Interview with Dr. Ed Goldberg, CBCP, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Coordinator at Northeast Utilities

1. Leveraging Emergency Preparedness to Align with Business Continuity
Planning
Interview with Dr. Ed Goldberg, CBCP, Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery
Coordinator at Northeast Utilities
Utilities need to ensure that critical systems and
processes can be restored in a timely manner during
a crisis, with reduced negative operational and
financial impacts. The marcus evans Business
Continuity & Organizational Resilience for Utilities
Conference will address major topics such as
preparing for major storms and natural disasters,
business continuity planning, critical infrastructure
as it relates to the ICS, lessons learned in a
business recovery resumptions program and capital
investment.
Dr. Goldberg answered a series of questions written
by marcus evans before the forthcoming Business
Continuity & Organizational Resilience Conference, July 16-18, 2013 in Atlanta, GA. Ed
shares how to effectively align a culture with business continuity planning. The
responses below strictly reflect the views and beliefs of Dr. Ed Goldberg and not
necessarily those of Northeast Utilities.
When looking at your company’s culture of preparedness, how have you
leveraged the communication between the business continuity and storm
restoration teams?
Ed Goldberg: The most challenging aspect of working with folks who do storm
restoration is to have them understand what a business continuity (BC) plan is and why
it is not the same as a storm response plan. Typically, storm restoration plans are
mature and used relatively often; at least these past few years in the northeast. To get
to that mutual understanding, rather than create a new and separate BC plan and
process, we leveraged the wealth of experience with incident management from the
storm restoration group and used it to build robust BC plans.
Because good BC plans engage outside agencies in advance of the need to do so, I
worked very hard to cultivate relationships and share knowledge with our local, regional
and state and federal emergency management authorities. This included involving them
in our BC exercises, participating in their planning and preparedness activities, and
even hosting their meetings when they needed a larger venue.

2. As a result of all that networking, when issues arose with restoration planning, I was
loaned to the restoration planning group to help plan and exercise new processes, help
with communications improvements, etc. This led to unprecedented levels of
cooperation between all forms of responders and processes that helped the organization
deal with “super storms” – hurricanes, blizzards and off-season heavy snow, etc.
What initiatives have you taken to align the culture with business continuity
planning?
EG: We started the process of aligning culture and BC planning with very small and
basic steps. Several years ago, we implemented a formal BIA (Business Impact
Analysis) process whereby we survey each workgroup that performs an important
business process to see what they do, how they do it and what they need to do it. That
last part, what they need to perform a business process, is key to planning for when
one or more of those things aren’t available. Included in the survey are systems (IT or
other, people, facilities, as well as details such as dependencies, “we can’t do our work
until you give us the xyz data.”). The survey results allow cross checking between
workgroups for conflicts, (example: the xyz system will be available days after a
disaster, but two groups need it in two days.) as well as with other resource providers
such as facilities, HR, security, etc.
The survey and analyses process is followed closely by one on one group interviews to
further engage the workgroups in critical thinking about what might challenge their
ability to perform their work. Once the groups are engaged, they can begin the process
of creating a plan that works for them. The function of BC planning then becomes
simply facilitating workgroups who are creating their own BC plans. At this point,
groups are thinking about their work and BC plans to continue it should something
happen. Once engaged in the process, the next level requires ongoing challenges to
encourage better preparedness.
One of the more successful of these was a “Stop Sign Drill” in which we stationed
personnel at every entrance to a major campus and gave them a packet with a large
red stop sign on the cover. It basically asked them what they would do right now if they
couldn’t enter the facility; who would they call, where would they go, what would their
role be, etc. It included additional planning information and admonition to talk to their
supervisor if they had questions. A short survey to determine their level of knowledge
was included and with responses kept anonymous (in support of the safety conscious
work environment) with an option to include contact info if they wanted to be entered
in a drawing for prizes. The event generated ongoing discussion and many planning
improvements, especially in terms of communicating roles.

3. How would you describe the ideal “business continuity mindset” for both short
and long term activities?
EG: While I’ll settle for “close to ideal”, ideal would see everyone top to bottom in an
organization engaged in resiliency. What that looks like is a mindset where people
consider actions, decisions and changes for their immediate cause and effect, as well as
unintended consequences and long term effect should a disaster occur. The pervasive
nature of information technology, for example, makes life easier and business more
effective and efficient on a daily basis. But, our reliance on that technology often
neglects the underlying infrastructure, as well as our evolving inability to live or work
when it’s not available. We want people to think about that up front, not when the
disaster is at hand.
Lastly, since your role is in storm management and disaster recovery, how
have you applied the cultural change lessons into your company’s best
practices? What is the key component to successfully execute these
processes?
EG: I’m not a senior officer of the company, and it is truly difficult to create cultural
change bottom-up, or even from the middle. However, each of us has some sphere of
influence in which we can hopefully create change. As was the case for me, I was
fortunate to be peddling a product whose time had come; business continuity planning
after 9/11/2001. Whether by virtue of our position/office, or by the timing and
environment of our efforts, all we can do is take best advantage of whatever
opportunity we have to get people to understand the need for business continuity
planning, to engage them and have them leverage existing strengths like storm
management. In the end, we seek to cause a lot of change across a lot of people so
they carry the BC torch forward as their own cause without as much effort as it took to
get it all started. Strategically, we’ve succeeded in changing the culture because people
understand, for the most part, what BC plans are and why we have them. On a more
tactical level, the organization is busy and backslides to its old ways if there is no BC
presence or activity. Staying prepared is an eternal process, not a one-time project that
can be dusted off now and then.
Dr. Ed Goldberg, CBCP manages Northeast Utilities’ Business Continuity and Disaster
Recovery programs out of Berlin, CT. He is responsible for all BC and DR at NU,
including CL&P, Yankee Gas, NSTAR Gas, NSTAR Electric, Western Massachusetts
Electric and Public Service of New Hampshire. Prior to his current role, Ed served 10
years as IT manager at Millstone Nuclear Power Station. Ed is a board certified business
continuity professional with over 30 years IT and management experience. He served 4
terms as president of Connecticut ACP - the Association of Contingency Planners - and
currently serves as the chapter's programs director. He is a past President and current

4. Programs Director of the Connecticut chapter of the Association of Contingency
Planners (ACP) and the Education Director on the ACP corporate (national) board.
For more information, please contact Michele Westergaard, Senior Marketing Manager
at 312-540-3000 ext. 6625 or Michelew@marcusevansch.com.
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