Someone once said that for every adversity there is an equal or greater opportunity.

About the time the Internet was becoming popular, I began my career as a Microsoft trainer with New Horizons. After several years I started my own training company and gained high recognition by delivering quality training for Tulane University, The University of Phoenix and many businesses in Louisiana and Mississippi. As a Microsoft Certified Trainer (MCT) I formed an alliance in 2002 with The University of Southern Mississippi to provide Microsoft and CompTia training for the A+, N+ MCSA, MCSE, Office and other technical programs. After opening the Microsoft IT Academy at USM we soon had three locations in Mississippi, including the NASA Space Center. A newly built-to-spec IT Academy was scheduled for grand opening on September 1, 2005 in Slidell, Louisiana. As most now know, the entire Mississippi Gulf Coast was destroyed along with most of Southeast Louisiana on August 29, 2005.

My wife and I, living in Slidell Louisiana, survived a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina only to realize in the days following that our lives were forever changed. Not only was my business gone but her sales territory was destroyed, as well. Our children, in Mississippi, lost their home, car and all belongings in addition to a good job. My wife’s mother’s home was also destroyed. However, we were the lucky ones. We still had each other, our health, our dreams and faith in the good Lord.

We didn’t know how at the time but we just knew that we would recover and have a better life than before. Since then adversity has turned into a greater and more exciting opportunity.

We relocated to higher ground near Birmingham, Alabama and now live on a mountain overlooking a beautiful valley. My wife found a fantastic opportunity with a national organization and spends each day meeting with independent business owners to help them improve their business.

Our children and grandchildren are now resettled near Birmingham, and doing much better than before Katrina.

I now have a passion to help others survive something that I hope they will never have to live through. Take it from me when things seem like they are really going great they can change in an instant. Many business owners in Louisiana and Mississippi who had dedicated their lives to building a dream suffered a tremendous setback on August 29th, 2005.  Many businesses failed to reopen because they had lost critical records needed to restore operations.

Katrina was a wake up call to the fact that nearly every day somewhere in the world there are people, organizations, cities, etc. being affected by some catastrophic event due to weather, fire, flood, terrorism, theft, tsunami, earthquake, volcano, plain old hard drive failure or other types of data loss that could potentially cripple, if not end, the possibility of recovery.

In some way, we want to be there for those who may need recovery assistance for their organization’s operations if disaster were to strike. Talents, dreams and hard work can never be saved on a hard drive or backup tape but if we can help start the recovery process for those in distress then our mission will be accomplished. As I experienced, once hope returns it won’t be long before the sky is blue again. Hope comes when you know you have the option to recover and that is what we are all about, providing an option for recovery.

So if you are enjoying your life and the fruits of your hard work please take a moment and think about what you would do tomorrow morning if you woke up, like I did on August 30 2005, and all you have worked for was gone. How would you put it back together? How long would it take? Remember, computers can be replaced, software can be replaced, and yes, even employees can be replaced. The question is, how do you replace critical data like accounts receivables, customer information, employee records, etc., once that data has been destroyed? Another growing concern regarding data protection is recent legislation requiring data security, protection and retention. Legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Gramm-Leach-Bliley, etc., may be placing certain businesses at risk if their data is not secure, protected and readily available. Having data at a secure remote offsite facility with built-in redundancy is becoming increasingly important for organizations as a safe and low cost method of protection against future litigation issues.

Do you have a disaster recovery plan in place? In less than 30 minutes you can take the first step by protecting data that may be critical for your recovery.

Our mission is to protect your data and we will be honored to be a part of your recovery plan. One that we hope you will never need.

Joel Epperson

President

BS MCSA MCSE MCT