Community Preparedness Webinar Series

Preparing Businesses for Disasters

Recorded on Monday, September 13th at 2:00 EDT

CLICK HERE to view the recording of this webinar.

Presentations:

Red Cross Ready Rating (TM)

Presented by Inga Jelescheff, American Red Cross, Sr. Director Preparedness and Operations

For the past 15 years, Inga has worked in diverse positions throughout the American Red Cross. During her time with the organization, she has held both frontline and leadership volunteer and employee roles at domestic and overseas military stations and at national headquarters. Inga first began her Red Cross career as a volunteer at Yokota Air Base in Japan; while there she was offered the position of Hub Chairman, and, in that capacity, she provided leadership to staff at 12 American Red Cross Armed Forces Emergency Services throughout Asia. In 1997, Inga returned to the United States as a Red Cross employee and was assigned as Hub Manager at Ft. Belvoir, Virginia. She took a position in Health and Safety Services at national headquarters in 1997.

Today, Inga leads the Preparedness unit, a team of accomplished and energetic staff who support chapters and the American public people prepare for disasters and other life-threatening emergencies – from a hurricane to a heart attack - with education and training programs that help people lead safer and healthier lives at home, in school and in the workplace. While in this position, she has had the opportunity to lead the American Red Cross roles at the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City and at Super Bowl XLI in Miami.

Open for Business

Presented by Diana McClure, Institute for Business & Home Safety, Business Resiliency Program Manager

Diana McClure is Business Resiliency Program Manager at the Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS).She was responsible for development of the Open for Business® program at IBHS, a business continuity and property protection planning tool for small to mid-sized businesses. She has worked in a number of other capacities at IBHS, including community resiliency programs and work on land use issues. She has been with the non-profit for thirteen years.

From 1989 to 1996, Diana served as a mitigation specialist with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in New England. She traveled throughout the U.S. to help communities recover from natural disasters. Prior to that, she served as a regional representative for the Insurance Information Institute, and a consultant on civil liability of law enforcement officials and on civil rights conflict management. Diana has a B.A. in International Relations from Brown University and a Master's degree from Boston College.

Prepare My Business Program

Presented by Bob Boyd, President & CEO of Agility Recovery Solutions, Co-sponsored by the Small Business Administration (SBA)

Bob joined Agility in 2004 from Muzak, where he was a vice president and general manager. During his tenure at Muzak, Bob was instrumental in re-branding the company’s services portfolio and contributed in large part to the company’s dramatic growth. Prior to joining Muzak, Bob was Controller at SunCom Group and a vice president at NationsBank. He holds a Master’s degree from the McColl School of Business at Queens University of Charlotte and a Bachelor’s degree in economics from Davidson College.

Additional resources presented by FEMA's Office of Citizen Corps and the Ready Campaign.

Links and resources

Additional details on this webinar

A webinar is a web-based informational or training seminar (a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar) that is transmitted over the internet. This webinar will last approximately one hour. After the presentation is complete, you will have an opportunity to ask questions via the chat feature in the webinar system. This webinar is free to the public and will accommodate the first 500 visitors that enter the site. In addition to airing live, the webinar will be recorded and viewable at your convenience after it completes.

Information on how to view our webinars

The Community Preparedness Webinar Series is conducted in DHS's HSIN Connect system. You do not need to register in advance, nor do you need a HSIN account in order to view our webinars. Audio for this webinar will be broadcast within HSIN Connect; there will not be a concurrent, phone-based teleconference. Questions and answers will be moderated via text-based chat inside the webinar. In order to ensure that your computer is capable of viewing our webinars and webcasts, we highly recommend that you read the below documents and perform the compatibility test prior to the start of the event. In addition, please ensure your computer's speakers are working prior to the webinar. If for any reason you have trouble accessing the system, please send an email to citizencorps@dhs.gov.

Using HSIN Connect (PDF) | Perform Compatibility Test | Presenting in HSIN Connect (PDF)

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Citizen Corps