of NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association) reports that in 2024, there were $19 billion in weather and climate disasters that caused death and destruction in the United States. Storms, wildfires, and extreme heat and cold waves have resulted in an estimated $50 billion in damage.
While many of us do our best to get out of harm's way, Brian Evans runs right into them. Evans restores the telephone network during natural disasters for AT&T, and he is also the chief of staff for the company's mobile disaster base camp. Evans says both of his jobs require quick thinking and decisive action, and he recently shared his management tips blizzard big and small.
Please explain your role as a chef and technology recovery expert. How do these skill sets overlap?
I restore the network during natural disasters as an AT&T technology recovery expert, and I have become the chief of the natural disaster recovery team, where I bring a mobile kitchen to support our people at our base camp. Last year I was on the ground in 42 countries.
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To lead a large-scale cooking or natural disaster recovery effort, you must be able to plan for many phases at once. When we go into a disaster area, the basic infrastructure for the city is often out, and so the work can take anywhere from a week to a month. You have to move forward, so it's about balancing preparing the first meals along with coordinating with outside vendors for supplies, which can be very challenging after a storm.
Photo: AT&T
What advice can you give entrepreneurs about wearing multiple hats?
Make sure you have backups that can handle things if your everyday lieutenants aren't available, because you need to stay on track in both of your worlds. I have a volunteer response network from 46 departments at AT&T who are trained to support our natural disaster recovery efforts, and I maintain a group of kitchen trailer volunteers with different skill sets in different regions. Make sure your bench is stretched – we've set up 12 different stops across the US for training, so wherever we are, there's a spare nearby.
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And while you're making sure the execution is tight, you also know how to communicate the value of both programs to your superiors at all times. This high-level vantage point can be easily forgotten when you're in the middle of things, but it's important. When I really needed a larger mobile operation to handle the scale, I was able to clearly show my superiors why it was so important to our first responders and how cost-effective it was, so they increased our resources to do it the truly national program.
What is your advice for entrepreneurs to move fast and stay smart?
Protect your setup phase and then move faster with everything else. You don't want to “prepare a storm within a storm.” During stressful situations, it's easy to want to rush to meet your team's needs, but creating a plan makes a world of difference. We were on land during Hurricane Ian, for example, and it would have been easy to panic with 150 mph winds. Instead, my team took a number of jobs in advance, assessed the severity of the situation, and then got to work planning meals, ordering supplies, and cooking so that our employees had a hot meal at the end of the day. long. As an entrepreneur, you'll be in stressful situations that you need your team to push through, and a key part of that is maintaining morale, finding creature comforts, and breaking bread together. This was a key part of my upbringing in rural Louisiana.
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From what you've seen in natural disasters, what do you wish everyone had on hand in their homes and cars?
Everyone on my team carries a “bump bag” or a survival or emergency kit at all times. They contain everyday necessities that are not usually available during a disaster, such as extra clothes, water, blankets, food, etc. I always recommend others to have these items available all in one place so you can easily grab them at a moment's notice. Of course, the hope is that you'll never need it, but at least you'll have some peace of mind knowing you're prepared.
What should every entrepreneur know about leading a team during a crisis?
When I first started working in disaster preparedness, I was still a little unsure of myself, but teams need a leader who has confidence. So as I was figuring things out, I would picture the most confident person I could think of and try to embody them. The team watches me during challenging missions and if I fall apart, they are sure to follow suit. Whenever possible, I try to remember to take a few minutes to decompress if I start to feel myself getting overwhelmed. An emergency is already a high-stress situation, and as a leader, how you respond affects the team's success for better or worse.