But smaller businesses must go on. Even though power and potable water may not be be restored for weeks or months, all searched for ways to keep our business activity moving. A lot was done initally with just a cell phone, and more if you had 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 were closed, you found yourself totally cut off from your clients. Hopefully by now you have a handle on your situation -- you have hope and a stratagy to cope, but you still need help.

We, and other groups, may be able to help. You may have found some firms that helped on getting out typed correspondence -- taking shorthand over the phone. Others were able to help you on contacting FEMA and your insurance carrier. There were people expert in HTML that could help you get notices posted on your web site. And, you figured out for yourself how to penetrate the national industry infrastructure that supplies specialty items unfamiliar to you -- e.g., special pumps, mini-crains, 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 completed the beautiful Kronkowski Library of Bandera County three years ago, and is currently in charge of a three million dollar expansion project for the Frontier Times Museum in the Texas Hill Country outside San Antonio.

The January-February 2006 issue of Preservation reports some encouraging news about the work of the National Trust For Historic Preservation. '. . . The Trust's legislative proposal calls for the creation of a federal Disaster Relief Historic Homeowner Assistance Tax Credit, which would give homeowners a credit of 30 percent of qualified expenses related to the rehabilitation of historic houses in the Katrina disaster area. In addition, the package advocates a two-year, $60 million grant program under the federal Historic Preservation Fund.' But, most importantly, the proposal calls 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 these storms.

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 just 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 HOT E-mail address: new_new_thing_@_yahoo.com (Please back out UNDERSCORE on each side of @ placed to avoid auto-spamming. Do not remove the other two UNDERSCORES.)