The shaking lasted more than two minutes. And although he was 1,000 miles away from the Landers Earthquake on June 28, 1992, it moved Dick Rennick.
"It was one of the largest earthquakes on the planet that year, and it hit my home town," remembers Rennick, who was living in Yucca Valley, California at the time.
Ironically, the founder of American Leak Detection was being evacuated from a hotel in Colorado Springs, Colorado, during a major fire when he learned of the 7.3 "Landers" quake, which rocked Southern California, knocking out all power, water, and gas in surrounding communities, says Rennick.
Six hours after the quake struck, Rennick was home. There he discovered a crevice that started at the top of a hill in his back yard, and stretched 28-miles long, 2-feet wide, 3-feet deep into the desert horizon. "You could put your hand into a fist and put it into the earth," Rennick remarked.
But Rennick knows how to work around a disaster.
His home managed to escape major damage, though others weren’t so lucky. He would spend the next two weeks literally plugging a hole in the disaster relief chain by enlisting a team of franchisees to serve as first-responders, finding and repairing water, gas and sewer leaks.
Sinking feeling
Founded in the aftermath of the Landers aftershocks, the Franchise Emergency Action Team (FEAT) called on franchisees from multiple brands to volunteer their time, expertise and even pay their own expenses to assist others when disaster struck.
Blimpie, The Coffee Beanery, My Favorite Muffin, PostNet and Subway responded when TWA Flight 800 went down in the Atlantic; Holiday Inn provided rooms when Illinois floods affected 7,000 families’ homes, while Two Men and a Truck helped some of 4,000 families recover from flooding in Pennsylvania, according to a 1996 FEAT Flash newsletter.
In addition, Aaron’s, Ramada Inn, and Rent-a-Wreck were there when Hurricane Bertha displaced 6,500 families.
Others, such as Pizza Hut, would deliver thousands of pizzas to command centers during disasters, while 7-Eleven donated diapers. Vendors would waive supply fees, and Rennick even got a seal of approval from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).
"We’re not going anywhere that we’re not calling you guys," then-FEMA Director James Lee Witt told Rennick.
While it had altruistic intentions, FEAT’s endeavors weren’t cheap. In the mid-90s the IFA, which had been sponsoring FEAT, was cash-strapped and couldn’t continue subsidizing these franchise super Samaritans. It was Rennick who kept FEAT afloat, sinking $350,000 of his own money into the effort.
The program worked "fantastically" for more than four years, Rennick says, but not even Subway CEO Fred DeLuca could keep FEAT alive when Rennick handed him the reigns in late 1997. Three years after DeLuca took over FEAT’s administration (which included managing the board, organizing disaster relief donations and liaising with the IFA and FEMA), the sandwich franchisor also ceased financing FEAT. Participating franchisees told Subway they preferred to conduct disaster relief through their own localized community programs, says Subway Spokesman Les Winograd.
FEAT takes new steps
2011 was marked with high-profile natural disasters—from the Joplin tornadoes, to flooding in the Northeast after major hurricanes. And now discussions are underway to renew the franchisee disaster response program. However, if FEAT does re-emerge, it will again have some friendly franchise competition at a local level.
International Franchise Association’s "Franchising Gives Back," a volunteer initiative, is to be unveiled in February 2012 at the IFA’s Annual Convention in Orlando. It will call on franchisees to act at a local level—cleaning up communities, rather than responding to disasters, nationwide. IFA President & CEO Steve Caldeira says FEAT is an initiative "that has great potential," and committed to taking a closer look following Franchising Gives Back’s "voluntary day of teamwork and service in support of an Orlando charity" on Friday, February 10.
"(FEAT) has been on the shelf for 15 years, and I think it’s new day, new way," says the 68-year-old Rennick. "There’s a younger generation that wants to do things differently, but I think we had a good thing going."
"FEAT was really ahead of its time," says Ollie Davidson who coordinated efforts with FEAT while at FEMA, and now serves as a senior adviser in the Business Civic Leadership Center’s Disaster Assistance and Recovery department. Davidson says franchised business owners are perfect first responders because they can organize quickly, and respond locally with cookies, muffins, or water; provide transportation; or, in some cases, print signs as they have in the past.
FEAT was one of a number of public-private partnerships that flourished under the Clinton administration, waned under the second Bush, and are again en vogue in the Obama era. He says now is as good of a time as any for FEAT to be "regenerated" because of the lack of federal resources and funding to respond to lower-priority events, such as the Washington, D.C., earthquake and subsequent flooding.
Tom Epstein, CEO of Franchise Payments Network, says FEAT and the IFA’s Franchising Gives Back can work in tandem.
"I think Franchising Gives Back could be used to target specific charities in specific cities, whereas FEAT would be there for emergency events," says Epstein, one of the first to broach the idea of reorganizing FEAT. Epstein says the IFA would not be required to fund any FEAT activities, but rather support the program with positive public relations.
Epstein says most of the work would be done on a volunteer, as-needed basis. The only investments, aside from time and energy from board members, would be to fund meetings between board members, the IFA, or governmental officials; public relations to recruit new member-companies; and perhaps some consulting fees to Davidson’s office to open communication with FEMA, he says.
For now, FEAT is an idea that has fallen by the wayside. But if history’s any indication, another disaster waits just over the horizon. And franchisees are gearing up to be there when it does.
For more information, or to volunteer, contact Epstein at 866-420-4613 x. 1103, or Rennick at 760-774-5311.
