But smaller businesses must go on. Even though power and potable water may not be restored for weeks or months, all are searching for ways to keep our business activity moving. A lot can be done initially with just a cell phone, and more if you have a laptop or a computer at your disposal. Let's say that your company is financially sound, and things were proceeding well and on an even keel when the hurricane hit. But when your physical plant was damaged or wiped out, land-line phone service cut off, and UPS/FedEx pickups and post offices are closed, you may find yourself totally cut off from your clients. Hopefully you can get a handle on your situation -- you have hope and a strategy to cope, but you still may need help.

We, and other groups, may be able to help. You may find some firms that help on getting out typed correspondence -- taking shorthand over the phone. Others will be able to help you on contacting FEMA and your insurance carrier. There are people expert in HTML that can help you get notices posted on your web site. And -- with help -- you must figure out how to penetrate the national industry infrastructure that supplies specialty items unfamiliar to you -- e.g., special pumps, mini-cranes, auxiliary generators, portal and window coverings, roofing materials and the like -- through Google and e-mail. But if your place of business still cannot be occupied for a number of months, you must now ask yourself how you can keep your company moving on the key technical issues, fielding offers and counter-offers, outsourcing and negotiating those deals that have been put on hold.

If you don't have a second office outside of the area of devastation, or a friend or relative who is in the position and located to help, the answer may be to find a reliable consultant -- a temporary 'partner' if you will -- to do some of your bidding and to address other tasks that you cannot handle directly under your circumstances. That consultant, or temporary partner, needs to be an individual or firm whose expertise closely matches your company's activities. We suggest you look at this web site to see the range of fields of expertise that our firm spans -- there may be a match for the critical areas. ('Non-compete' agreements will of course be part of our contracts.)

Also, our firm's founder and C.E.O. has extensive experience in renovating, repair and updating of libraries, museums and historic buildings -- he helped complete the beautiful Kronkowski Library of Bandera County five years ago, and assisted on an expansion project for the Frontier Times Museum in the Texas Hill Country outside San Antonio. Recently, he led the renovation -- inside and out -- of a medium-size church in the Texas Hill Country that included extensive structural repair and repainting, innovative roof redesign using standing-seam and flat-seam steel portions, installing a new hardwood floor in the parish hall, repair and upgrading of the church's pipe/electronic organ and design and installation of a new audio-video CD/DVD recording studio/internet/theater facility.

We are familiar with the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Trust's legislative proposal for the creation of a federal Disaster Relief Historic Homeowner Assistance Tax Credit, to give homeowners a credit of 30 percent of qualified expenses related to the rehabilitation of historic houses following the Katrina disaster. That proposal called for 'amendments to the existing preservation tax credit for commercial property owners to have the time and money to complete rehab projects without fear of recapture or foreclosure.' With our expertise in the area of restoration, and our familiarity with Washington, we can help with restoring damaged facilities of institutions that have been damaged by this storm.

We have set up a special e-mail address (see below) by which you can reach us if you think our kind of firm might be a match as a temporary partner. In your e-mail we would need to learn in some detail the nature of your business and the kind of tasks you anticipate you would want to assign us. The resources of our consulting group, Bartley Technologies Inc., located fourty minutes outside San Antonio, Texas are such that we will have to limit the number of companies with whom we can contract. And, if we decide we cannot sign a contract with you, surely there will be other highly qualified groups that will also be available, and we may be able to help find them.

To explore further the temporary professional services we might provide a smaller business like yours under a consulting contract with retainer, send us an e-mail at our SPECIAL E-mail address: new_new_thing@yahoo.com . You also can call us -- our telephone number is (830) 796-7643.