutions and much more in the months ahead. We at DRJ feel that Fall World 2001 was a great start considering what occurred on September 11, 2001.
Gerry Printz of Amsador Ltd. summed up the conference, “This was contingency planning in action.”
Michelle Saab is an editor for DRJ.
*To comment on this article, go to 1404-15 at www.drj.com/feedback.
