The CCEP Awards committee carefully considers the contribution to the industry that individuals have made of their own accord as a volunteer. Also we consider the work to coach others the industry and help share knowledge. These are the people who inspire others to contribute as volunteers and further our industry. This year we had some really tremendous nominations and choices were difficult, but one clearly stood out.
The more devoted industry participants often choose to continue to volunteer and contribute in some way in our industry. The nominee we selected this year decided to take on a retirement job as a Fire Chief and Emergency Management Coordinator with 2 Fire Halls and 36 volunteers for the Township of Greater Madawaska following a 35 year career with retirement in 2005.
Just to name a few contributions, she was always one step ahead – outsourcing is now a current topic, but she managed the outsourcing of data centre operations back in 1988 for essential customs systems.
Then in 1992 she received the Governor General’s Award on the 125th Anniversary of Canada for implementing an IT Disaster Recovery Program addressing over 200 regional offices, 2 huge data centers supporting 3,000 staff in 6 buildings in Ottawa.
She was one of the first CBCPs in Canada (a DRIC recognized designation) and in 2003 became one of our first MBCPs.
In 1994 she was part of the TBS Team that initiated the Government of Canada Disaster Recovery Partnership Program.
Betsy Sayers had considerable real incident management experience, and very successful ones too. She acted as the Incident Commander identifying theft to malicious viruses and codes, worked the 1998 ice storm, Y2K, Floods in Manitoba, Quebec, the Maritimes, 9/11 challenges with Customs and Revenue Agency as borders and air space were shut down and many more.
Betsy carried on her concept of sharing and educating people in our industry with her extensive experience. In fact she established her own company and anonymously sponsored a DRIE Ottawa Bursary for excellence in academic performance. She has supported numerous conferences and workshops globally from the UK , Ireland, Singapore, the USA and of course here at WCDM. She has been an instructor for DRIC for over 15 years and has mentored many new BCM professionals across Canadian Government.
Betsy helped develop the BCP Standard for Government and the Canadian School of Business and has chaired the certification committee of DRIC and assisted with many other DRIC Board initiatives. We also cannot forget that Betsy invented Pandemic Poker!
Since she has retired she has carried on as a volunteer and consultant with Vanguard Emergency Management and appears to be very slowly retiring.
I am truly honoured to be presenting this award to Betsy Sayers!!
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