Disaster Resistance Business Council

A Tulsa's home-grown team of volunteers helping small businesses plan to survive fire, flood, wind, power loss, or other troubles that can sink even the most determined entrepreneurs.

We want to help businesses and nonprofit social service agencies strengthen their protection and planning before disaster strikes, whether in the form of natural disasters or even everyday emergencies such as a power failure.

Current Events

Fourth Annual Disaster Management for Long Term Care Facilities Workshop (Adobe Required)

Do Small Businesses recover from Disasters?

Parade Picture

When disasters strike, small businesses are uniquely vulnerable.  Twenty-five percent of small businesses closed down by disasters simply never reopen.

Small business preservation is central to Tulsa Partners’ strategy for growing the local economy.  As in most communities, small business is Tulsa’s backbone, accounting for 80 percent of all local businesses.  More than 85 percent of the Chamber’s 2,500 members have fewer than 10 employees.

Big businesses need to mentor small businesses to help them plan now to survive the worst.  That’s what we’re trying to do with workshops, conferences, public education programs, one-on-one mentoring, speeches, and other outreach activities.

Is your Business ready in case of a disaster?

“The Tulsa group is developing a mentoring program that we are using nationally as a prototype for other communities,” says Diana McClure, IBHS Vice President and the national director for the IBHS Open for Business™ program.

The Open for Business™ toolkit includes a booklet with step-by-step forms that can be filled out to document the business continuity plan. 

For more information or to download a free copy of Open for Business™, see www.IBHS.org


Partners

Back row: Dennis Currington (Metro Chamber of Commerce), Sandy Cox (Business Continuity Planner), Linda Muirhead (Tulsa Health Dept.), Crystal Klein, Claudia Arthrell (Family & Children's Service), Sandra Gunner (former President, New Orleans Chamber of Commerce), Dave Hall (State Farm), John Wiscaver (State Farm), Bob Roberts (Project Manager, Millennium Center), Tim Lovell (Executive Director Tulsa Partners) Front row: John Westmoreland (State Farm, retired), Rick Myers (former President, Association of Contingency Planners) DRBC volunteers joined forces in 2006, under the umbrellas of two parent groups: Tulsa Partners, and The Institute for Business & Home Safety and its Open for Business™ program.

DRBC chair Dave Hall, manager of small business programs for State Farm Insurance.

Rick Myers, former president of the Oklahoma Chapter of the Association of Contingency Planners ACP.

Kim Holland Commissioner of the Oklahoma Insurance Department

Dennis Currington, Small and Minority Business Development for the Tulsa Metro Chamber.

 

Click here for more information or Contact Us with any questions or comments.