About

IN THE NEWS:

Michigan group plans to keep paying it forward
March 14, 2010

Mary Meaux-The Port Arthur News

PORT ARTHUR — When the destruction of Hurricane Katrina unfolded along the Gulf coast almost five years ago, Michigan resident Jim Watry sat back and wondered, like many Americans, how he could offer help.

Watry, owner of the Watry Group, decided to help the people who help others by offering a recreational vehicle to be used as a mobile office to communities affected by disasters.

Kellie Brown of Sabine Pass was one of the people who helped people.

Brown was hired as Disaster Recovery Coordinator for Sabine Pass through the National Emergency Grant Program, and used the trailer as an office in Sabine Pass to help the community through the tough times, Mary Ann Reid, president of the chamber, said.

Reid explained details of the inner workings of the “Think Tank.”

“Valero provided office equipment and Office Depot provided office supplies,” Reid said. “Exxon Mobile was very helpful in that they collected information about every family in Sabine Pass so needed items could be distributed.”

The trailer was first dispatched to Gulfport, Miss., after Katrina then sent to the Galveston area after Hurricane Ike. Then, the Galveston Chamber of Commerce offered the trailer to the Greater Port Arthur Chamber of Commerce for use in Sabine Pass.

The Think Tank spent several months in Sabine Pass before heading to Allen Samuels Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep in Port Arthur for some rest.

On Tuesday, Watry visited the dealership to retrieve the trailer for a trip back to Michigan for revamping with new outfittings to better serve disaster-impacted communities.

“My thinking was to have the trailer fully automated, with a bedroom, refrigerator and freezer, fresh water holding tanks, office area and satellites for communication,” Watry said.

The trailer was a means of communication for people living in the disaster area, providing phone, fax, copy machine, and Internet, she said.

The Watry Group plans to keep the trailer in use for disasters, Watry said.

February 21, 2006
Edition: Telematics Journal

Down in Bay St. Louis, Miss., they call it the “Think Tank.”

That’s what officials at the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce have dubbed the mobile office donated by the Detroit Regional Chamber, with assistance from several of its members, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last summer.

The Weekend Warrior RV, outfitted with 15 workstations, was originally dispatched in September 2005 from Detroit to hard-hit Gulfport, Miss., for use by the Mississippi Gulfcoast Chamber of Commerce, which lost its building in the disaster. The mobile office enabled the organization to resume services to devastated area businesses.

Earlier this year, officials at the Gulfcoast Chamber learned that their counterparts in neighboring Hancock County desperately needed additional resources and generously offered the RV to them for their use. The Hancock County Chamber, which lost its headquarters to Katrina, has been operating at the Coast Electric Conference Center in Bay St. Louis since mid-September, along with several other organizations.

“We are so grateful! It could not have come at a better time,” exclaimed Maria Russell, member services coordinator for the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce. “We had just gotten an offer of several volunteers from the International Economic Development Council who wanted to come down and help Hancock County get back on its feet, and the ‘Think Tank’ — that’s what we call the RV — provided a place for two of them to stay and all of them to work. There will be more volunteers coming down in the weeks ahead, and we are so grateful to have a place that can be their home away from home.”

“We’re pleased that the mobile office is continuing to be put to good use along Mississippi’s Gulf Coast,” said Richard E. Blouse Jr., CCE, president and CEO of the Detroit Regional Chamber. “It’s vital that businesses have access to the resources they need to help the community rebuild its economy. Organizations like the Hancock County Chamber of Commerce are playing a critical role in this process.”

The handicap-accessible mobile office is equipped with two, two-way satellite systems, which provide Internet and e-mail as well as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone services. Jim Watry, founder and president of Oxford, Mich.-based Nucleus, donated the satellite systems, while Paul Moore of The IMIH Group LLC in Wixom, Mich., donated the computers for each of the 15 workstations. The mobile office is 100 percent self-sufficient with an onboard generator and 150-gallon fresh water tank.

In addition to Nucleus and The IMIH Group, other Chamber members and partner organizations supporting this project include Acro Service Corp., Al Long Ford, Albin Business Centers, American Arab Chamber of Commerce, AT&T, Automation Alley, Booker T. Washington Business Association, Cingular Wireless, Detroit Black Chamber, GraphiColor, Lawrence Technological University, Michigan Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Microsoft, Mort Crim Communications, Office Depot, The Ritz-Carlton, Dearborn, Secure-24 Inc., Taktix Solutions, Tener Technologies LLC and Verizon Wireless.

With more than 22,000 members, the Detroit Regional Chamber is the largest chamber of commerce in the country. The Chamber’s mission is carried out through business attraction efforts, public policy advocacy, strategic partnerships and quality products and services for members.

FROM AN RV, OXFORD MAN HELPS KATRINA-HIT BUSINESSES REBUILD
MIKE WENDLAND
FREE PRESS TECHNOLOGY WRITER

The massive devastation of Hurricane Katrina is still being tallied, but one area that has been overlooked in most accounts is the total disruption the storm has caused to business communications.

Jim Watry of Oxford is trying to do something about that.

For most of the past week, Watry, who runs a small tech company called Nucleus, has been living out of a specially equipped RV parked in Gulfport, Miss., helping extensively damaged businesses start rebuilding and communicating again with their customers.

For about a week, Jim Watry has lived out of this RV in Gulfport, Miss. It's equipped with satellite systems that provide Internet access and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service, among other things.

Watry came up with the idea and the Detroit Regional Chamber agreed to sponsor it, setting up the RV with two-way satellite systems that provide Internet access and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service. In addition, 15 computer workstations, along with fax machines, scanners and copiers, are available. Cingular and Verizon Wireless donated cell phones.

“We brought communication tools, pure and simple,” says Watry. “So many buildings were leveled by this storm, and the owners are trying to operate their businesses from home or wherever. This gives them something reliable and professional to start the rebuilding process from. And the first step of that is reestablishing communications with their suppliers and customers.”

The 33-foot-long RV is self-sufficient. It has its own generator and a 150-gallon fresh-water tank.

Weeks after Katrina battered the gulf coast, communications are still spotty. Landline phones are unworkable in large parts of the area. Power is iffy. Thousands of businesses lost roofs to the winds and suffered water damage.

An 11 p.m.-6 a.m. curfew remains in effect for most neighborhoods.

Although cellular service has been restored to the region, the cell sites are getting so many calls because of the still-unreliable landline service that circuits are often overloaded and incoming calls are dropped.

“I wasn’t prepared for what we’d see,” says Watry. “It was shocking. It gave me goose bumps: total devastation. So many people lost business structures, homes, everything. This is going to take a long, long time to get straightened out.”

Watry will turn over the RV to the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chamber of Commerce in a few days. He and coworker Paul Moore from IMIH Computers in Wixom will return to Michigan.

Moore, whose firm donated the workstations, will remotely monitor the technology system in the RV from Michigan through a special data connection he has set up.