Speakers: Ralph Schulz, CEO-President, Nashville Chamber of Commerce  Wendy Freitag, External Affairs Manager, WA Emergency Management Division  Jim Valley, Executive Director, Centralia-Chehalis Chamber of Commerce This session will present two case studies of business communities hard hit by flooding events (one in state/one out of state). Participants will early on in the session see the similarities that exist as two distinctly different business communities struggle to regain their economic viability post disaster. With the number of disasters nationwide qualifying as presidential disasters continues to increase averaging almost 56 a year during the past decade, the time has come for the emergency management community to devote more time to understanding and developing effective business/economic recovery programs. This interactive panel session will provide access to an array of practitioners that have experienced the challenge of designing and setting up on the fly business recovery programs. This session will provide an opportunity to learn firsthand what works and where we need to put our energies to be ready for events in our own Pacific Northwest region in the future.

1. Partners in Preparedness ConferencePartners in Preparedness Conference
Ralph SchulzRalph Schulz
President and CEO
Nashville Area Chamber of CommerceNashville Area Chamber of Commerce

11. Guiding principle:Guiding principle:
Personal and job
recovery must go
hand‐in‐hand.hand in hand.

19. First Lesson:First Lesson:
Timely and
accurate warning
could have savedcould have saved
hundreds of
ll fmillions of
dollars.

20. Second Lesson:Second Lesson:
Business recovery
resources are
limited.limited.
Government
t d tsupport needs to
be easier, faster
and built to help,
not frustratenot frustrate.

21. Third Lesson:
Mechanisms
should be put inshould be put in
place to mitigate
h ff fthe effects of
future disasters.

25. July 22, 2010 – U.S.
Senate Energy andSenate Energy and
Water Appropriations
Subcommittee held aSubcommittee held a
hearing to examine
how federal agencieshow federal agencies
responded to the
floodflood.

27. Partners in Preparedness ConferencePartners in Preparedness Conference
Ralph SchulzRalph Schulz
President and CEO
Nashville Area Chamber of CommerceNashville Area Chamber of Commerce