What is "TAMP"?

TAMP is an acronym. Its origin requires a brief explanation.

Contingency planning started in the late 1970's. At that time, Tom Abruzzo was working for Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company, i.e., "Manny Hanny" as it was called. As a project manager and hands-on programmer analyst in the Computer Processing and Research (CP&R) department, Tom was putting the finishing touches on the development and rollout of a new software application. Directly after a status meeting concerning this application's implementation, Tom's manager asked him if he would be willing to write a contingency plan. Tom replied "sure" and then said, "What's a contingency plan?" His manager explained, "We need a plan that would tell us what we would need to do if our computer systems went down." Tom said, "Okay, why do we need a plan for that?" He said, "It's because of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 that require banks to be able to recover their data." In a flash, our industry was born. Well, Tom developed the first plan for Manny Hanny's Retail Banking division, and then developed a generic guide for contingency planning that others were able to use when writing plans.

In the 1980s, Tom became an independent consultant and provided companies with his services to develop disaster recovery plans. As an independent consultant, Tom started a company. At that time, Tom had a young family with three children. And, because of Tom's technology background, he wanted to use an acronym in his company's name. His son's name is Thomas, his oldest daughter's name is Audra, his wife's name is Maria and his youngest daughter's name is Patricia - which spells TAMP. So, Tom named his company TAMP Computer Systems in 1983.

In the 1980's, most organizations were concerned only about a plan that covered technology operations, including communications, application processing and data. Not too many organizations were concerned about recovering business or government operations, and even less organizations were interested in the other related BCM topics. One of the few pioneers in that era was Bob Santos, who was the original developer of the first licensable disaster recovery planning toolset product named "EDP80." Bob gave Tom the idea to develop a similar licensable toolset.

An outgrowth of Tom's consulting project efforts was six-phase instructional methodology and practical toolset to accomplish disaster recovery and business continuity planning projects. Some of the tools consisted of models and templates for project correspondence, questionnaires and other project-related gear. The most widely used tool that was also provided was the plan template for disaster recovery and business continuity. In 1985, Tom completed this product, trademarked the acronym DRS and named his product the Disaster Recovery System (DRS).

Today, Tom's wife Maria is TAMP's CFO, his son Thomas is TAMP's application development manager and his daughter Patricia is TAMP's office manager. Tom's oldest daughter Audra does not work for TAMP, but has a terrific career as an Occupational Therapist.



TAMP Systems has more than 25 years of continuity planning expertise and know-how; and has earned and maintains a CBCV certification from DRI, which is the world-wide leader in more than 90 countries for education and certifications in business continuity management. You can be rest assured that your plans will be usable, executable and workable by using TAMP for your business continuity planning needs.