Welcome to the New York Chapter of the CPE

Contingency Planning Exchange (CPE) New York Chapter strives to provide its members with ideas and resources to continually enhance business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis/emergency management strategiesand tools through its educational programs and the sharing of ideas and best practices across all industry classifications.

Founded with the New York Chapter in 1985, CPE is dedicated to keeping its members on the cutting edge of information and trends related to keeping business, industry and government running during an after an emergency.  This is achieved through educational programs and by encouraging relationships with peers across the private and public sectors.  In recent years we have expanded the organization to include additional chapters.  CPE is a growing organization, encompassing a membership base from a variety of industries and widening disciplines associated with contingency planning and crisis management.  To meet the demands for knowledge, education and networking, the CPE has reasched out to areas beyond our immediate region and reorganized itself; the CPE is now organized under an Executive Board and has chapters in New York, Long Island, Washington DC and the Lower Hudson Valley.  As we add new chapters, they are carefully selected to add dimension not only to our core membership, but to meet the objectives and mission of the organization.

Meetings

Our Chapter holds four quarterly meetings each year - 3 half day and 1 full day conference.  We also have occassional special purpose meetings.  Our meetings are held at locations sposnored by our membership.  In recognition of these firms and their generosity, we would like to thank the following firms for their support:

Alliance Capital

Bank of New York

Citigroup

Con Edison

Deutsche Bank

Goldman Sachs

JP Morgan Chase

Morgan Stanley

NYIT

New York Life Insurance

Pfizer

The Board of the Contingency Planning Exchange (CPE) is a board of volunteers who devote their time and energy to building the success of the organization and maintaining its mission.

Alesi, Patrick - Chair

Diehl-Brenits, Susan - Finance and Compliance

Fucito, Robert - Vice Chair

Imbornoni, Robert - Membership

Iradi, Dan - Communications

iKatzer, Paul - Communications and Social Media

Perlman, Robert - Programs

Ramirez, Roberto - Programs Director

Tracy, Edward - Finance and Compliance

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Patrick Alesi Chair Executive Director and Head of Business Continuity Management for the Americas Company:  Nomura Address:  2 World Financial Center; Bldg B New York, NY 10281 Phone:  212-667-1474 Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Personal Bio or Company Description:
Patrick Alesi is an Executive Director and Head of Business Continuity Management for the Americas region at Nomura, having joined the firm in June 2010. Mr. Alesi's current responsibilities include strategic planning and incident response management as well as regulatory compliance for Business Continuity. Mr. Alesi previously worked for Lehman Brothers in the Business Continuity Management group, ultimately as global co-head of the function holding the title of Senior Vice President. Immediately following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy, Mr. Alesi was a Director at Barclays Capital, where he served on the IT Transition team overseeing the delivery of data and IT services to former Lehman entities. Mr. Alesi also worked at the New York Mercantile Exchange as its Director of Systems, Operations, and Database Administration. He has a broad range of technology experience in systems analysis, voice, and data communications. Mr. Alesi has served as Chairman of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Business Continuity Committee and as a member of the Futures Industry Association (FIA) BCP Committee.

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Robert Imbornoni Membership Address:  65 Williams Road, Chestnut Ridge, NY 10977 Phone:  347-236-9649 Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Personal Bio or Company Description:
Bob is a Senior Manager at Continuity First (recently merged with RP Risk Advisors) specializing in providing subject matter expertise and consulting in disaster response, emergency preparedness and business continuity to small and medium sized organizations. From 2005 – 2011 he was with the Greater New York Chapter of the American Red Cross (ARC/GNY), first as the Deputy Response Officer and then as the Chief Response Officer.  He oversaw the disaster services program of the busiest Red Cross chapter in the United States.  These operations included the initial response to 7 - 9 disasters a day though out the chapter’s jurisdiction of the New York metropolitan area and the Lower Hudson region of New York State.  Typically these disasters included fires, floods, building collapses, and building vacates.  Other areas of operation that he oversaw included the 24-hour Emergency Communications Center, the Family Services, Disaster Mental Health, Disaster Health Services, Mass Care & Sheltering, Staffing, Training, Logistics, and Partner Services units, as well as the Service to the Armed forces program. Before joining the Red Cross, Bob spent more than 20 years with the New York City Police Department, where he reached the rank of Lieutenant and retired as the Emergency Management Liaison for the Chief of Department.  He has designed, conducted and participated in thousands of emergency response training exercises in his over 30 years of emergency response experience. Bob has been a member of the NYC CPE since 1997 and is currently a member of the board of directors.

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Dan Iradi Communications Address:  41 Stimis Lane, East Hanover, NJ 07936 Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Personal Bio or Company Description:
Dan Iradi has served as an American Red Cross Disaster Services Chapter Director since 2005 both in NJ and NY State. As a national disaster responder, Dan worked during the response and recovery phases of Hurricanes Ivan, Katrina, Wilma and Ike and the 2007 Nor'easter in New Jersey. He has conducted numerous workshops on personal, family and business preparedness and is a national advanced instructor on disaster relief strategies and tactics. His expertise in exercise design, control and evaluation, as well as facilitation, has allowed him to travel nationally providing training to strengthen disaster response readiness. Dan received his Juris Doctorate degree from the Catholic University Columbus School of Law in Washington, DC in 1996.

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Paul Katzer Communications and Social Media Senior Manager Company:  Pfizer, Inc. Address:  235 East 42nd Street, New York, NY 10017 Phone:  212-733-0574 Fax:  646-441-6068 Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Personal Bio or Company Description:
Paul Katzer is the Senior Manager (Operations) for Pfizer's Worldwide BCM group. He supports the global deployment of Pfizer's BCM program to ensure consistency and standardization across Pfizer's operations. Paul is also responsible for continuity of operations at Pfizer's world headquarters in New York City. In this capacity, Paul led the successful recovery of critical business operations disrupted by the July 2007 steam pipe explosion in mid-town Manhattan. Prior to joining Pfizer, Paul was a director at NYC's Office of Emergency Management. At OEM, he was responsible for several major planning efforts, notably, development of the Citywide Incident Management System (CIMS) and coordinating contingency planning for the 2005 Transit Strike. Paul was involved in OEM's response to numerous citywide emergencies, such as the 2005 Transit Strike, the 2003 northeast blackout and the 2003 Staten Island Ferry accident. Before joining OEM, Paul was a scientist with NYC Parks & Recreation where he oversaw the use of geospatial technologies and was a member of the City's Geographic Information Systems (GIS) Steering Committee, which was responsible for creating NYC's first digital planimetric basemap. With other leaders of the GIS Steering Committee, Paul established an Emergency Mapping and Data Center to support OEM and other City, State and federal agencies during the 2001 World Trade Center emergency response and recovery operations. Paul has an MS in Environmental and Resource Engineering from the College of Environmental Science and Forestry and a BA in Geography from the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is a Certified Business Continuity Professional by the Disaster Recovery Institute, International.

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Roberto Ramirez Programs Director Company:  Survival Insights, LLC Address:  P.O. Box 1392, East Elmhurst, NY 11370 Phone:  718-505-0229 Fax:  718-505-0267 Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Website:www.enterpriseriskworldwide.com
Personal Bio or Company Description:
Roberto O. Ramirez is the President of Enterprise Risk Worldwide, Inc. a firm that specializes in Business Continuity Management, Emergency Management, Crisis Management, Information Security and Regulatory Compliance. Mr. Ramirez, a Continuity professional with over 30 years of technical and business experience in Enterprise Risk Management covering a full spectrum of business and industries. He has held various management responsibilities for organizations in the Brokerage, Banking, Insurance, Manufacturing and Health industries. Mr. Ramirez has spent the last 20 years specializing in Continuity Management, Crisis Management and Emergency Management. Mr. Ramirez is well known in the industry as a lecturer and educator. He has conducted training and special presentations for both domestic and international professional organizations, such as the Information Security Systems Associations (ISSA), the Contingency Planning Exchange (CPE), Greater New York Construction User Council, InfraGard, Strategic Research Institute, and International Communications for Management (ICM), Montreal Canada, Japan's Crisis Management & Preparation Organization (CMPO), and the Nikkei Company. Mr. Ramirez has served on the board of directors of the Contingency Planning Exchange organization since 1985, as chairperson in 1997- 1998.

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Edward Tracy Finance and Compliance Company:  The Tracy Group Inc. Address:  281-08 Wheeler Avenue, Valley Stream, NY 11580 Phone:  516-568-7319 Email:   This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Personal Bio or Company Description:
Edward D. Tracy is the Chief Executive Officer of The Tracy Group Inc., a consulting company specializing in the development, design, implementation, and testing of Emergency Preparedness and Business Continuity Management Programs for small and medium size companies. Additional services provided relate to contractual entitlement audits, internal operational audits, development of business plans and the packaging of motion picture production finance deals for independent film production companies. Prior to founding The Tracy Group, Inc. Ed Tracy had a thirty year career with Paramount Pictures Corporation in Hollywood, California, responsible for the enterprise-wide business continuity planning and internal audit programs, corporate policies and procedures, Sarbanes-Oxley Act compliance for all motion picture costs and corporate treasury functions, studio business development, the studio's emergency operations center and emergency preparedness program, Y2K business partner contingency planning, confidential and sensitive special projects, production support, and production finance. Based upon his extensive and diversified experiences with the Paramount Pictures Corporation he served on the Viacom Inc. (the parent company of Paramount Pictures Corporation) Business Continuity Planning Best Practices Committee. Mr. Tracy was also with a New York City-based "Big 8" public accounting firm for five years responsible for the performance of audits of publicly held companies and was an Adjunct Professor of Accounting at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, New York. In addition, Ed Tracy has over forty-one years of volunteer fire department service experience with a Long Island, New York Fire Department (rising to the rank of Captain) and with a Southern California Fire Department located in Los Angeles County, serving as the Chief of Department for fourteen years. Ed Tracy has frequently been a guest speaker and presenter of programs relating to Emergency Preparedness, Business Continuity Planning and Fire Department Management for such organizations as the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, the Contingency Planning Exchange, the Flagg Management Business Continuity Conference, the Long Island (New York) Hurricane Conference, Fire Engineering Magazine's Fire Department Instructors' Conference, the Bravest Seminars Program and numerous career and volunteer fire departments. Mr. Tracy can be reached through The Tracy Group, Inc. at 516.568.7319 (office), 323.864.5849 (cell) or via e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .