New Federal Funding Will Help Ensure Florida Businesses Open After Disaster


Release Date: October 24, 2006 Contact: Dianne Barlar, Marketing Director (850.473.7809 or dbarlar@uwf.edu) FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE New Federal Funding Will Help Ensure that Florida’s Businesses Open After a Disaster
Collier County business owners tour the MAC	PENSACOLA, FL: The University of West Florida’s Florida Small Business Development Center Network (FSBDCN) has been notified that they are the recipient of a grant for $987,228.00 for a statewide Business Continuity and Risk Management Center Program. These funds are in addition to the funding received from the US SBA for day-to-day SBDC operations in Florida. The FSBDCN has eight regions and 33 offices across Florida staffed by Certified Business Analysts. Their purpose is to provide free one-on-one consultations with startups and mature businesses, schedule and present training needed by businesses, and to provide the secondary information that businesses need to better function in the marketplace.
The Florida Business Continuity and Risk Management Center (BCRM) Program will be a specialized program that operates through the existing statewide infrastructure of the FSBDCN. The purpose of the BCRM Program is to ensure that businesses statewide have proper education in, training on and assistance to minimize losses and increase survivability when affected by natural and/or man-made disasters. Clearly hurricanes will be high on that list. According to Larry Strain, SBDC Director at UWF, "these funds will help put in place many of the necessary tools needed for the SBDC to help our business clients be as well prepared for disaster as possible. In the event of some adverse event, we can help to speed recovery by being in the right place almost immediately with the right resources to enable businesses to get back to work at the earliest opportunity. This is a critical addition to our business development and recovery arsenal." The new program will involve at five different and significant activities that all relate back to the need for business continuity and risk management. First, the Mobile Assistance Centers (MACs) will come under this program. The MACs are two 38' RVs outfitted as self-contained centers of the FSBDCN. When disaster strikes, they will be deployed to the affected area and will provide housing and workspace for several Certified Business Analysts to work with these clients. During fair weather, they are used for outreach to some of Florida’s more rural areas. To learn more about the MAC Program, visit our website at www.floridasbdc.com/SpecialPrograms/MAC.asp.
Outreach training encompasses the second activity of the program. This programming is a series of statewide workshops that will delve into the need-to-know areas for Florida businesses to prepare and recover from interruptions caused by natural or man-made disasters. For recovery mobilization, the third activity is to establish formal communications capabilities with the Florida Division of Emergency Management. The fourth activity will be to establish the Florida Business Ready! Contracting Network. It will provide training to a ready pool of vendors and service providers so that they can respond to both public and private sector needs emanating from disasters.	SBDC Manager Robert Goetz presents "Disaster Plan in 90 Minutes" seminar in Orlando
The final activity involves the creation of a Small Business Continuity Services Resource Network (SBCSRN). The SBCSRN is a database of statewide business professionals identified who are willing to fill niche areas of recovery technical assistance in the aftermath of a natural and/or man-made disaster, in support of Florida business and through them, the economy. These professionals will be accountants, lenders who are well versed in loan packaging, insurance executives, lawyers who target property and casualty, business consultants, cell phone managers, and even internet service providers. The key is that these professionals are in positions to make decisions—make things happen. They will be from all parts of Florida, willing to invest some time and expertise to help the businesses get back on their feet. This special federal funding with its new initiatives, in addition to the US SBA funding that helps support Florida’s SBDCs, will go very far in ensuring that Florida businesses plan to resume their operations. In the past it has always been hit or miss. After all, revenue can come again following any disaster and Florida’s economy is largely dependent on the small business community. As the BCRM Program Coordinator, Katherine Hoelscher says that "the initiatives inherent in this program ensure that Florida is Open for Business—no matter the disaster." For more information about the BCRM Program, contact Katherine Hoelscher at 850.473.7800 or khoelsch@uwf.edu. The Florida SBDC Network is a statewide partnership between higher education and economic development organizations dedicated to providing emerging and established business owners with assistance enabling overall growth and increased profitability that contributes to the economic prosperity of the state. For more information about the FSBDCN, visit our website at www.FloridaSBDC.com. Florida SBDC Network State Director's Office University of West Florida 401 E Chase St, Ste 100 Pensacola, FL 32502 850.473.7800 / f 850.473.7813 fsbdc@uwf.edu / www.FloridaSBDC.com
This project is funded by a grant from the US Small Business Administration (SBA). SBA's funding should not be construed as an endorsement of any products, opinions, or services. All SBA-funded projects are extended to the public on a nondiscriminatory basis.