On January 23, 2014, CU*Answers, a 100% credit union-owned CUSO, held an annual corporate “Continuity Awareness Day” as part of their business continuity awareness and training program to help demonstrate the commitment at all levels for emergency response and continuity planning. For the purpose of this day, over 250 T-shirts were distributed and worn by staff members from all departments (including board of directors) at each of the three datacenter locations. Printed on each shirt is the “CONTINTUITY RESPONSE TEAM” identification and a creatively designed logo embedding three critical action steps that contribute to the success of the program:

• PROTECT
• DETECT
• RESPOND

Business continuity awareness and training is a part of daily operations at CU*Answers from new employee orientation and regular employee education classes to high availability production rollover exercises and annual disaster recovery tests. No one is exempt from knowing their roles and responsibilities when adversity strikes.

“Potential disruptive events are lurking around each corner”, states Jim Lawrence, CBCP, Manager of Disaster Recovery and Business Resumption Services at CU*Answers. “Those resilient organizations that survive and thrive are the ones who plan ahead and are prepared.” Events like Continuity Awareness Day are design to be informative and fun, “but it’s the little things we do daily; it’s our collective response to each incident and to every CU*BASE^® Alert we post that demonstrate our level of preparedness. To accomplish this requires the active engagement of every staff member.”

Additional information regarding the CU*Answers Disaster Recovery and High Availability programs can be found at http://www.cuanswers.com/bcp/ .