Preservation NJ: A City Setting
Why Professionals Need the ‘Net
Make the Internet Your Partner
Corrections or additions?
This article by Kathleen McGinn Spring was prepared for the April
2, 2003 edition of U.S. 1 Newspaper. All rights reserved.
Volunteers Prepare for Disasters
The title of this year’s New Jersey Conference on
Volunteerism
evokes grim memories of the recent past as well as present-day
concerns:
“Let’s Roll — A Symposium on Disaster Preparedness and
Response.”
The day-long event take place on Friday, April 4, and Saturday, April
5 at the Atlantic City Convention Center. Call 800-286-6528.
Emergency preparedness is plainly in the air. A similar event
sponsored
by the American Red Cross takes place Monday, April 7, at 7 p.m. at
Rider University (609-951-8550). And two weeks ago the Red Cross
pulled
together representatives of a dozen U.S. 1 area companies to explore
ways in which the business community can participate in emergency
response — see the cover story in this week’s issue starting on
page 16.
While the majority of workshops at the conference will put the
spotlight
on planning for and reacting to disasters, other topics range from
fundraising to professional development for the volunteer manager
to the cornerstones of board development.
The workshops addressing the role of the government, employers, and
non-profits in disaster situations cover a broad range of topics.
Harry Sheppard, president of the New Jersey County Emergency
Management Coordinator’s Association, speaks on “How to Design
a Disaster Plan;” Dr. Edward Bresnitz, a New Jersey
epidemiologist,
speaks on “Bio Terrorism;” George Anthony, president,
Peace Dynamics, speaks on “Teaching Tolerance and Understanding
in Times of Crisis;” Richard Dalfonzo, field representative,
Monmouth County Office on Aging, speaks on “Thinking Outside the
Box: Seniors Fighting Terrorism;” and Michael Schneider,
director of public relations, the Cherenson Group, speaks on
“Communication:
Getting the Message Out.”
In a Disaster, Non-Profits Must Coordinate
Think about the co-ordination required to respond to
a disaster. One non-profit has food to distribute, another has a
surplus
of volunteers, a third knows where to find trucks. Meanwhile, each
non-profit is receiving urgent calls from clients who need to know
— right away — where they can get help in finding food, paying
the rent, and getting prescriptions filled.
To better coordinate a response to all kinds of disasters, the state
formed the New Jersey Voluntary Organizations Active in Disasters
(NJVOAD) several years ago. Brenda Beavers, state director for
human services, the Salvation Army, is secretary of the organization.
She speaks about NJVOAD at the April 4 New Jersey Conference on
Volunteerism.
“It had a resurgence after Tropical Storm Floyd,” Beavers
says of NJVOAD. The organization, which meets once a month, was active
after 9/11, too, and that unprecedented disaster pointed up areas
in which coordination could be improved. The post-9/11 climate has
also created new challenges for member volunteer organizations, and
a more urgent need for coordination.
As Beavers ticks off the names of organizations that belong to NJVOAD
the scope of volunteer groups come into focus. Members include the
Bar Association, the Humane Society, the Red Cross, Catholic
Charities,
the Civil Air Patrol, AARP, Lutheran Disaster, the Salvation Army,
the Food Bank, and the AFL-CIO Community Service. On the public side,
members include the Office of Emergency Management and the New Jersey
Commission on Community Service.
“We’re looking at systems issues,” says Beavers. This is an
area that could have been better during the days and months following
9/11. “We’re working on people’s ability to access services for
next time,” she says. She adds matter of factly, “there’s
going to be a next time.” That doesn’t mean, she hastens to add,
that the disaster will be of the type and scale experienced on 9/11.
It could well be an act of nature or a large-scale accident. But
Beavers,
an almost life-long member of the Salvation Army, has seen enough
to know that disasters have a way of continuing to come down the pike,
one after another in a relentless procession.
While some people may include the Salvation Army in career plans from
childhood, Beavers is not one of them. “Growing up, I had two
memories of the Salvation Army,” she says. One was of her
grandmother
sending her to its offices with a donation envelope once a year. The
other was of the Salvation Army bell ringer who stood beside the
kettle
on the Green at Morristown at Christmas.
When it was time for her social work internship at Kean University,
then Newark State College, from which she graduated in 1973, her
professor
suggested that she work at the Salvation Army. She was not keen on
the idea, but soon saw the connection between the Salvation Army and
social work. “They hired me before I graduated,” she says.
She has worked there for most of her career, and is now in charge
of all of the organization’s human service outreach, including
feeding,
special needs, day care, homeless shelter, a camping program, services
for the Armed Forces and their families, and, yes, disaster services.
“No two days are alike,” she says. And neither are any two
disasters. The range of issues is mind-boggling, and Beavers is full
of stories. During the Kosovo crisis, when thousands of fleeing
refugees
ended up on military reserves in New Jersey, she recalls that the
government made an appeal for clothing. “Everyone and his brother
wanted to donate,” she says of the response, calling it typically
generous. But there was a problem. “The women didn’t wear
slacks,”
she says.
This example points up a job for NJVOAD. “There is a need to
educate
the public and politicians,” Beavers says. The message? “We’ll
let you know what we need, and when we need it.”
There are any number of situations in which cold, hard cash is
preferable
— by a wide margin — to baskets of clothes or cans collected
from household cupboards. Yet, Beavers emphasizes, it is important
that non-profits be sensitive to the human need to do something to
help. The trick is to help a stricken population heal by rounding
up toys, beef jerky, and warm sweaters, while, at the same time,
making
sure that those offerings are not wasted.
A prime example occurred during the 9/11 response. Hearing of rescue
dogs working at the site, “everyone donated dog food,” says
Beavers. From all around the country, dog food rolled in. “We
had pallets of dog food,” she recalls. But, “the search and
rescue dogs only ate Science Diet and chicken breasts.” Thousands
of dogs in animal shelters can not afford this culinary hauteur. So
agencies receiving the dog food called the shelters to haul away the
bounty of dog chow.
Again, coordinated education comes into play. The need to donate must
be honored, but, says Beavers, “we have to let people know that
the leftovers will go somewhere else.”
A more common need is to help households keep functioning after a
disaster. Substantial help in doing so comes largely from the Federal
Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and Beavers says the non-profits
have had some difficulty in helping clients to request and receive
the help they need. NJVOAD is working to help its members
“understand
how FEMA works and how best to serve clients.”
Another important, and universal, issue involves the best use of
volunteers
during a disaster. “There are long-term trained volunteers,”
says Beavers, “and then there are spontaneous volunteers.”
The latter have no knowledge of a non-profit’s operating procedures,
but they do have an urgent desire to do something to help their
neighbors.
Acting on their generous impulses is “necessary for their
healing,”
says Beavers.
By acting together non-profits can best find a task suited to every
volunteer. Equally important, the non-profits can develop guidelines
suited to post 9/11 concerns. “It’s a whole new dynamic,”
says Beavers. “Who’s going into your building?” In August,
2001 few non-profits would have thought to question the good
intentions
of the spontaneous volunteers who show up after a disaster. Now, there
is a new level of security. Says Beavers: “Life has gotten
complicated.”
Assessing the Risk
Charlie Maney, a chartered property and casualty
underwriter, works for American Re, but he addresses the April 4
volunteer
conference in his role as a volunteer. The title of his talk is
“Insurance
Matters!,” but he says that he is speaking not so much on the
need to insure against disaster, but rather on the need to be aware
of all the sources of liability and to assess risk tolerance in regard
to each.
To help organizations of all kinds think about the ramifications of
a disaster, he uses the example of an explosion in a school chemistry
lab caused by a leak in a propane tank. “Four students are killed,
12 are injured,” he says, setting up his hypothetical. “There
is smoke damage, and students lose $10,000 worth of personal property.
A fire escape collapses during the evacuation, and others are injured.
The property has to be fenced and equipment removed. A computer
program
is lost.” He goes on, saying that the school immediately contacts
a grief counselor, holds a special memorial service, and deals with
the press.
Following the disaster, it is discovered that the school was not
responsible
for the leak, and a product liability suit is filed against the
propane
tank’s manufacturer. However, the teacher had stepped just outside
of the classroom door to take a message right before the explosion,
and the school is sued for negligent supervision.
Covering the fallout from the explosion would require, Maney says,
multiple coverage, workers comp, general liability, business
interruption,
extra expense, employment liability, and environmental liability
insurance.
Employers of all kinds, he says, should postulate a worse case
scenario
and then to do a cost assessment. In other words “how would you
pay for what would happen?” In some cases, the answer, is that
money could easily be found in an operating budget. Some companies,
he says, “spend $15,000 on a $100 problem.” An example could
be insurance on computers. There was a time when replacing a brace
of computers was a budget-busting expense. This is no longer the case.
An analogy, suggest Maney, can be made to a 1990 Dodge van. “Do
you really want to have comprehensive and collision?” he asks.
Look at business insurance with the same eye. There may be some areas
where coverage can actually be cut, while other areas may need to
be added or beefed up.
The damage from a disaster extends beyond the monetary, Maney points
out. There are some things that no insurance policy covers. One is
the goodwill of employees. An employer has no duty to house his
workers
should they be unable to go home following a disaster, he says. But
the more effort the employer makes to ensure their safety and comfort
— and that of their families — the more likely it is that
he will retain them after the smoke clears.
Organizations need to examine everything from insurance coverage to
contingency housing plans to company policies. And not just once.
“You have to do more than one scenario, and you have to do it
every year,” says Maney. Businesses change, and risk needs to
be reanalyzed. Perhaps executives are traveling more. Should their
itineraries be checked against State Department warnings? Should key
executives make separate travel plans? Does chartering a plane make
sense?
No organization can prepare for every contingency, but a quick read
of the high school explosion scenario points up areas to consider.
Some require insurance, while others call for nothing more expensive
than regular checks on property maintenance checks or company policy
reviews with employees.
Top Of PagePreservation NJ: A City Setting
On a trip to Nevada, lured by guidebooks praising its
historic district, we detoured some four hours to visit Brigham
Young’s
summer home. Stretching after alighting from our rental car, we stood
before two or three houses. That was it? We had driven across the
desert to see fewer houses than are shoehorned into any number of
corners in central New Jersey?
In fairness, there may have been more than three houses, but not many
more. Taking a gander at what there was to see, we marveled at how
little it took to create a historic district west of the Mississippi.
Of course, New Jersey has no natural wonders to match the dramatic
splendor of the red rocks through which we had driven to visit the
historic district, but the state is chock-a-block with fascinating
history.
On Friday, April 4, at 8 a.m. Preservation New Jersey holds its
“2003
Annual Historic Preservation Conference” to look at some of the
issues involved in keeping our past alive. The first part of the
conference
takes place at the auditorium of the Department of State building
on West State Street in Trenton. This segment includes a keynote
speech
by Anthony Tung, author of “Preserving the World’s Great
Cities: The Destruction & Renewal of the Historic Metropolis;”
a panel discussion on “Historic Preservation: A Catalyst for
Growth;”
a tour of Trenton’s revitalization successes and opportunities, which
visits Mill Hill, Warren Street, and the Sovereign Arena areas; and
a panel discussion entitled “Crossroads of the Revolution Heritage
Area,” which looks at how to create a heritage area.
The second session, beginning at 2:30 p.m., takes place at Thomas
Edison State College and features six panel discussions. Topics
include
developing community centers around rail stations, preserving the
historic character of our communities, creating a sense of place
through
road projects, and urban revitalization.
There is a closing reception and exhibits at the Masonic Temple on
West Front Street in Trenton at 5:15 p.m. The cost of the conference
is $45. Call 609-392-6409 for reservations.
Top Of PageWhy Professionals Need the ‘Net
Is the reminder that a dental check-up is on your
horizon
less painful when it arrives via E-mail? Maybe. And if not for you,
then certainly for your dentist’s receptionist, who surely must tire
of “waiting for the beep” to leave voicemail reminders for
hours each day.
The Internet can make life easier — and more profitable —
for professional offices, but so far few are taking advantage.
Catherine
Hung is ready to help doctors, dentists, accountants, and other
professionals make the leap into cyberspace. She speaks on
“Increasing
Business Efficiency Through the Internet” on Saturday, April 5,
at 3 p.m. at the Plainsboro Library. For free reservations call
609-721-5599;
fax, 530-937-7220 (E-mail: catherine.hung@pioneertec.com).
Hung is the owner of BixKonex, a startup specializing in setting up
professional offices with the hardware and software they need to move
clerical, recordkeeping, and customer management tasks onto the
Internet.
“Some offices still have appointment books,” says Hung. It
is a fair bet that most people who have forgotten (subconsciously
or otherwise) the date of an upcoming root canal procedure know this.
Page flipping, accompanied by heavy sighs, is frequently audible over
the phone line when a call is placed. The poor souls entrusted with
entering the information into those extra-long, ruled books
understandably
are not thrilled to hear: “Well I think the appointment was
sometime
around Easter, or maybe Mother’s Day.”
With a software package, a professional office can send out reminders,
have patients see what time slots are available, make appointments
online, and check the date of the appointment should they forget.
The information is then accessible from any place a doctor happens
to be. This is a boon to doctors doing hospital rounds, Hung points
out.
Rescheduling also can be done online, a function which saves untold
hours of the office staff’s time, as a cartoon prominently placed
in one dentist’s office reveals. In the cartoon, a bored looking
receptionist
leans on her desk as a serial canceler speaks through the phone. She
says something like, “No, it doesn’t matter what date you pick.
We don’t even bother to write it down anymore.”
Beyond appointment chores, a professional can profit from the Internet
by expediting the horrible task of obtaining insurance verification,
approval, and reimbursement. “They can submit claims
electronically,”
says Hung. “That way there are no rejections because a form is
not correctly filled out.” As anyone who has tried to register
for anything online knows, if any blank is not filled out to the
form’s
satisfaction, red arrows signal the error, and it is impossible to
go further without putting in satisfactory data. Getting the
information
in correctly increases cash flow. “You get real time responses
on eligibility and claim services,” says Hung. A number of major
insurance carriers are now set up to offer services online, she says.
Internet communication is also a good way to maintain solid
relationships
with patients or clients. A website can offer directions, office
hours,
staff biographies, news about the practice and about its area of
expertise,
and even special offers. (Probably not two root canals for the price
of one, but maybe $10 off a cleaning.)
Hung lists her company’s range of services as everything from hardware
purchase and set up through installation of software and advice on
subscriptions to Internet services. How about training for the staff?
Listing another plus of doing business on the Internet, she says,
“with the Internet, there is very little training.”
Hung, whose office is at 9 Perrine Path, West Windsor, studied food
engineering at the National Chun Hsing University in Taiwan (Class
of 1979) before emigrating to the United States, where she obtained
a master’s degree in computer science from Stevens Institute. She
has worked for large technology companies, including AT&T and
Telcordia
Technology. When she arrived in the United States, she sought the
excitement of New York City, but when she started a family, she moved
to central New Jersey for the school system. She has two daughters,
who are students at West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North.
Top Of PageMake the Internet Your Partner
The Internet is good for a whole lot more than taking
orders. There is a laboratory company, for instance, that helps
grant-seeking
scientists by letting them price out the supplies they will need.
The scholar goes through the company’s web-based catalog, picking
out what he expects to need to complete the work he hopes to fund
through a grant. He fills out a pseudo shopping list, and gets a price
total. After the grant comes through it is a good bet that the
scientist,
his shopping list already made out, will purchase his supplies on
that laboratory company’s website.
Nunzio Cernero, assistant dean for training and development
at Mercer County Community College, chuckles as he tells this story,
clearly thrilled by the ingenious use of the Internet the lab supply
house had come up with. Cernero has been helping small businesses
to get off the ground for 27 years. He started the Small Business
Development Center, formerly based at MCCC, and now working from the
College of New Jersey, and also the Center for Training and
Development,
an MCCC initiative targeting the training needs of large companies.
Cernero moderates a full day seminar, “Starting/Expanding a Small
Business in the Age of the Internet” on Thursday, April 10, at
8:30 a.m. at the Conference Center at Mercer on the West Windsor
campus
of MCCC. Cost: $149.
Cernero has another Internet anecdote. “This is one of my
favorites,”
he says. “There is a company that sells decorative stone. It has
a network of people looking for stone mined locally. It uses the web
to let its agents show the stone to potential customers.”
The web, declares Cernero, “is not for putting up a picture of
your product anymore.” It is now a strong operational tool, and
in his opinion, every business needs to be taking advantage of it.
The Internet is a perfect vehicle for sharing information, for keeping
in touch with customers, for cutting costs, and for doing essential
business research.
“I just worked with somebody to get a trademark over the
Internet,”
says Cernero. “You can do a search, submit an application, and
get the trademark. All over the Internet.”
Large companies started integrating the Internet into their businesses
five to ten years ago, Cernero observes. “What I see happening
now,” he says, “is that small business owners are seeing lots
of ways to use the Internet.”
Cernero gives three how-to-start-your-business seminars a year, and
he says that questions on how to build a website, how to sell over
the Internet, and how to best to take advantage of the Internet are
frequent questions. Every business, he says, needs an E-business plan,
even if it does not yet have the resources to execute on every part
of it. The seminar guides entrepreneurs through many phases of
E-business
planning and discusses website design choices. But is also covers
business basics, including marketing, financing, and accounting.
The demand for information on forming a small business is tremendous,
says Cernero, who had to hold two sections of his small business
seminar
in January to accommodate everyone interested in taking it. “There
is a movement away from employment to self-employment,” he says.
And, happily, there is a market for many more entrepreneurs.
“Statistics
are such that we still don’t have as many small businesses per capita
as there are in Germany or Japan,” he says. “We have 25
million
small businesses, but there is a lot more room.”
In the course of his work at MCCC and at the Trenton Business and
Technology incubator, Cernero sees every type of new small business
— from a collections agency to an indoor soccer center. He and
his wife also keep an eye out for new enterprises during weekend
jaunts
around the state.
“We’re seeing more small retailers,” he says. “In Spring
Lake and Chatham and Belmar, the stores are filling up. We were in
Morristown yesterday,” he says during a Monday interview. “We
saw a new toy store, a bridal gown shop, and a couple of
restaurants.”
He reports that 21st Century, the upscale discount department store
that sells designer clothes, has moved into the anchor location on
the Morristown Green once occupied by Bambergers. “That space
had been empty for 40 years,” he says. “Morristown is coming
back.”
The big store creates customers for the small ventures, and vice
versa.
A new business, Cernero points out, can be any size. “It’s not
how much money you have,” he says. “It’s how you use the money
and plan. People fail with $1 million, and people succeed with
$1,000.”
But what about the stock advice that start-ups need substantial
capitalization
to get through their first couple of years? That is true, says
Cernero,
but the key is a good business plan. You can’t start a $20,000
business
with $2,000, but you can start a $2,000 business with $2,000.
“I’ve read over 300 research studies,” says Cernero. “It’s
hard to draw a correlation between start-up capital and success.”
The biggest factor is how you overcome challenges. The successful
entrepreneur, he says, does not look at problems; he looks at how
to get around problems.
The medical and dental staff at the Medical Center
at Princeton have donated $100,000 to support community education
and training for healthcare professionals. The money will be used
to strengthen the medical center’s community education initiatives
and to develop and implement a new Clinical Simulation Lab used in
training programs for nurses and other healthcare professionals.
The community education and outreach program promotes wellness by
providing health-related programming to the public at little or no
cost. This includes lectures, screenings, health fairs, and other
lifestyle-related programs targeted to the needs of women, seniors,
minority groups, parents, and children.
The medical center will be the first hospital in New Jersey to have
a comprehensive simulation lab for hospital education that is equipped
with Laerdal SimMan Universal Patient Simulator technology. The new
state-of-the-art Clinical Simulation Lab will provide personnel with
ongoing hands-on training in the latest procedures and techniques.
The lab will also be used to enhance the clinical experiences of
students
from the College of New Jersey, Mercer County Community College, and
Mercer County Vocational School. The lab is slated to open by June
2003.
For more information about the medical center’s community education
and outreach programs call 609-497-4460.
A unique program of financial literacy training geared toelementaryand middle school students will be introduced at the CadwaladerElementarySchool in Trenton. The program, part of the Kids Financial Coalition,is being rolled out statewide by the Center for Financial Training,a non-profit association, with support from Fleet , which issponsoring the distribution of the financial literacy curriculum.Thomas Edison State College has received a $29,850 grant fromthe Ford Foundation in support of a study on the public sectorresponse to 9/11. The project will be conducted through the John S.Watson Institute for Public Policy.The grant will fund supplemental research to the college’s study ofphilanthropic response to the events of 9/11. The initial study, alsofunded by the Ford Foundation, largely focused on the lessons learnedfrom the efforts by foundations, corporations, and other privatesectorfunding sources. The follow-up study, under the direction of ThomasSeessel, will examine the response by the public sector. The studywill compile and analyze the experience of government agencies atall levels so that policymakers may have a framework in planning forfuture urban emergencies.On March 3 U.S. Trust Company of New Jersey sponsoreda dinner at McCarter Theater honoring donors. The theme of the eveningwas “A Conversation with McCarter Divas.”Top Of PageTax Break for SUVsSUVs are cycling out of fashion, but accountant StuartRosenblatt of Wiss & Company offers businesses a good reasonto consider purchasing one of the vehicles, and not only that. Hesays the bigger the SUV, the bigger the tax break.According to Rosenblatt, the IRS has just issued its 2002 versionof Publication 463 — Travel, Entertainment, Gift, and CarExpenses.Under the tax law, passenger automobiles are subject to annuallimitationsdepreciation write-offs, generally referred to as “luxury carlimits.”Normally a vehicle is defined as a passenger auto if its unloadedgross vehicle weight is 6,000 pounds or less. Therefore, virtuallyall cars fit within this definition and are subject to the annualdepreciation limitations. In the case of SUVs, trucks, or vans, the”unloaded gross vehicle weight” rule is ignored and a specialrule “gross vehicle weight” is used instead. SUVs are onlytreated as a passenger auto when the manufacturer’s maximum loadedweight rating for the vehicle is 6,000 pounds or less. As a result,several SUVs, including the Cadillac Escalade, Chevy Suburban, LexusLX470, and Lincoln Navigator, are heavy enough to escape thedefinitionof a passenger auto.The weight of a vehicle, says Rosenblatt, is written on a metalplate or sticker on the driver’s door.If the SUV is heavy enough, and therefore not classified as apassengerautomobile, there is no annual limitation on depreciation. For theyears 2002 and 2003, the maximum depreciation that can be claimedfor a new car is $7,660, no matter what the cost of the car. But themost gigantic SUVs bring in a much greater deduction. An SUV witha $50,000 price tag could earn the tax payer a write-off of as muchas $36,000. The deduction kicks in if the SUV is used more than halfthe time for business.Rosenblatt does not weigh in on the cost of gasoline.Top Of PageWalk to Work — Win PizesWorkout to Work is Greater Mercer TMA’s newest incentiveprogram, designed to help area workers stay healthy by walking orbiking to work or to a transit link to work. The program is fundedin part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. It providesincentivesand resources to employees who bike or walk to work and support toemployers who promote healthy commutes. Employee incentives includeeligibility for prizes and discounts; employer support consists ofon-site programs and materials.Workout to Work is designed primarily for the person who lives withinfive to ten miles of the worksite or public transit and wants tocombinedaily exercise with a commute. Participants are provided withresourcesand information they need to get started, including suggested routes,safety information, and commuting tips. Each month that employeestrack their healthy commute miles, they are eligible for prizes.Employees can register and track their miles online atwww.gmtma.org/workout.The GMTMA points out that short car trips — up to five miles —are the most polluting type of trip, adding ground level ozone,nitrousoxides, carbon dioxide, soot, and noise to the environment. Theorganizationalso reminds us all that biking or walking to work enables employeesto fit exercise into their busy, but often sedentary, work routines.People who get to work on their own steam are healthier and moreenergetic,also more alert and relaxed.To promote a more healthy commute, GMTMA stands ready to arrangeon-siteBrown Bag Lunches and Bicycling Education courses at no cost. CallSandra Brillhart at 609-452-1491 for more information.Top Of PageLoan Cap LiftedBanks can once again lend small businesses up to $2million, guaranteed by the Small Business Administration, which lifteda $500,000 loan cap imposed five months ago in response to federalbudget constraints.The cap caused a 14 percent decline in dollar loan volume for theSBA’s first fiscal quarter ended December 31, although the numberof loans was ahead of the previous year. New Jersey had a record yearfor SBA lending in the fiscal year ended September 30, and is onceagain on track for a strong year.The SBA imposed the cap at the beginning of the federal fiscal yearlast October 1, in part because Congress hadn’t yet passed a budgetproviding funding for the SBA. President Bush signed the new budgetin February.Corrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
