lead-forensics

Planning For Business Continuity

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The CDC has released a guide on how businesses should be preparing for a possible outbreak of COVID-19 (commonly referred to as the Coronavirus). While the guide has a lot of great information, we wanted to summarize it and add a few more details that Central Texas businesses should be reviewing now to limit the impact of an outbreak on both employees and operations. If you have any questions about the items listed below, please let us know!

  1. Review/update or create your business continuity plan. Examples and guidance can be found here: https://www.ready.gov/business-continuity-plan
  2. Review the list of people who have the ability to work remotely.  If your office needs to be closed for 2+ weeks, make sure that everyone who needs remote access has it. Pay special attention to Payroll, AP, and AR roles.
  3. Confirm that the people above have recently tested their remote access, especially if it is used infrequently.
  4. Publish and review the continuity plan with your employees. A plan that no one else knows about is not helpful.
  5. Make a plan for forwarding your published phone numbers from your system. If you are on VoIP, this should be easy.
  6. Review and publish an updated contact list with cell or home phone numbers, especially for key staff members.
  7. If you have a lot of meetings, ensure that you have a web conferencing tool that can accommodate potential attendees. Ensure that you have cameras and headsets if needed.
  8. Provide hand sanitizer stations, hand soap, and plenty of paper towels for your employees. Consider posting instructional material about the proper method and importance of hand hygiene. The CDC has released a lot of great material for this available here: https://www.cdc.gov/handwashing/campaign.html
  9. Check for frequent updates that could impact your community and employees. Here in Central Texas, some great places to check would be:
    1. Bell County Public Health District
    2. Waco – McLennan County Public Health District
    3. Temple ISD
    4. Belton ISD
    5. Killeen ISD
    6. Waco ISD
  10. If your employees don’t have laptops but may be expected to work from home, now is the time to consider getting them company-issued laptops.
  11. As with any world news, there are already coronavirus phishing messages making the rounds. Be careful (as always) with opening unexpected messages that are designed to elicit an emotional  response.

If you need to talk with a trusted advisor regarding your plans to maintain business continuity, Lighthouse IT is ready to help!

Headshots Adam 1 thegem person

Adam

Help Desk

Adam was in the Navy before he joined our team in 2015. He is cool under pressure and a calming influence on the help desk. Perhaps this is because, after staring down Somali pirates off the coast of Africa, printer and email problems don’t seem so intimidating! Adam likes to shoot things (not people – thought we should make that clear), play Xbox, and of course, shoot things on Xbox! A husband of fourteen years with two children, he has been all over the world and still calls Central Texas his home. His teammates say, “Adam has an incredible memory when it comes to our clients. He remembers names, Internet settings, applications and printers!”
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Tyler

Projects Team Lead
Tyler cut his technological teeth through four years both in part-time work and in working with one of our telephony partners. Tyler loves working and learning, and has built a larger network at his home than 90% of our clients have in their businesses! He is thoughtful with his own money, preferring to buy a home and drive an old truck rather than pay rent and car payments. His hobbies of woodworking and gardening dovetail nicely with home ownership! He’s been known to play a bit of electric guitar, he enjoys 3D modeling and printing, and drives a gray Mustang GT that he’s modded as completely as his computers! Several of our team were in the wedding party when he got married!
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Aaron Johnstone

Help Desk Manager
With more patience than Job and more experience than most people in IT today, Aaron is the go-to guy for challenging problems. He directs our team both in the maintenance and help-desk functions. Aaron has been in IT for over twenty years and has played nearly every role possible EXCEPT, he reminds us, Sales. We can test almost every system in our client base on Aaron’s home network because it’s extensive and complex. When he isn’t tinkering with computers, he loves to read, play video games with his kids, and run. Aaron’s been married to his wife for twenty-one years and they have two daughters and a son. His teammates say, “I can always count on him to have my back. If I can’t find the answer, Aaron knows where to look!”
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Eli Meier

COO | CTO
Eli is our jack-of-all-trades. His degree is in English, and he intended to teach before he discovered a natural aptitude for computers. He combines the two in his role at Lighthouse, as he has a unique ability to explain complex technology in relatable, understandable conversation. Over more than twenty years working in IT, he’s written e-commerce programs for a university, set up an email cluster for a major league baseball team, and managed/executed hundreds of IT projects. He enjoys classic Volkswagens, cooking and barbeque, and hiking and camping. He and his wife have been married twenty-one years and have nine kids. Though he is 6’1”, he is the SHORTEST male in his entire extended family. We all feel badly for him.
Headshots Ray thegem person

Ray Wilson

Chief Executive Officer
Ray is our CEO and he is passionate about helping businesses – both ours and our clients’ – succeed. Except for Skip, he’s probably been involved with IT longer than anyone – he was troubleshooting computers and repairing them at his school when he was seven! As an intern while attending UMHB, he was involved with IT, but really started growing when he joined our team in 2005. When he transitioned most of our clients to managed services, our MSP business was truly born, and we then grew it from five to forty people between 2006 and 2016. In that time, he was a help desk tech, business processes consultant, account manager, salesperson, sales engineer, client services manager, sales manager, and COO. If you want to get his juices flowing, challenge him to any team sport or ask him to go snow skiing. He’s been married to his high school sweetheart fourteen years and they have three high-energy boys. Oh… and both of his parents are also small business entrepreneurs.

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