Continuity of Operations (COOP)
Maintaining Critical Business Operations in the Event of Disaster
COOP is a comprehensive planning effort to ensure that the performance of an organization’s essential operational functions will seamlessly continue in response to adverse conditions, such as utility failures, severe weather or terrorism. CHHS, as an industry-leading expert in this field, will provide the expertise and resources necessary to ensure that an organization’s COOP program is robust, responsive, intuitive, customized, and fully compliant with federal and state standards.
Examples of COOP-centric services offered include: Mission Essential Function Assessments, Business Process Analyses, Business Impact Analyses, Risk Assessments, Functional Contingency Plans (e.g. alternate facilities, telecommuting procedures, devolution plans), Plan Development and Implementation, and Training, Exercise and Evaluation. CHHS Continuity Program Director Eric Oddo is a FEMA Level 2 Master Continuity Practitioner.
CHHS offers a two-day management level training course in continuity planning titled “Maximizing Organizational Resiliency: COOP for Public Entities.” It contains 11 modules over the course of two days, and is designed to provide participants with the knowledge, skills and abilities to develop, implement and exercise a comprehensive continuity program for their organization. Since it was originally piloted in 2006, the course has been delivered over 200 times in 30+ states and US territories.
For more information, please contact:
Eric Oddo
Continuity Program Director
(410) 706-7352 | eoddo@law.umaryland.edu
Featured Projects
Frederick Community College
CHHS guided Frederick Community College through a systematic identification of its mission essential functions across the entire spectrum of its academic and administrative operations. The project identified personnel requirements, resource requirements, facility needs, and contingency solutions to building incapacitations and campus closures.
United States Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS)
CHHS guided APHIS through the development of Business Process Analyses (BPA) for each if its mission essential functions. A BPA is a method of examining, identifying, and mapping the functional processes, workflows, activities, personnel expertise, systems, data, partnerships, controls, interdependencies, and facilities inherent in the execution of an essential function.
Maryland Public Service Commission (PSC)
CHHS guided PSC through a systematic development of its agency COOP plan. Essential functions, key personnel, resource requirements and a robust alternate facility were identified as part of this project.
