Business Continuity Insights with Erika Andresen: Lessons from Hurricane Helene

When you realize that business continuity or any kind of preparedness and mitigation aren't luxuries, they're leadership strategies, you begin to understand how vitally important is to do them. And when you set yourself up for success, it doesn't like the ROI comes by the fact that you have avoided your cost of inaction, you've avoided business death, you've avoided all these expenditures you're going to have. In a world filled with chaos and a myriad of risks, there is opportunity.

You're listening to Riding the Wave Project Management for Emergency Managers, where we discuss how we adapt and rise above those rolling waves of hazards and threats we face and rise to the top. And now your host, the president of Pinnacle Performance Management, Andrew Boyarsky. Erika Andreessen is a recognized expert and consultant, Business Continuity and is the founder of EAS Erica as a Service Consulting, and she's also the author of two books, one published just last year, when the S Hits the Fan Business Survival Guide to Thrive, Grow and keep your cash flow after Disasters.

And the second book, which was published in 22, was how not to Kill your Business. Grow your business in any Environment, Navigate volatility, and Successfully recover when things go wrong. I recommend both books to my listeners, especially the first one. Parts of it relate to the response to Hurricane Helene.

And for a longer bio and for Erica's website, her books and other resources, please see the show notes where I'll share that information. Erica is based in Asheville, North Carolina. So first of all, Erica, I want to thank you very much for joining the podcast. Thank you.

And I wanted to start with a question that's based on where you currently live, Western North Carolina. How did the town of Asheville perform in responding to Hurricane Helene? So that's a tricky, layered question. If we're asking about who was doing the performing and at what point in the response.

I think there are various aspects leading up to Helene. They perform very poorly. And specifically Asheville, not West North Carolina. There's certain counties in west North Carolina that started issuing evacuation orders the Monday and Tuesday before the storm, which came on Friday.

But Asheville and Buncombe county proper did not, to include somebody I know who lived in a apartment building right on the Swannanoa river, which is one of the two rivers that flooded, and the first entire floor of the apartment complex flooded and they were not told to evacuate till after that happened. Which is like, how? How is that possible? And I think one of the things that they did do is I credit the mayor for this.

She said, like A week or two after, which is very nice and amazing for a politician to say this. Mistakes were made and we try to correct them as quickly as possible. There was no excuses like she recognized, like they, they were just drinking from the fire hose, actually the fire hydrant at that point on full blast, and did what they needed to do and understood that some of it was too late. And I've had time to digest this.

I was very angry for the first couple of months after because I think unnecessary suffering is avoidable and it is the responsibility of the people in charge. And people were like, yeah, I wanted to issue an evacuation order, but I didn't think the people above me would listen. I'm like, well, that's a leadership problem, both with you and your leaders, because you don't have the type of relationship where they will rely on your expertise. So there was a lot of things that could have made this a lot better, especially if mayor's office and the county government office knew what to do.

They probably would have coordinated with the chamber of commerce, who could have helped the plethora of small businesses here prepare better for the disaster as well. And that didn't happen. Do you think part of that is Asheville, North Carolina, from my understanding, is a resort town, beautiful, nestled in the mountains of western North Carolina. Do you think part of that is just an attitude of, hey, we're here to relax and we've got a lot of tourists here and let's not sort of rock the boat?

Do you think that that might be some of the sort of optimism bias, if you will, of, well, maybe it won't be so bad and we can just get on business as usual? I think there's a little bit of optimism bias anywhere. I don't think you need to be in a vacation mountain town for that. But it's also a broad mark of inexperience because you think about how many disasters happen all over the United States and who we know are really good at responding to disasters because they have the experience in the practice.

But every major town is supposed to have an emergency manager, and they do to a point. Either it's a dedicated one or a dual hatted or even a triple hatted one. And if you just collect a random town throwing a dart on the map of the United States, you're not going to hit a town necessarily, unless your aim's pretty bad, low into the right or up into the left or even far, far to the part of the left that is a town that has experienced these kind of things. So they don't know how to respond.

And you may have had the job for seven years, but if you've never been tested, if all you've ever done was study and, you know, read up on it, you don't know how it's supposed to run, and that's just to a great disadvantage. There are a lot of ways they could probably fix that. I think they should be doing some kind of. Maybe.

I don't want to call it like an internship exchange, but, you know, send some member. If there's budget for it, of course, there's never the budget for it. Send some emergency managers to places where things are actually happening when they're happening, that'd be great. The second question is related to that first one is how has the recovery gone in Asheville after Hurricane Helene, now that it's been, you know, a good deal of time?

So some of it's. So living in Asheville proper, we fared a lot better than the towns right outside of Asheville. Property. There's still a lot of obvious scars and debris in piles that haven't been moved out, but at least they've been put in piles, you know.

So instead of just being everywhere, places are smaller to recover. But even proper, it was an interesting. How do you say it, like, timeline. So they were closed in October through the end of the year.

The Biltmore opened up very quickly because they knew they were like a beacon for drawing tourists because of. There was. No one's coming to Asheville to go to Julio's Barbecue. Like, they're.

They're not making a trip for that. Right. So they're coming for something big. The Biltmore came back quickly because they kind of had it.

I felt like an onus to do so to bring tourists to the other parts of Asheville. And I think they. For that Christmas season last year, not the year that just finished, they only had about 33% of their normal volume. So a lot of businesses were waiting until, like, okay, we're not going to say we're closing right now.

We're going to wait until the spring comes, because after Easter, they're tends to be an uptick in tourists because January and February are completely dead here, to the point where businesses take off the whole month. They always have, because there's no point of being open to. No, there's nobody here visiting. Then there started becoming the spate of businesses who were like, yeah, we're not reopening, or we're open for a little bit.

Yeah, but the people just aren't here. So then you saw after Colleen initially saying, like, we were just actually ravaged, we cannot come back at all. Then people in the spring are like, okay, we were going to close. And then in the September time frame, when they're expecting the tourists to come for leaping season, places like bed and breakfast were closing because they couldn't compete with the hotels who were able to reduce their rates to fill the hotels.

So they wound up having. So it's been a staggered, slow recovery process. And it's unfortunate because downtown changed drastically. You should be able to go to at least three spots to get tourist trinkets because my sister came to visit and we wanted to get my nephew a magnet.

No, a keychain. I was like, oh, three places downtown, they were all permanently closed. So finding something like that became difficult. And it's like, yeah, if the people aren't here, it's such a tourist driven community.

That's part of the problem is you need the people here to spend the money and people are like, they're kind of suffering. We don't want to go. It's an interesting aspect that you bring up in terms of tertiary effects from some of the primary businesses that, that impact some of the other small businesses, the Airbnbs, the bed and breakfast places. I say Airbnbs.

It probably did, in fact impact them to a degree when people could get a hotel for a lot less and then also the proper B and B, so to speak. In your recent book, you identify what you did and would do differently after Hurricane Helene, as we typically do in an after action review. And I know you stated it in the book, but there may be some other things you want to add there. What worked well in your own response to Hurricane Helene and what would you do differently and include the next time?

So it's funny because this lesson was proven, has been proven out since I wrote the book, when I've done exercises for people. The first thing, some people get this right away and some people don't. They need to be prodded to do this. It's triage.

So when you know something's coming, you want to triage what projects and clients you have on deck that are going to need your attention. And if it's low value, not a good return, or somebody who you can rebook very easily, you get rid of that. And it's not. You don't try to cram everything in because you're going to need some of that time to doing preparation work for your personal preparation, your business preparation, making sure you're Going to be able to survive in the event something did happen.

And then it's just very easy to bring it all back online afterwards. And if it's somebody who, like I prioritized a person who it takes almost three months to book them. So I was like, you know what? I have to make sure that this happens.

And I, you know, the way I prepped my own house because I work out of my house and people should treat homes as a business place if they're working from home or working remotely. The things I did, I prepared for three to four days of no power, no water, and being an emergency management professor. These are things I'm intimately aware of, of what you need to do as for personal preparation. And I was very good at that.

And then even when the power and the water was not back, the water took, I think 54 full days for it to come back to be potable. Running water took about, I can't remember, like 20ish days, but I didn't get my power back for eight days. And knowing that I was able to adjust, like I had my, my stuff prepared and I was like, okay, we actually st other things. How much longer can I stretch this?

That was like all really good things. I also determined what I needed, what needed electricity to run, how I. And that was everything in my house to include my garage. So I thought I did really well on that.

Two things I would, well, one major thing I would have done differently that I did not anticipate, which is how much psychologically it was going to impact me. And even though I didn't realize I was in survival mode and how drawing that is on you. And it brought me back to when I was deployed that you're doing your job every day and it feels like Groundhog Day. You're like, did we talk about this a week ago or an hour ago?

I don't remember. Like you legitimately feel that way. And I actually had that conversation with somebody, one of my neighbors, right after Helene. I go, wait, did we talk about that today or yesterday?

I don't remember. I feel like I'm deployed and I didn't connect that. I also be dead tired when I got home, right? So home from my deployment, everybody just knocks out and sleeps.

And then here I went to Charleston on a pre planned vacation that I planned like two months earlier. And when I got to Charleston, I took a shower and I was like, I gotta get me some lunch. And I was walking down King street and wanted to lay down on the sidewalk and fall asleep. And I Was like, why are you so tired?

And I realized it's the calculus constantly of, okay, how are you going to charge your phone? How are you going to get information? Where are you going to go this, how are you, where are you going to walk here, like every day doing that calculus. And just because the disaster is over or you're safe doesn't mean that your mental bandwidth to do work is there too.

So one of the things I do with my clients is I tell them, like, your other disaster is the after effect. And a lot of people don't think about that. Like, even if you're in an active shooter situation, even if you're like a mall, it's not your store that's the victim of an active shooter, but you're still in the vicinity. Being that close to something that traumatic, you're not going to be able to go home, go to sleep, wake up the next morning, go to work just fine.

Preparing for the mental drawdown and having people come back slowly and the reduced capacity. Capacity to do work after the disaster is over, just from a mental health perspective is something I should have acknowledged because I forced myself to do a project that was now officially late because I was going to do it Sunday, the storm happened Friday, and I'm like, I'll be able to do it. And I did not. So I would have done that project earlier, number one.

And number two, I would have said, you know what, I can't do this. Because even as I did it, I was struggling. I'm like, I can't force myself. I was forcing myself to do work that I knew wasn't very good.

And I turned it in and it. The response was for not a very good product. The response was exactly that. Well, it's good considering the circumstances.

I was like, yeah, well, there goes that. I should have just bowed out on that one. For being honest and sharing that. I think one of the things, and I just want to point out, because I didn't at the beginning, you are a veteran and with the military.

And I first of all want to thank you for your service to the country. And secondly, I just also want to acknowledge, and you and I share some similarities in terms of experience. You've worked in war zones, you know, you've dealt with critical situations, let's say life and death decisions, been in zones of conflict. I have as well, unfortunately, without a weapon, which, you know, is a whole different circumstance.

In any case, what I wanted to get at is when you're in that operational mode and responding on a regular basis, whatever that is, and a critical incident, whether it's in a conflict zone or whether it's in a post disaster situation or responding to a potential disaster, that adrenaline and the thinking and everything that goes through your processing. Because, you know, in reading your book, I really connect with the mindset that you approach this with, which is, you know, look at what possibly could go wrong and, and what those knock on effects are or you know, second, third order, tertiary effects are.

And when you're doing that, it is very draining. It is, you know, and then also not just that, but here it's the secondary trauma of hearing the experiences because you also met with and dealt with folks externally in the community, I mean, both overseas and locally. And that hearing that and absorbing that is a strain. And so pacing yourself, I think is an important part.

And I think that that's brought out what you just mentioned and then in the book. One thing I normally don't do this is I am having a podcast that I'm going to be recording later this week with Patrick Beckley. Patrick is actually the head of the Long Island Railroad. He's the director of emergency management for them and he's focused a lot on disaster mental health for emergency managers.

So for any of my listeners, I would recommend. We're not going to get into depth on that here right now, but I just want to acknowledge that for the next episode that will be coming out soon. One thing I also want to touch upon is traditional risk management. Where is it that traditional risk management for businesses leaves gaps that business continuity can effectively fill?

So one of the issues with risk management is, you know, there's four ways you can deal with risk. It's to avoid it, it's to accept it, it's to transfer it, usually by contract to a third party like insurance or just, you know, contract it out to a vendor. And then there's also mitigating. And the only one that completely eradicates that risk is avoiding it all the other, you still have the risk at base and it's still going to be there.

And I think a lot of people don't realize that risk management can fail. And when it does fail, often options to cushion that blow or to get you on the way. And I love using the analogy of driving from A to B. So if you've done any risk management, you have an overlay map of the road where you have potholes on either side.

So you know which side of the road to be on at any given time. But that doesn't mean that you that Cattle aren't going to be in the road or there's going to be a rock slide or there's going to be an accident that you have to wait for it to be cleared up. If that's all you've done as risk management, because you're stuck. But if you've done business continuity, you happen to have a bucket of asphalt in your trunk with a shovel, and then you will pull over, pop open your trunk, fill up that hole, and be on your merry way on the.

Heels of risk management. Why is relying solely on insurance not an effective strategy? A lot of people will say that when it comes to business continuity, oh, I don't need to do it. I have cyber or I have insurance.

But they consider them as alternatives to business continuity. And that's where a big problem is. Because think about with car insurance, which everybody can relate to, does having car, Having car insurance make you more or less likely to get into an accident? Absolutely not.

And having car insurance does that. Once you're in an accident, are you made whole instantly and absolutely not. Even with the best policy, maybe two weeks is like the quickest. You'll get something.

It is supposed to be a financial bridge for gapping things. It's not supposed to be the solution to things. And it definitely doesn't get rid of the actual risk. It's like, all right, well, at least financially, I'm more cushioned on this.

And when people say, oh, I have an insurance policy, they don't fully understand their policy. And I tell people, go through your policy when you have to get it renewed every year. Actually, sit down with the agent. Don't just go through the email, go, oh, yeah, yeah.

Don't even read it and just click, you know, renew. Because you not only have to ask, what does it cover? You have to ask what it does not cover. And that's a very specific question.

And because I'm a recovering lawyer, so my legal brain knows those are two very different questions that elicit two very different responses. And when people found out the hard way here in Asheville, having business interruption insurance, which is a great thing, they're like, all right, sweet. I get to use my bi. It's amazing.

But because there were three different areas of destruction, two of them faced similar flooding. So the French Broad river and the Swannanoa river, the business is all there, completely destroyed by water. That's an easy BI claim to make. But downtown Asheville, all they did was lose power and water, not say all that they did.

But it was a regional issue. Everybody lost power and water. And you can't run a restaurant or a hotel or brewery without power and water. So they had neither.

And they're like okay, bi. And then they're like, hey, guess what? The BI policy is for damage that actually happens to your building and causes the loss of these things. There are things you can do to get around that to make sure that they pay out on your policy.

They are normally not forthcoming about that because it means they have to pay out. But there are things that can be done that your policy does what it wants to do. Now for the larger businesses like I was at FM Global, they have. I was at their research facility in near Providence at beginning of October and I was asking them about that kind of thing, specifically that.

And they go, oh, we cover everything because their premiums are like six digit, like the six figure premium. So they're covering everything for their clients. But for the smaller mid sized businesses you're not getting the level of coverage because you're not paying almost $200,000 in premiums every year. So like they're not going to cover stuff for you that you would think is.

Well, clearly it's interruption. Well, it's not so clear, trust me. Go through your policy. Yeah, it's that contingent aspect.

You know, it can't be an independent, just your facilities, just your immediate infrastructure. It's got to be broader. And that's a good point. And I think one thing I want to say is for folks who do have questions, they can actually approach you again be links to your businesses, your business link as well out to business website and then links to your book.

As I said, I do recommend reading that. One other thing I wanted to talk about is and I'm going to quote from your book so hopefully I know that sometimes this can be embarrassing but I think this is a really great quote. What a great idea. This is from page 21.

I think it's. I'm not sure which book but I will. I know how not to kill your business much longer. Subtitle there what a great idea it is to have a backup generator.

I could go on about generators. I'm sure as you can. Great ideas and goals without a deadline and action are just wishes. You can't make a wish and clap your business back to life like Tinkerbell does.

Once it's dead, that's it, it's gone. Can you explain further what meaningful steps of business can take? And also on that note, would you explain the RACI model for planning that helps address this? This in Other words, how to plan.

And I just want to mention RACI is. Is something that I'm project manager. I want to say maybe recovering project manager, but I'm not recovering because I've been doing it now for well over 30 years. And RACI is one of the core methods of planning that's part of team building and that sort of thing.

So I gave you a very long question. Please go ahead. Okay, so the first part about what meaningful steps businesses need to take, what I encounter is a lot of businesses are like, yeah, I want to do this. I'll put it on our board.

I'll, you know, it's a to do. We'll budget money for this. But that doesn't actually do anything. That's even.

That's a. You identify. Yeah, we need this. And then what?

And then usually it's too late by the time you're like, oh, no, that was on my to do list. But even taking the steps of budgeting for it, putting it. If you're an EOS implementer, putting it as a rock that you want to accomplish before the year is over, it doesn't mean it's going to get done. You actually have to put action behind those words.

And, you know, there are situations where, you know, they will have a generator because the IT guy says, we need a generator. But the son of the business who's now on the board because they sold the business, he's like, no, it's an eyesore. I don't want it on the building. And then there is a blackout and then they lose a whole lot of stuff.

And it's like, okay, now I want the. Now I agree. We should have the. It was sitting there not doing anything.

You have to actually, like, put. You do have to put actions behind these things. Because I said wishing doesn't cause anything to happen. And part of the racy process, it's responsible, accountable, consult.

And why am I blanking on inform I. So when I have people like clients, when I talk about them like, well, who's doing this? Oh, that's everybody's responsibility. No, it's not.

Because if everybody's responsible, nobody is, because everybody assumes somebody else is doing it. It's going to get done. That's not true. And then the accountable is for the authority.

Is the person that you're like, hey, this is what we need to do. Are we going to be doing. So it's communicating with the person who's allowing you to go forth and spend money on this or call that meeting and to pull Everybody away from clients. The consult part is you have to consult with an expert.

So you should consult with it before buying a generator. Because, like, oh, we have this brand new generator we spend $10,000 on. It's like, all right, it lasts for four hours, we're good. Our RTO, our RPO is good for eight hours.

So we need you to have something more than that. And then, all right, maybe two, maybe a bigger one. So consult, make sure you're getting the right thing that you absolutely need. And then, because, you know, a lot of people have really best intentions on what they're trying to do.

But if you're not talking to the people who are the experts on this, then your efforts might wind up fruitless and you've just wasted money. And then with respect to informed, you don't keep these things a secret. Let everybody know that this is something that you all do and that this is whatever the responsibility is, because that's part of the training and the exercising is, you know, if you talk about pedagogy, the theories of pedagogy are like, as far as retention of information, you within a week of reading something, I think you retain like 10% of what you've read a week later.

But things you experience and go through, you retain 80 to 90% of that a week later. And I, and I know from a client I did a training for and I did a tabletop exercise, I made their homework to read the continuity plan I wrote. And it's more of a playbook. My continuity plans are short.

There are about five to seven pages because I only have what you really need to know. And then I have a choose your adventure spreadsheet pull down thing. Like, if this happens, this for whatever series of disasters or risk I think they're going to face, it's not a lot to read. And I made it that way on purpose because I wanted to be useful.

And they all read it. And they all read it. They promised me. They did.

I even confirmed with them in the morning when I got to their office to do the thing. And then when it came to the actual exercise, they were like, huh? I don't, I don't, I don't know. All right, I got guys.

It's in there. Look at this. They're like, oh, oh, okay. It's very different.

And I even said to them, is this now incredibly different? Like you thought you knew it was in there. They're like, yeah. We realize we don't know what's in there until we actually go through the Paces.

And that's like super important. Make sure everybody's informed about it and to the lowest level. And when I walked out of that particular engagement, I was going to catch my flight back to Asheville. I, I wasn't meant to hear this, but the receptionist said, hey, I think we should do this quarterly because we might forget some of the stuff.

And I'm like, yes, if the receptionist gets it, that's amazing. Yeah. Oftentimes those are the folks that are the most that have some of the greatest wisdom around what the company actually does need because they're the face in many ways of that not face externally, but internally and they deal with a lot of what's going on. One other thing, and I wanted to touch upon this because businesses, especially solopreneurs, I think, as you put it, solo entrepreneurs, people who are, you know, basically founders like yourself or myself in a way, but also small and medium sized businesses as well.

When we're talking about micro businesses, those mom and pop shops that we often refer to, many of them I'm sure that exist in Asheville or have in any small town which make up over 50% of American businesses. And we're so focused on the day to day. And that's not only there, but of course, you know, Wall street and companies, they're focused on the bottom line and return on investment. They're not seeing the other aspect of it you point out in the book and that's the cost of inaction or coi.

Explain how that important that is looking at the cost of interruption or inaction versus you know, the just focusing on return on investment. Yeah, I can tell you too, I'm blue in the face how wonderful and great these things are. Oh, you get a competitive advantage, you get this, you get that. But there's always going to be something else that's more important to you.

Especially if you're a small business and you're like, I don't have the time to do this, I have to make more money. But when you realize that business continuity or any kind of preparedness and mitigation aren't luxuries, they're leadership strategies, you begin to understand how vitally important it is to do them. And when you set yourself up for success, it doesn't like the ROI comes by the fact that you have avoided your cost of inaction, you've avoided business death, you've avoided all these expenditures you're going to have because here in Asheville and any, any place where things were put off to something else is I had the businesses I know here that I had tried to reach out to the mentoring groups to see, say, hey, I would love to teach about business continuity.

We don't think they'll be interested in that. We think something like marketing. And I was like, no. And as the mentor, you're supposed to tell them what's really important, tell them this is important.

And when they're all throwing up their GoFundMes after Helene, a GoFundMe is not a business continuity plan. And it's like, well, how good is that marketing budget now if you can't even open your doors to take in people? And I'm not trying to be mean about it, but it's realistic. It's what happens.

Be. Let that be an example. Don't let that happen to you. Because even if they had done a rudimentary business continuity plan, and I would have told them that, because I talk about this in every single lecture I give about business continuity.

The Readiness for Resiliency grant through the U.S. chamber of Commerce foundation, who partners with FedEx. If you're a small business, not a micro, a small.

So micro is included in that. And you have a continuity plan and you register with them in advance of a disaster, they will give you $5,000 grant free and clear to help you recover. Once they've determined, and they'll proactively reach out to you. They have a database to look at zip codes.

When there's a presidential disaster declaration, they'll reach out to you, and you have to say, yeah, I suffered. The amount of money, like $5,000 might not seem much to larger businesses, but when you have just you and five other people, that could be salary for them for the rest of the month. Something when they have nothing otherwise, you've lost out on that. You lost out on free money.

You lose out on valuable time because you have to go back and fix things or you have to start all over again. You lose market share if you're not open, because a lot of times there's nothing uniquely special about you. And maybe you do things a little different than somebody else does. But if it's something that everybody else can get from anywhere else, if you're not open, they're going there.

Will you be able to get them back when you're back on your feet, who knows? They might not need you anymore. They might like what somebody else did, or they might like the fact that somebody else was available when you were not. Yep.

Thank you very much for sharing your insights in terms of business continuity, especially those from the book. And again, I want to emphasize two books that Erica is an author of. When the S hits the fan Business Survival to Thrive, grow and keep your cash flow after disasters is our most recent book published in 2025. I guess at this point we're in like we're just we go with this double digits 25.

And then the book that she published in 22, how not to kill your business. I think a great title Grow your business in any environment. Navigate volatility and success with recovery when things go wrong. I think for not only small businesses and medium sized businesses but really anyone who wants to to get a good grounding and not bore themselves with the average business continuity book.

Because like yourself, I also teach in at an academic level and if I really want to help people get sleep, I'll assign them lots of reading and some longer business continuity books. I'll list Erica's company website, Erica as a Service Consulting or eaas, which I got better this time and other resources. Please see those in the show notes. Erica Andreessen is a recognized expert and consultant at Business Continuity and founder of Erica as a Service.

Again, Erica, I want to thank you very much for coming on the podcast. Thank you. Do I have a quick moment to add something extra that people might find interesting? The floor is yours.

So the special extra is I've known you for five years, slightly over five years at this point. And I think the last time you were very, very kind to give me your time when I first got in the military, before I even knew this was what I was going to wind up doing. And it's funny how years later you're like, hey, we should talk. And I'm like, yes, you were one of the first people who were just so kind to even help me prepare for a job interview.

And I was listening to your podcast before that to like make sure I was ready for this job interview. My, my issue was I wasn't a certified continuity expert then, so I didn't know the difference between military jargon and civilian jargon. When I was asked about what's your experience with disaster recovery? I'm like, oh, I helped, you know, when I was an EOC legal advisor, I helped recover from a disaster.

And the guy's like, she doesn't know what she's talking about. Well, I didn't know that doctor was a specific term of art within the BC world. But still you were, you were such a kind and generous having. I don't even remember who introduced us, but it was like really quick.

And you were just, I just think you're wonderful, Andrew, and I want people to know the type of guy you are. Thank you. I appreciate that. And I do know who it is and I'll give him a shout out.

He's based in beautiful but very cold Buffalo, New York. And that's Michael Schultz. He's a volunteer firefighter and he does some great work in emergency management, although sometimes unsung in many ways. And thank you for that sentiment.

I appreciate that. And again, I appreciate your service as a veteran and it was a great conversation and I hope that my listeners really take these lessons to heart. I know for myself I have my homework, my assignment, actually. I have my backup computer literally sitting on my desk.

So my primary computer, my backup computer ready to go. And my goal in this first quarter is to mind meld these two computers so that at any given point, if you know, I have one, then I am ready to go. One fails, I have the other one that's a backup as well as triple redundancy. But I also, I think, as you mentioned, I need to get my power cell that'll be solar powered.

So it'll have two, actually two functions. One is take me a little bit off the grid and, you know, give me a renewable for at least the, you know, setup that I have at home, my home office, but also for my backup computer. Yeah, here's your tip. Make sure that you're charging them quarterly just because if you wait till you actually need them to charge them, sometimes they won't hold a full charge.

So if you charge them, it keeps them maintained, especially solar panels. Again, thank you very much, Erica, and wish you a great start to 2026. You as well, and to your listeners. In a world where emergencies are becoming increasingly complex and varied, the need for effective coordination and planning has never been more paramount.

Enter the Project Management for Emergency Managers workshop. This unique online learning experience is designed to equip you with the tools and strategies to streamline your emergency management efforts. Over the course of six engaging weekend sessions, we delve deep into the principles of project management tailored specifically for your needs as an emergency manager. Learn the skills needed to navigate the complexities of emergency management.

You've been listening to Riding the Wave, hosted by Andrew Boyarski, President of Pinnacle Performance Management and clinical Associate professor in Emergency and Project Management at NYU and John Jay College.