Disasters take on many guises: a flood, tornado, hurricane, fire, a key staff member takes ill, a vital salesperson leaves, or a power outage hits. The best way to move from disaster to recovery? Be prepared. Part 1 covered Steps 1-5.

Step 6: Long-term restoration. Recovering from a disaster, whether minor or major, also requires you to prepare for long-term restoration. Here are three suggested subsections:

Government Relations: Select someone to primarily work between your company and any government agencies (federal, state and local). This can be of great value if you need to file for extensions and waivers of payments due, as well as speed the paperwork for disaster relief.

Internal Communications & Employee Notifications: Once your staff knows the disaster has occurred, you must maintain open communications with them until you're back to business as usual. This means determining how you will stay in touch with staff members, how often that will occur and who is responsible to make sure it happens.

Mutual Aid Agreements: This is the subsection in which to place contact information for friendly competitors who you've spoken to at length, in advance of any disaster, and hopefully while writing the plan. These competitors would agree to act on your behalf in meeting client needs during your reconstruction process. If possible, the terms of each agreement should be noted as well. In some cases, a written agreement may be in order, and if it is, copies should be included.

Chiefly, there are three places to locate help: Refer to the Online Guide to Contract Converters from Converting (www.convertingmagazine.com); contact the FPA, TLMI, FTA, PPC or AIMCAL associations by phone or online; or talk to your friends in the industry for recommendations or for their help.

Step 7: Suppliers. Have an updated list of all your current suppliers' contact names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses, account numbers and any other pertinent information to assist you in continuing business operations. The aforementioned trade groups can help locate suppliers near you.

Step 8: Production equipment. Tally all production equipment, including brand name, serial and model numbers, date of purchase, current value and equipment location.

Step 9: Computer inventory. An inventory of all computer-related hardware and software, including brand name, serial number and model numbers, date of purchase, locations of printers, laptops, PCs, mainframes, servers and LANS should be maintained.

Step 10: Employees. This final section of your recovery plan consists of a complete employee contact list, home addresses, phone numbers, etc. Update it every time a new employee is hired—or at least quarterly.

Review your recovery plan with the Employee Response Team each year for necessary revisions.

Be certain that each Employee Response Team Member has a current copy of the plan and knows the role they play in executing it.

Be sure the owner's copy is safely off-site. It's no help to have a disaster with the plan in your office at the disaster site. It's been suggested to our company that the best place to maintain an off-site copy is about 30 miles from the plant. Some disasters affect wide areas, and if the owner lives a few minutes away, his or her home may also be affected.

Give your local Police and Fire Departments the appropriate sections of your plan each year.

Is your staff aware of the recovery plan and their role in deployment? If planned well and done properly, all these 10 steps can be handled, in most cases, simultaneously.

630/325-8181, www.gsitech.com