worked through well by AmeriGas at the
time of incident; but having been through
the experience, Iannarelli noted that there
is some planning that should be done to
ensure they know “what to do, who to do
it, and how to be effective quickly.”
In those critical first 72 hours, the
AmeriGas organization rallied, specific
recovery teams knew their roles and
stepped up valiantly, and AmeriGas’ field
operations which drive the revenue for the
business were unaffected.
Getting Back to a New Normal
After the initial crisis response period,
and upon learning the true extent of
the fire damage, it became apparent to
AmeriGas senior leadership that a recovery team needed to be established with
a single program director for coordination of all of the key workstreams. Steve
Kossuth, AmeriGas procurement director, was named into that role and worked
to coordinate facilities, IT, desktop computing, telecommunications and fax, and
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applications teams. Soon into the role
Kossuth found that communication across
the teams was essential due to the rapid
timeframes and sheer volume of work to
be completed. Additionally, it was clear
that senior operating management needed
to be shielded from the day to day recovery activities in order to focus on business
operation. Kossuth found himself acting as
a buffer and translator for recovery activities (many of them technical and detailed)
while allowing recovery teams to function
and senior management to stay apprised of
progress.
Confronted with an aggressive goal to
have all AmeriGas employees back into
an office location and functioning as soon
after Jan. 1, 2010, as possible, the recovery
team mobilized immediately and reached
out to key vendors.
“Suppliers stepped up and worked
side by side with AmeriGas – they put in
long hours up to 16 hours some days and
worked with us on holidays (to help with
the recovery),” said Kossuth. He believes
the make-up of the recovery team and the
fact that everyone felt recovery was a “
personal responsibility” was a major factor in
the achievement of the aggressive goal of
having all AmeriGas employees into the
recovery space and functioning by Jan. 5,
2010, less than three weeks after the fire
incident.
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Information Technology
Having been the focus of the start
of the continuity program at AmeriGas,
information technology was arguably the
most prepared to respond to a disaster.
Martin Gibbins, director of technical services, feels that the success of the recovery comes down to two simple factors.
“We had a good plan and we were able to
execute it.” While that seems a bit understated, Gibbins feels that that really was
the difference between the successful and
low to no-impact felt by the field and the
potential catastrophic situation that could
have ensued if no plan was in place. “We
tested well, raising the bar each time,”
Gibbins noted.
Aside from the execution of the technical recovery, Gibbins notes that clear
communication to employees was critical. Some people were getting information from the press and news outlets rather
than through AmeriGas leadership, and
