Washington State ACP Chapter

Contacts

President, Steve Woolley, CBCP, PMP
Vice President, Vicky Wills
Treasurer, Bob Posey, ABCP
Secretary, Bill Weyrick
Membership, Judy Sweet
Program, Victoria Leighton
Education, Jama Hawk, CBCP
Information, Kevin Thomas, PMP, CBCP
Public Relations, Teena Christel

Past President, Cheryl Bieson, CBCP

President	Steve serves as a Senior Solutions Architect in Hitachi Data Systems’ Bellevue Washington office. His primary focus is in the area of business continuity strategic initiatives. Prior to joining Hitachi Data Systems, Steve was a Senior Analyst at Nike developing innovative approaches for global supply chain operations, a Program Director at Comdisco delivering strategies and program management support for several key organizations, and Vice President at First Interstate Bank leading the Business Resumption and Emergency Management programs through a period of extensive acquisition and process consolidation. Steve leverages his education and broad industry background and key disaster related experience to provide key insights and management direction to organizations seeking to implement or improve their business continuity programs. His collaborative style, coupled with sound project and program management skills, ensures a comprehensive and well thought out approach.
	Email: president@acp-wa-state.org

Vice President	Vicki is an Information Technology Manager with the City of Seattle. She has focus on various operational issues for the City of Seattle’s Department of Information Technology. She chairs the City of Seattle Information Technology Business Continuity Planning Community and represents the technology department on all emergency operations planning efforts. Vicki has worked as an IT operations manager for various City departments including Seattle City Light and Seattle Public Utilities and has extensive knowledge of various city operations. She is currently working with the Office of Emergency Management (OEM) to ensure that all City departments are developing Continuity of Operations Plans for essential City services. Vicki graduated from the University of Washington in Business. It was the desire to have constant learning environments that lead her to become a developer and programmer with private firms until a move into the infrastructure operational area within the City of Seattle. She is a native of Washington.
	Email: vicepresident@acp-wa-state.org

Treasurer	Bob Posey is the president of Allied Business Systems, Inc. Allied has two operating divisions, Computer Classrooms In Seattle and Business Continuity Center of Seattle. His primary areas of focus within BCRP are helping and hosting clients to execute their IT recovery exercises, corporate workgroup recovery strategies and small/medium business recoveries. Bob has a bachelor-of-science degree from California State University, Sacramento and an MBA from the University of Oregon.
	Email: treasurer@acp-wa-state.org

Secretary	Bill has over twenty years experience dealing with Business Continuity/Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) Planning. He has two certifications in these fields. The SRP (Senior Recovery Planner) certification through the University of Richmond, VA, and the highly valued CISSP (Certified Information Systems Security Professional). He started his working career in computer operations and was promoted into computer operations management where added responsibilities were given for business continuity and disaster recovery. He joined two BC/DR organizations in the early 90’s and has been a member of the ACP since it’s inception in Washington State, which now includes being a member on the executive board. Bill has worked in medium to large organizations and has been a consultant to multi-billion dollar companies, such as Microsoft and Honeywell. Although he has worked with business units and public organizations, his main focus has been working with I.T. department DR plans. This includes the coordination of business requirement aspects and plan integration for the organizational business continuity plan.
	Email: secretary@acp-wa-state.org

Membership	Judy Sweet is with the Department of Information Services for Washington State and is the Enterprise Business Continuity Program Manager. Judy along with her staff is implementing an enterprise level program to ensure critical government services are maintained or disruption is minimized through proactive planning and mitigation. Judy’s previous work was with King County where she led business continuity and disaster recovery efforts. Prior to that, Judy led enterprise Business Continuity planning for Progress Energy, a major utility providing energy to 2.8 million customers in North Carolina and surrounding areas. As a certified Business Continuity planner, Judy has weathered the howling winds of 5 hurricanes, executing response and recovery plans to restore critical services quickly.
	Email: membership@acp-wa-state.org

Program

Vickie Leighton, a native of Washington, is a subject matter expert in enterprise-wide continuity planning for government, industry and international organizations. Ms Leighton has worked with local, state, federal and international agencies since 1982. She has written many plans in various industry sectors on a wide variety of topics, including: continuity of operations, business continuity, mitigation, emergency and environmental planning and critical infrastructure, as well as crisis, contingency, security, disaster recovery and resumption planning.

Ms Leighton has been involved firsthand with many disasters over the years, and she has consulted with and trained hundreds of personnel in emergency operations in the public and private sector throughout the United States and its territories, Europe, Eastern Europe, and Japan. She has participated as speaker in local, national and international conferences, and she also has participated in and written plans for tabletop, functional and full-scale exercises with local, state, federal and international organizations.

Ms Leighton holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Central Washington University and Medical Assistant degree from the Puget Sound Institute of Technology. She serves as a member of the board of directors of CLCIC a not-for-profit organization that works to mitigate homelessness in Seattle, Washington.

Email: programs@acp-wa-state.org

Education

Jama L. Hawk has been involved in business continuity planning since 1998. She has experience in various aspects of business and facility management, IT management and security. Ms. Hawk earned her Certified Business Continuity Planner (CBCP) certification from DRI International in 2006.

Ms. Hawk works for the Washington State Housing Finance Commission in downtown Seattle as Manager for their Business & IT Services unit and directs their business continuity program. In addition, Ms. Hawk assists other housing finance agencies throughout the U.S. with the development of business continuity programs. She also works with internationally-focused small businesses on developing and implementing business continuity programs. Ms. Hawk serves as an advisor to a community school implementing preparedness mandates and increasing emergency preparedness awareness.

Ms. Hawk is a member of the Association of Contingency Planners and has recently acted as interim Education Director for the Washington State Chapter of Contingency Planners. She also is a member of Seattle Mountain Rescue.

Email: education@acp-wa-state.org

Information

Kevin Thomas is a risk manager specializing in business continuity and project management. He has managed world-wide engagements for clients as a consultant and currently is a business continuity practitioner for a financial services organization supervising the company’s business continuity directives. Kevin has spent 5 years actively involved in business continuity management, as well as security and asset management, providing a “holistic” approach to asset protection. Kevin has over 10 years experience in information technology in addition to 10 years in healthcare. Kevin is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Certified Business Continuity Professional (CBCP).

Email: info@acp-wa-state.org

Public Relations
	Email: pr@acp-wa-state.org

Past President	Ms. Bieson is recognized as an industry expert in Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Planning with over 18 years experience across a multitude of industries. She obtained her CBCP accreditation in 1994 and was certified as a DRII Instructor from 1997 through 2004. Ms. Bieson maintains a high degree of involvement in the industry as the current President for the Washington State Chapter ACP, a former Director for the Pacific Region on the DRI Canada Board of Directors, Past Chairperson of the Certification Committee for DRI Canada and Past President of DRIE (Disaster Recovery Information Exchange) West. . Ms. Bieson has instructed and lectured at many industry conferences including DRJ Fall and Spring World Conferences, World Conference on Disaster Management, CIPS (Canadian Information Processing Society) Conferences and ISACA (Information Audit and Control Association) Conferences. Companies that have attended educational seminars and/or utilized Ms. Bieson’s considerable expertise include: Microsoft, Expedia, Nike, IBM, Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, Comdisco, Hewlett Packard, the ATCO Group of Companies, Fidelity Investments, Motorola, PanCanadian Petroleum, Suncor Energy, INCO Ltd., Bell Atlantic and Canada Customs and Revenue Agency.