ITI on the Front-lines of an Actual Disaster Recovery

On Wednesday, June 8, Eric Kaczor was sitting in his cubicle, answering phones and consulting with clients like usual. The next day, he was standing on the main floor of Citizens State Bank waist deep in water from the flooded Roseau River, scrambling to help restore the bank's operations. Such is life for Eric, a Senior Customer Support Analyst at ITI, and a member of the ITI Disaster Recovery Team. He recently traveled to Roseau, Minnesota (near the Canadian Border), where flooding had disastrous consequences for that town and caused serious damage to Citizens State.

"The water in the streets was more than four feet deep, making it difficult for the National Guard Army truck I was riding in to get to Citizens State," describes Eric. "Once we reached the bank, we couldn't get through the main doors because the current from the flooded river created too much pressure. So we backed up to the canopy of the drive-thru where I was able to climb on top and then safely position a ladder to reach a door on the roof of the two-story building."

Warned that a levee in the nearby river might break causing the flood, bank personnel had managed to move much of their equipment to the second floor before the floodwaters arrived. "They moved their sorter, their mainframe, anything they were physically capable of moving in a short amount of time," said Eric. "Still, quite of bit of vital software was left behind on the main floor, and bank president Robert Foley and I had to wade through waste-deep water to recover those items."

This is the second disaster recovery effort Eric has been involved with. The first took place a week after September 11th when Eric was called to help with recovery efforts at Colson Services Corporation in New York City. "While that trip proved to be more emotionally draining due to the scope of the disaster, both recovery efforts were similar in that I had to help bank personnel concentrate on what we needed to do to get things up and running again," said Eric. "Naturally, people were worried about family and their homes, so you have to keep asking questions to keep them focused.

Eric was joined by two people from SunGard and one Unisys employee in the Citizens State recovery effort. They successfully moved much of the equipment from the second floor of the main branch (often times having to use a forklift) to a branch location 12 miles away in another town. Some vacant office space in a nearby office building in Roseau was used to allow bank customers to continue doing their banking in town.

"Overall, it was a smooth recovery effort," said Eric. "There's still a lot of work to be done to repair the flood damage to the main bank, but until then, Citizens State remains open for business."

Submitted by Information Technology, Inc.

ITI Boilerplate Information Technology, Inc. (ITI) provides America's bankers an extensive array of technology solutions and support services for core accounting, relationship management, teller and platform automation, Internet banking, account aggregation, e-commerce solutions for business and consumers, business intelligence, imaging and document management. A comprehensive suite of planning, installation, support, training, analysis and consulting services supports all technology solutions. Founded in 1976 and headquartered in Lincoln, Neb., Information Technology has grown to include its subsidiaries Precision Computer Systems (PCS) and eSolutions, as well as partnerships with some of the best-known technology companies in the world. Contact ITI at 402.421.4207 or partner@iti.fiserv.com. ITI can also be found on the Internet at www.itiwnet.com.

ITI is a subsidiary of Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), a provider of industry leading information management systems and services to the financial industry.

First published on BankersOnline.com 3/10/03