PS-Prep Continuity Compliance

To Certify or Comply? — That is the Question Many Ask When Organizations Pursue a PS-Prep Standard

February 6, 2013 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

Lisa DuBrock, CPA, CBCP, MBCI --- a contributing writer to this website --- has recently written an article published in the Winter 2013 Edition of the Edison Electric Institute Newsletter --- which edition was dedicated solely to updates and stories about key business continuity issues in the electric power industry. The Edison Electric Institute (EEI) is the association of United States shareholder-owned electric power companies. Its members serve 95 percent of the ultimate customers in the shareholder-owned segment of the industry, and represent approximately 70 percent of the U.S. … [Read more...]

Emergency Management Enhanced by Public-Private Partnerships

January 25, 2013 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

By: Ben J. Carnevale, Editor This website has promoted the benefits of the Private Sector Preparedness (PS-Prep) program from the beginning of its existence, and continues to believe that the private sector is also a vital part of our country’s emergency management team response and disaster recover capabilities. Along with FEMA and DHS, we also believe that the nation's vast network of business, industry, academia, trade associations, and other non-governmental organizations are equal - and equally responsible - partners in nearly every phase of dealing with potential threats --- … [Read more...]

DHS Recognizes American Bar Association as PS-Prep Certified.

October 23, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

Upon being recognized by the Department of Homeland Security as the first non-for-profit organization in the U.S. to be PS-Prep certified for disaster preparedness and response under the Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Program, ABA President Laurel Bellows stated, “…our nearly 400,000 members and the public can rest assured that the ABA can recover from a severe business interruption and continue to serve their needs. The organizational resilience that disaster preparedness provides is critical in an increasingly unpredictable environment of global terrorism and frequent natural … [Read more...]

How to Ensure Supplier and Supply Chain Management Delivers Value-Added Mutual Benefits

September 18, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

Photo courtesy of section508ccompliantpdfs.com

All too often, many organizations are facing risk management issues that seem to exist somewhat beyond their direct control. An organization’s supply chain and the management of those supplier relationship dynamics are often the best examples of areas of risk mitigation where companies appear to be totally at the mercy of others. If your disaster preparedness, business continuity planning, private sector risk or risk management (PS-Prep) team members are talking about issues like this …then, you should consider asking them to attend a LIVE webcast with Jonathan Hughes, who will … [Read more...]

PS-Prep Program Seminar Coming Soon to George Mason University

September 12, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

Disaster Recovery, Disaster Preparedness, Business Continuity Planning, Organizational Resilience, Private Sector Preparedness, and Supply Chain Continuity, are all concepts that have become increasingly important during a period of increasing disaster related weather events, geo-political upheaval, and/or supply chain disruptions. This seminar will explore how to become compliant or certified to the PS-Prep program as enacted in Public Law 110-53. This presentation will be given by Lisa DuBrock, and, will be held on November 13, 2012, at 6:30 PM, located at 4031 University Drive, Suite … [Read more...]

PS-Prep Continues Ongoing Opportunity Battles

August 16, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

Photo Source U.S. Dept Homeland Security

Since the recent announcement by ATT becoming the first company to certify under the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS’s) Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Program (PS-Prep) --- many readers have been requesting more information updates regarding the progress of the PS-Prep program. To attempt to address those requests, our staff would like to focus on one of the major areas currently under a lot of discussion in various PS-Prep related blogs. Most of the postings reviewed center around an issue very well addressed in a recent article written by Luke Simpson, Continuity … [Read more...]

ISO 22301 Questions? Get Answers from the Experts.

May 18, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

As posted earlier, the ISO 22301 is now available for purchase and is expected to be a valuable resource opportunity for those companies seeking to improve their capabilities in support of achieving their business continuity goals and objectives. To further assist that process, the Business Continuity Institute (BCI) and the British Standards Institute (BSI) have scheduled a joint webinar to hopefully answer some of the many questions that many of the organizations around the world are beginning to ask concerning this new ISO 22301 standard. A panel of leading international experts on … [Read more...]

AT&T’s Experience in Certifying to DHS-Adopted (PS-Prep) Preparedness Standard Offered in Free Webinar

May 15, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

For many of our readers in the private sector and for those who are members of PS-Prep strategy planning teams in their companies, you may want to mark your calendar to attend a free webinar on Thursday, May 31, 2012 at 1:00-2:30 p.m. EDT. This 90-minute interactive webinar will be hosted by the Department of Homeland Security and will be about the Voluntary Private Sector Preparedness Accreditation and Certification Program (PS-Prep™), and will also be focusing on AT&T’s experience as the first private sector company to certify to a DHS-adopted preparedness standard. The … [Read more...]

Business Continuity Plan Organizational Readiness Measurement Offering

May 2, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

emergency preparedness checklist blog liveprocess com

Comments and questions regarding measurement of progress made in the business continuity planning process still come to the attention of our staff, and, a recent article written by Lee Glendon, CBCI may offer at least a positive step forward in trying to achieve that measurement process. We believe the point made by Glendon is that while many aspects of dealing with the human side of major disruption are already covered in an organization through health and safety and crisis management (BCMS) procedures ---however, the link between successfully dealing with these issues and still achieving … [Read more...]

Continuity Insights April/2012 Conference Observations

April 23, 2012 By Ben Carnevale Leave a Comment

Given the recent completion of this year’s April 2012 Continuity Insights Conference, our staff would like to focus on observations and/or comments on what was heard, what happened and where this conference may have added value to the topics and discussions surrounding business continuity management (BCM) and the PS-Prep program. One of the first observed postings about this event was written by Roberta J. Witty, a research VP in Gartner Research, where she is part of the Compliance, Risk and Leadership group. In a her write-up, Roberta discusses her findings and reactions from those … [Read more...]