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Institute for Crisis, Disaster, and Risk Management Crisis and Emergency Management Newsletter Website |
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October
2004
Volume 7
- Number 1 |
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Related Sites:
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Report on The
Global Partnership for Preparedness – interview with John Copenhaver Small
businesses
represent a strategic component of the U.S. economy, making up 51 % of
America’s gross domestic product. But small businesses showed to be
very
vulnerable to disasters, whether they are caused by natural events, or
by
terrorist attacks. Statistics indicate that between 40-60% of small
businesses
affected by disasters are forced to close for good within a few years.
Despite
these alarming numbers, over 90% of the small businesses do not have a
business
continuity plan in place. The
Global Partnership
for Preparedness (GPP) Foundation (www.globalpreparedness.org), a
non-profit
organization, has been established as an initiative of DRI
International
(www.drii.org) to reduce the economic and social impacts of all the
disasters
which affect small businesses. On
the occasion of the official launch of the GPP, we asked Mr. John
Copenhaver, President of the Board of Trustees of the GPP, some
questions
regarding the activity and the objectives of the organization. It
follows part
of this interview. Mr. Copenhaver, the 29 of
September it will be the official launch of the GPP. Could you please
give us
some information regarding the initiatives that the organization will
undertake? “The
plan for the GPP
is an ambitious one. […] The first initiative is for the GPP to serve
as a
nexus, bringing together the various splinters of the business
continuity
industry. The industry itself as it
stands today is fragmented and there is no uniform agreement on
methodology on
how to do business continuity planning […]. The
second initiative
of GPP is to bring together the practitioners in both private and
public
sectors in support of the kind of things that need to be done at the
community
level. […] The GPP is going to take something from the phase book of
the
Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a program that was
instituted
within government to reach out to the private sector, called Project
Impact. The
principles of Project Impact are going to be used in this
community-level
initiative that the GPP is going to hopefully lead. One example of this
is the
Small Business Preparedness Campaign that GPP is sponsoring, which will
be
piloted in Charlotte, North Carolina and Los Angeles, California”. Mr. Copenhaver, could
you please tell us
more about this initiative? “This project will involve […] true small
businesses with fewer than 50 employees, and in many cases fewer than
20
employees that do not have the funds to engage in business continuity
planning.
The backbone of America’s small business, to be better prepared and to
work
with government in the communities in order to literally have an
interwoven
fabric of contingency planning and preparedness at the community level. [GPP
will donate
over 16,000 hours of certified business continuity expertise to small
businesses] GPP
has also sponsored
Small Business Assistance Centers in Florida to help in the aftermath
of
Hurricane Charley to try to help small businesses down there get back
on their
feet and get back to business”. Has the Florida government
implemented similar projects due to the fact that natural disasters
(hurricanes) are so frequent in that region? “The
State government
has created a program called the ‘bridge loans’ to make money available
to
small businesses that need immediate assistance, while they wait on the
principle amount from SBA disaster loans. […] However, the Small
Business
Assistance Center is a different program. It takes several steps
further to
really focus on what small businesses need and to put it in one place,
almost
one- stop shopping, where they can get 90% of what the business owner
needs in
terms of loan applications, guidance on insurance policies […], in
order for them
to get back up and running. Mr. Copenhaver , with what
message would you like to conclude the interview? “This
campaign is
critically important. All components of our society: businesses,
government,
individuals, we all have to work together to address the risks, to be
better
prepared and to be able to respond more effectively and be successful.
This is
something that we have to begin now, and we have chosen to make the
focal point
of this initiative our communities. We
have to find a way to make this successful at the community level
across the
nation and ultimately, across the globe.” |