Leadership Fellows
Leadership Fellows create small business safety net
Ready Chesapeake provides disaster recovery essentials
By TOM MARQUARDT, Editor and Publisher
Published 02/06/11
reproduced by permission
Corporations and major employers have understood the importance of emergency preparedness for a long time. But what about the small business owners who don't think a disaster can happen to them?
2010 Leadership Fellows
The Leadership Anne Arundel 2010 Fellows Class consisted of:
• Nancy Almgren, retired financial planner.
• Joyce Coleman, Signature Program facilitator for county public schools.
• Marilyn Corbett, president, Back Creek Communications.
• Robert Crosby, manager of design services, Baltimore Gas and Electric Co.
• John Gower, director of business operations, ARINC.
• Scott Gregory, president of R. Scott Gregory Inc.
• Maggie Griffin, consultant.
• Hank Gundlach, senior vice president, Morgan Stanley Smith Barney.
• Rita Ormasa, president, Sailwind Marketing.
• Jeremy Parks, vice president, Jerome J. Parks Co.
• Kristina Seidel, paralegal consultant.
• Adam Tracy, former general manager, Westfield Annapolis mall.
• Brian Tucker.
• David Vogel, principal consultant, president subsidiary, ABSI/Compass Information Systems.
Leadership Anne Arundel is currently recruiting for its next Fellows class. If you are a graduate of another LAA program and are interested in applying, fill out an application at leadershipaa.org. The site includes information about LAA’s other programs.
A group of 14 participants in the graduate class of Leadership Anne Arundel has a message for them - it can happen and you need a strategy if it does.
In the last several months, the 2010 Fellows Class has been working with city and county officials to develop Ready Chesapeake, a project that will help small business owners with limited resources to be better prepared for an emergency. The class is setting up a nonprofit organization and website to educate small business owners and help them think about recovering from disasters like fires and hurricanes.
Leadership Anne Arundel is a nonprofit center that teaches leadership skills and utilizes its network to address community problems. More than 1,000 residents have gone through the programs and include well-known graduates like Sen. Ed Reilly, Dels. Cathy Vitale, Steve Schuh and Pam Beidle, Councilman Chris Trumbauer and numerous bank presidents and business owners. Most participants are sponsored by their employers.
LAA holds four classes every year: Flagship Program, Executive Leadership Series, Neighborhood Leadership Academy and now Leadership Fellows Seminar Series. Each class concludes with a special project that involves the participants. Some of the previous projects include such success stories as Teen Court, Battle of the Bands and the 21st Century Foundation.
The inaugural Fellows class, composed of participants who have graduated from another LAA program, took on emergency preparedness at the request of the emergency management offices in the city and county who recognized a void in small business emergency planning. Nearly half of the businesses LAA surveyed said they did not have a disaster plan and cited the smallness of their operation and cost as the major reasons.
Barbara Fay, coordinator of the city Exercise, Training and Outreach program, said she has been working on this partnership for six years.She said Maryland is not as disaster-prone as other states, so people are more complacent. "The biggest barrier is denial and that makes it difficult to get momentum," she said.
She said LAA brought "heft, people and leadership" to getting this initiative off the ground.
The city and county emergency preparedness offices concluded that government alone will not be able to help the county's 14,400 businesses protect their infrastructures or recover from disaster. The Strategic Research Institute reported in 2002 that companies unable to resume operations with 10 days of disaster never reopen.
For a nominal fee, Ready Chesapeake will provide the framework for businesses to reestablish functions like data recovery, keeping inventory lists, and dealing with employees and insurers. They intend to be a resource center and clearinghouse for contingency planning, conduct seminars and alert members to imminent dangers.
"We can't do the work for them," said Fellows participant Bob Crosby. "But we can help lead them in creating a business recovery plan."
Crosby is involved in disaster response for his employer, Baltimore Gas and Electric.
The participants have been working on their project long after their class ended last year. They consult with experts in other communities who have prepared similar plans.
Employing one of the concepts they learned in their LAA programs, the participants found a way to settle differences without the need for an anointed chairman.
"We dropped egos at the door and learned how to work together," Crosby said.
They hope to remain involved in the program once it is formally launched sometime this summer.
"We all brought different skills to the project and have a different way to interact," said Marilyn Corbett, a classmate and owner of Back Creek Communications.
Although Ready Chesapeake's website is not yet complete, inquiries can be sent to its e-mail address at info@readychesapeake.org.
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Tom Marquardt is president of Leadership Anne Arundel.
tmarquardt@capitalgazette.com