What Happened When the California Wildfires Engulfed Our Headquarters

When fire swept through Santa Rosa, Calif., last month, destroying 4,658 homes, 94 commercial
buildings, and displacing tens of thousands of people, Keysight Technologies was in the direct
path of the disaster. Most people might think of Sonoma County for its wine, but Keysight is the
largest employer in Sonoma County and has had a strong presence in the area since 1972.

The Tubbs fire broke out at 10 p.m. in the hills above Santa Rosa and by 1:30 a.m. the flames
were ferocious. Our headquarters was in the center of the mandatory evacuation zone, and
many employees who lived nearby were ordered to evacuate. It was evident that we faced a
crisis of a magnitude we hadn’t prepared for.

Though our CEO, Ron Nersesian, and his chief of staff were in Germany presenting at a
customer forum, our executive team leapt into action in the middle of the night, rushing to
evacuate people, assess impact to our headquarters, and safeguard the 1,300 employees and
families who work and live there.

The next 13 hours were a blur of on-the-spot decision making and crisis triage. The team set up
a command center a safe distance away from the fires, implemented an aggressive phone
calling effort to locate every employee known to be in the area and made critical decisions on
employee aid and compensation.

The crisis had repercussions that extended well beyond company walls to our community,
worldwide employees, customers, competitors, and numerous others. It tested our crisis
management and leadership skills beyond what we could have foreseen or prepared for,
demonstrating that in a large-scale crisis, it’s how you react to its real-time situations that
determines the speed at which you can begin to rebuild.

In the end, we ended up managing three crises: employees, customers, and competitors. Here’s
how we did it.

The First Crisis: Employees

It became clear in the first 24 hours that many employees would lose their homes. As a
leadership team, we wrestled with the company’s responsibility to its employees in the wake of
a natural disaster. We had to remember these were people’s homes, families, and friends
affected. CEO Nersesian’s messages to employees emphasized people first, response and
resources second.

But these conversations were not easy. Nothing brought the people vs. profit tradeoff to the
surface more than the heated debate between company officers determining not if, but how
much, aid to provide. On the financial side, we had no idea how many homes were destroyed
and offering $10,000 per employee who lost their homes could quickly add up to millions. In
addition, offering $5,000 per displaced employee could potentially extend to 1,300 people.
The team knew the costs could be enormous and needed to weigh that against our desire to do
right by loyal employees that were impacted by a once in a lifetime event. In the end, we
offered an aid package of $10,000 to people who lost homes and $1,000 to displaced
employees under the premise that the company’s strength and innovation rests on the long-
term tenure of its people, offsetting short-term financial impact.

But we needed to meet immediate needs, too. We set up a makeshift relief center to provide
phone chargers, underwear, bottled water, and other basics. It was also a gathering place for
employees to connect, help, get support, and receive counseling.

Once relief assistance was set up, we were flooded with calls from employees requesting aid
and unable to get to the relief center. Long wait times and voice mail became major obstacles
to receiving desperately needed help. With no bandwidth left, the crisis team reached out one
of our R&D directors who researched and set up an external call center within 2 hours.

The crisis, however, proved too big for the crisis team to handle themselves. With unreliable
cell and internet coverage, the company engaged employees outside Santa Rosa to organize
phone trees and deploy multiple forms of communications to reach impacted colleagues.
Employees around the world, eager to help, rallied quickly offering aid. A software team in
Atlanta got an SMS text solution working within hours as well as a public website for matching
requests with aid. The social media team in Colorado used its channels to help employees keep
track of one another. Another team set up a charitable fund. Critical to the effort was our ability
to use these extended teams across the company to solve problems that could be addressed
remotely.

The Second Crisis: Customers

Keysight customers are innovators who win or lose in the market based on being first and best.
Their timelines don’t leave room for crises. And while most Keysight manufacturing is done
outside headquarters, the site does house some high-end inventory and customers were
naturally worried about impacts on their own operations.

This was especially true of customers engaging in the 5G new radio (NR) pre-standard testing,
the set of requirements for next-generation mobile networks that promise to deliver
breakthrough performance and functionality to meet the growing demands of mobile data and
applications. Keysight’s customers were concerned about the availability of products, especially
since the initial phase of the 5G standard is expected to be ratified in December. Senior leaders
from Keysight’s industry solutions teams personally visited those customers to reassure them
that their product delivery would not be impacted or delayed. In one case pertaining to 100G
production, the Keysight team worked to bridge possible delivery interruptions with loaners
sourced from within Keysight as well as from channel partner inventories. This, combined with
daily updates on our production ramp schedule enabled this customer to stay on plan with their
own commitments.
In other cases, the company deployed targeted communications to global sales arming them
with drawer statements and Q&As, assessed specific impacted orders and initiated customer
outreach. Manufacturing facilities outside Santa Rosa drew from safety stock to maintain
continuity. The mitigation actions had to be swift, ongoing, and tuned to each customer’s
specific needs.

The Third Crisis: Competitors

In the midst of dealing with the local crisis, the repercussions turned global. While we went into
the crisis believing we could isolate it from the rest of the company, it became clear customer-
facing functions had to be prepared to stay on alert for unexpected and predatory side-effects
of the crisis.

Even while the fire was still burning, we got word from customers that some competitors were
spreading rumors and uncertainty about Keysight’s ability to ship products. The competitors
were offering to fill product gaps to purportedly de-risk customers’ production plans. They told
our customers that Keysight would not be able to deliver on commitments

Though we were already in touch with our customers, we realized we had to take both
offensive and defensive action; we asked Keysight account managers to re-connect with
customers and reassure them about product delivery, and Nersesian reached out to those
competitors’ CEOs. When the CEOs denied these activities, despite confirmation from a
customer that indeed it was a competitor’s high-level leader spreading this uncertainty,
Nersesian told them that this predatory practice needed to stop or we would go public with
their practices.

As we move into this next phase, we’re figuring out day by day what that rebuilding looks like.
It’s new homes for employees, new lives as children enroll in different schools, community
gatherings to get stronger together. Now, as the wildfires are no longer the immediate threat,
decisions can be more thoughtfully considered based on the longer term needs of our people,
our business, and our community. Restarting critical operations is a source of stability for all of
them; delaying optional ones gives us the breathing room we need to find our new normal.

https://hbr.org/2017/11/what-happened-when-the-california-wildfires-engulfed-our-
headquarters

Leadership under fire: Lessons in the aftermath of the Santa Rosa fires
When the Tubbs fire, dubbed the most destructive and costly in California history, swept
through Santa Rosa, we at Keysight found ourselves on ground zero of the mandatory
evacuation zone, rushing to assess impact to our headquarters and our 1500 employees and
families. It tested our crisis management and leadership skills beyond what we could have
prepared for, exposed the true nature of our values, and changed us in indelible ways. It also
left us with a monumental challenge: how, and how fast, to rebuild. This is what we learned.

Preparedness is essential but only takes you so far.

A vetted and practiced crisis playbook proved indispensable; so did local and global crisis
response teams pre-assigned to critical roles and ready to spring to action. But every crisis is
unique and this one was massive. Families were evacuated in the middle of the night. Tens of
thousands were displaced, nearly five thousand homes destroyed. We were left to balance the
established process with the unexpected and dynamic nature of the fire, the blinding speed at
which it unfolded, and the myriad related crises it created.

A strong leadership shadow drives action.

The fire broke out at 10 p.m. and, fanned by 50 mile-per-hour winds, reached Santa Rosa by
1:30 a.m. With CEO Ron Nersesian out of the country, the rest of the executive team had to
deploy crisis response in the middle of the night, making on-the-spot decisions the first 13
hours, while Nersesian jumped back on the first flight back. The team set up a command center
away from the fires, directed immediate action and decided on employee aid and
compensation. Our ability to take the helm during the crisis was enabled by the strong
leadership shadow Nersesian had cast in his 3-year tenure as CEO.
It really does take a village.

We expected the rest of our 145 sites around the world to focus on business continuity. The
crisis, however, proved just too big for the executive and crisis team to handle by themselves.
With unreliable cell and internet coverage, employees outside Santa Rosa organized phone
trees and deployed multiple forms of communications to reach impacted colleagues. A
software team in Atlanta had an SMS text solution working within hours as well as a public
website for matching requests with aid. The social media team in Colorado used its channels to
help employees keep track of one another. Another team set up a charitable fund. Critical to
the effort was our ability to use these extended teams across the company to solve problems
that could be addressed remotely.

Business continuity is not business-as-usual.

Keysight customers are innovators who win or lose in the market based on being first and best
and whose timelines don’t leave room for equipment delays. We had to put mitigation actions
in place, from special customer outreach, to loaner equipment, to addressing predatory actions
from competitors, keeping our customer-facing teams around the world on alert.

No task too small or far-fetched.

By day 3, the crisis team had hardly slept. There was no time to eat. The CMO and CFO shopped
for supplies for the command center, including a pillow and two dog beds for a makeshift bed
for the crisis commander – who hadn’t slept in 36 hours. Another leader offered to come to the
crisis response lead’s home to “sit there and get food and water.” An R&D director researched
and set up an external call center within 2 hours to take calls from the mounting number of
employees needing assistance. Whatever was needed, whatever it took… we set aside roles
and titles to do the right thing.
Rebuilding in the aftermath takes more than we think
...and longer than we expect.

Employees who had minutes to evacuate left their homes with only their families in tow and
the clothes on their backs. Rebuilding from a large-scale crisis takes time well-beyond when the
last embers of the fires are extinguished, and requires much more than re-opening the
company’s doors.

Address physical and emotional needs. The makeshift relief center sponsored by the company
addressed basics like phone chargers, underwear and bottled water. But it also became a place
people could come to connect, help, get support, and receive counseling – from professionals
as well as colleagues who were themselves crisis survivors. We learned to start with the most
basic, then build from there as we understood other needs.

Acknowledge the heart. We had to remember these were people’s homes, families, and
friends affected. CEO Nersesian’s messages to employees emphasized people first, response
and resources second. We learned we couldn’t take a fact-based, checklist-driven approach
when people’s lives were intertwined with the crisis.

Offer respite. When personal life is in flux, work can become something to hold on to, a source
of stability. Setting up temporary work spaces while the site was being cleaned up turned out to
be a source of healing, as did photos of the beloved campus when it first restored power, and
its hundreds of centuries-old trees that had survived.

Don’t rush. The reality is that we are still navigating the crisis, and may be for some time. While
our culture is intact, our community must rebuild. As we move into this next phase, we’re
figuring out day by day what that rebuilding looks like. It’s new homes for employees, new lives
as children enroll in different schools, community gatherings to get stronger together. Now, as
the fires come under control, we’re filtering decisions based on what our people, and the
business, are ready for. Re-starting critical operations is a source of stability; delaying optional
ones gives us breathing room to find our new normal.
We are not the same company or the same people we were before the fires. But we ARE
stronger, more resilient, and more resourceful as a result of having lived through
them. #KeysightStrong

https://community.keysight.com/community/keysight-blogs/insights-outside-the-
box/blog/2018/01/18/leadership-under-fire-lessons-in-the-aftermath-of-the-santa-rosa-fires