I. Offices

Our physical location could become unusable for many reasons. Regardless of the cause the impact would be the same, but the duration could be longer. This section focuses on the variety of scenarios we can envision and our responses to them.

A. Short-term disruptions that cause our building to be unavailable for time frames of less than one month. The following is a list of possible causes: power outages, broken HVAC, weather emergencies, or evacuations. To deal with this we would operate at a remote location, possibly out of our homes, a suite in another professional’s office, or a suite/ballroom at a local hotel. Employees are to check in with management via their home phone number or cell phone number to be informed of place of operation. Vital equipment will be transported to site if possible or borrowed or leased at the location of operation. If needed, data will be restored from one of many different forms of data backups we have in place. Phones are to be forwarded.

B. Intermediate-term disruptions that cause our building to be unavailable for a time frame of more than a month and less that a year. The following is a list of possible causes: fire, contamination, flood damage, or building structural problems. If we do not know the magnitude at the time of the event, we will utilize plan A, above until it is clear that the time frame will exceed one month. We will lease temporary space from a business associate or through a commercial realtor. All equipment and files will be moved or replaced and phone lines will be transferred to the new location. Once our building is back online everything will be moved back.

C. Permanent loss of use of building. The following is a list of possible causes: fire, flood, or terrorist attack. At the time of the event we should know the severity of the event and would go right to plan B and find new permanent office space.

If the city is destroyed or rendered uninhabitable, management has chosen two evacuation locations. At that time we would regroup and choose an area in our state to house our operations. We have created procedures to protect our asset management data, financial data and other important documents. However, some less important data would have to be reconstructed. Our greatest challenge would be finding the location of our clients. We would utilize whatever means necessary to do this.

II. Equipment

Our equipment needs are not very sophisticated or extensive. [Example: We utilize several standalone computers (as well as a few laptop computers), connected to a Windows 2000 server. This setup could be operational within hours and completely restored in less than a day. Any IT specialist could do this in the event that our current person is unavailable.]

Our phone system is relatively simplistic and could be moved or replaced within hours and our phones can be forwarded in a fraction of that time. The rest of our office equipment is generic and can be readily replaced.

III. Regulatory Issues

We would make every effort to remain in compliance in the event of a disaster. We have transferred much of the required paperwork to a digital format that is backed up and off site. We will be working to place a substantial portion of the other paper documents that we utilized in this format also. We are always in contact with our compliance attorney who is on retainer for compliance issues. She would be one of the first people we would contact in the event of a disaster to ensure that we remain in compliance and would follow her directions.

IV. Third Party

We do not utilize any third party venders that are so unique that they could not be replaced with a competitor. The only quasi third parties that would cause us great disruption are companies that make up the infrastructure of the country. If the banking system, mail system, communication networks, security markets or federal government were rendered inoperative for any great length of time we would not be able to operate. We do not have the size or resources to provide these services ourselves.