Risk Mitigation for Small Business
Assessing and Mitigating Risk as a Small Business
COVID-19 caught us off-guard! Next time, be better prepared by understanding where your business or organization is most vulnerable. This two part workshop will be interactive with each business using tools to progress through a series of exercises. At the end of the workshop, an attendee will better understand the risks their business faces from natural hazards including pandemics and have a plan to prepare for and mitigate the associated impacts.
The workshops are avaiable here, but participants will have the opportunity to choose a one on one review of their plan with the facilitators for a fee. Contact Stephanie Keener for more information about this program: skeener@lynchburgregion.org.
Part 1
Assessing Your Risk
The risk assessment workshop will include :
- Defining risk, vulnerability, resilience, and other terminology
- Identifying your business assets and dependencies
- Reviewing hazard impacts – both direct and indirect
- Considering climate change impacts
- Accessing the impacts to your business
Part 2
Mitigating Your Risk
The mitigation workshop will include :
- Defining mitigation, adaptation, and other terminology
- Mitigating social impacts, types of mitigation
- Mitigating economic impacts, types of mitigation
- Identifying mitigation strategies and resources
- Monitoring and evaluating your mitigation strategies
Meet Our Facilitators
Bill Bohn
Bill Bohn is the Chief Operating Officer for Sobis, Inc. a small business located in Lynchburg and Fredericksburg, Virginia. For the last 18 years, he has supported communities and projects around the world with hazard and climate change risk assessments, including over thirty hazard mitigation plans in the U.S. conducting risk assessments for natural hazards and identifying potential mitigation actions. He has supported the U.S. Agency for International Development, World Bank, International Finance Corporation, and Inter-American Development Bank conducting climate change risk assessments and adaptation plans in Africa, Asia, Caribbean, Middle East, North America, and South America.
He supported the development of the Community Resilience Course for the National Disaster Preparedness Training Center, the Coastal Climate Change Adaptation Course for NOAA’s Coastal Services Center, and was an author of the World Bank’s Community Reconstruction Handbook. He also helped develop and facilitate a one-day Flood Resilience Workshop for EPA’s Smart Growth Program.
He is currently on the Board of Directors for Resilient Virginia and supports FEMA headquarters with testing, developing training materials and technical manuals, and teaching their risk assessment software, Hazus. Mr. Bohn has an undergraduate degree from Virginia Tech in Aerospace and Ocean Engineering and graduate degree in Geographic and Cartographic Sciences. He lives with his wife and three kids (and goats and chickens) on an urban farm in Lynchburg, Virginia.
Jennifer Woofter
Jennifer Woofter is a sustainability consultant and small business coach. Over the last two decades, she has worked with hundreds of organizations ranging from start-ups to Fortune 500 companies to hone their business strategies, respond to changing market demands, and improve profitability. As a judge in the Mentor Capital Network’s annual sustainable business plan competition, she was determined to be in the top 10% of more than 200 judges, based on the entrepreneurs’ rating of her feedback on issues like overall value, immediate use, and novel ideas. Jennifer is the President of Strategic Sustainability Consulting.