Corporate Backgrounder

Preparis is a global business preparedness company. We enable companies and their employees to manage with confidence in a world full of 21st century threats, such as terrorism, pandemics, natural disasters and everyday disruptions. We do this by delivering critical, on-demand information and services to desktops and mobile devices.

Mission: To protect the global economy by delivering trusted preparedness services and information to businesses around the world.

Who We Are

Preparis is a workforce preparedness company, helping businesses and their employees make it through terrorism, natural disasters, pandemics, workplace violence, and other 21st century threats. Clients use our expert information, response protocols, training and tools to better serve their customers, safeguard their employees, and protect shareholder value. As a global provider of expert insight and intelligence, our preparedness solutions use leading web-based technologies to deploy critical services directly to the C-level and down to every employee.

Started in 2007 by Armistead Whitney and Randall Tolbert and headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, the team’s founding objective was to create a new way for business executives and employees to be prepared at all times to manage through the threats presented in the 21st century. During the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, chaos ensued for companies in New York City and around the world. Armistead Whitney was an executive located in midtown Manhattan, and that day he was quickly forced to locate and assure the safety of his 200+ employees while maintaining operations and protecting shareholder value. With few accessible tools – overwhelmed cell towers, conflicting information emanating from news sources and no guidance from the government – Whitney was at a loss. He determined that a new way was needed to run business in a changing world. Preparis was created as a result of those experiences and that commitment.

What We Do

We prepare your employees, operations, revenue and brand ahead of the threat.

Preparis believes that people are the heartbeat of your business – employees are at the core of a company’s success and have the ability to be at the core of its failure. At time of crisis, executives must have a prepared and empowered workforce already in place to assure the future of the company.

Preparis takes our role in a company’s readiness very seriously, and in response has developed an easily-accessible platform to assist businesses in readying their teams and operations. We’ve assembled some of the most prolific experts in many threat specialties and then packaged that expertise via innovative web-based products and services. The Preparis approach means that there’s no big book sitting on a shelf in Human Resources, but instead our clients count on timely, on-line access to the information and tools needed to act. Preparis delivers a turnkey solution that includes information and response instructions for over 200 threats, management certification training, decision-making tools, analytics, document management and emergency notification services.

To meet the needs of companies of all sizes and industries, Preparis offers two products within its platform: Preparis Enterprise and Preparis Direct.

Preparis Enterprise encompasses the complete Preparis ACTION Platform, a comprehensive and easy-to-use set of training, tools, information and collaboration for the most discriminating businesses.

Analytics: a Preparedness Score™ determines how prepared a company is today for over 200 potential crisis events and then makes specific recommendations to ensure your employees and operations are protected.

Certification: Preparis developed the world’s first online Preparedness Certification, which is awarded to managers who successfully pass their training and to companies who adhere to strict preparedness standards. Among the many benefits are insurance rate reductions that will soon be offered for certified companies.

Training and Tools: In addition to certification training that teaches your managers how to make the right decisions before, during and after crisis events, a library of powerful exercises and simulations are provided to ensure skills are kept current.

Information and Expertise: An easily accessible knowledgebase of information on over 200 threats and threat response protocols is available 24/7 through desktop and mobile devices. Our document management feature gives offices a central collaboration repository to create, use and share critical documents during a crisis. The ACTION Platform subscription also includes email access to Preparis’ X-Force, an expert intelligence group available to answer company-specific questions on any of our subjects.

Online: Preparis services and information are all available via the Web as a Software as a Service (SaaS)-based system. This means that Preparis delivers continuous services that are always accessible, current, and cost effective.

Notification: The Preparis notification system enables managers to communicate with each other during crisis events. The system delivers email and text messages, incorporating accurate threat information and response protocols.

Preparis Direct is a new product, available in early 2010, that provides individual managers and small companies with select components of the ACTION Platform. It includes threat information, individual training programs, analytics, tools and templates in a self-service model.

How We Do It

At Preparis, we breathe preparedness. Our platform provides the expertise, information, analytics, tools and training required to achieve best-in-class preparedness. We do this through easy-to-use web-based subscription services so any business can be up and ready in hours.

Our turn-key package is accessible via the Web, as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) hosted system. This allows us to deliver millions of dollars worth of services and expert information at a fraction of what it would cost to develop this on your own. We tap our team of industry experts, called The Preparis X-Force, from 30 subject matter areas to develop threat information, protocols, and training to keep our users current. Our objective is timely and accurate information and resources, available 24x7.

How does it work?

It takes planning and expertise to be sure a business’s entire workforce and operations are ready to face today’s threats. At Preparis, we put our experience and the collaboration of our XForce embedded intelligence committee to work every day.

Each new Preparis customer receives a preparedness score to bring clarity to the organization’s current level of preparedness. Managers are then assigned to crisis team membership, where they undergo extensive and ongoing training, utilizing our exclusive information and response protocols that have been developed for over 200 threats. Ongoing webinars, alerts and online exercises keep the crisis team informed and prepared with the latest information and tools on the threats that could impact their business and workforce.

During a crisis, our users access our information, protocols, document management and emergency notifications services to make the right decisions quickly for their people and operations. And after a crisis event, organizations use Preparis’ tools and best practices to return their operations and workforce back to a state of normalcy.

Companies of all sizes and industries are selecting Preparis as their trusted partner, including Equifax, UPS, Georgia Pacific, Alston & Bird, King & Spalding, AT&T, and Alma Bank. To date, Preparis is safeguarding over 500,000 people and over $185 billion in enterprise value.

Management Team

Armistead Whitney
Chief Executive Officer

Mr. Whitney started Preparis following his experiences in New York City during 9/11. He has a successful track record in developing, launching and managing enterprises in the media, services, and software industries including raising over $50 million in venture capital and participating in a successful IPO.

Prior to Preparis, he was CEO of Nexidia, a best-of-class voice search engine software company serving the homeland security industry and prior to that was the founder of Sekani, a online media licensing company sold to Bill Gates’ Corbis Corporation in 2002. He also served as an EVP at iXL Enterprises, which went public on NASDAQ in June of 1999.

Armistead has been featured in numerous media outlets including CNN, ABC News, NBC, The Wall Street Journal, and many others. He has participated as a key speaker at industry conferences such as Red Herring Venture Market South, National Association of Broadcasters, Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and numerous panels and conferences.

He holds a BA in Journalism from the University of Georgia.

Randall Tolbert
Chief Operating Officer

As CFO / COO Randall directs finance, operations and technology initiatives. Prior to Preparis, he was Vice President of Finance at Macquarium Intelligent Communications, Atlanta’s leading interactive agency serving prominent Fortune 1000 clients. He has also served as Director of Operations for NASDAQ-listed iXL where he managed P&L structures and implemented key operational models for organization performance, pricing, execution metrics, and time management. Randall also served in several executive-level roles at Accenture and KPMG Peat Marwick, where he was responsible for engagement planning for large clients such as Philips and Home Depot.

Randall attended the University of Georgia where he received a Bachelors of Business Administration in Accounting. He is also a Certified Public Account with the Georgia Society of CPAs.

For additional information, visit www.preparis.com.