Staff writer

Nathan Rhoden faces a tricky problem: trying to get Japanese to remember something they'd rather forget.

The Japan-born American isn't pushing for recognition of war-related atrocities or events that for some may be historically distant. Rather, in an effort to get them prepared for the "inevitable," Rhoden is asking Japanese corporations to think back four years to the Great Hanshin Earthquake.

"It's human nature to forget bad things quickly. Organizations like ours need to keep fanning the flames and increase awareness," said Rhoden, international coordinator of the Crisis Management and Preparedness Organization.

When it comes to disaster recovery, CMPO could be called the "Bicep of Japan."

The organization -- founded in 1997 and incorporated as a nonprofit organization under the auspices of the Economic Planning Agency in April -- is styled on the California-based Business and Industry Council for Emergency Planning and Preparedness, a nonprofit entity dedicated to corporate earthquake preparedness in the Los Angeles area.

Through monthly seminars and simulation training sessions held under the general theme of "business continuity planning," CMPO is flexing muscle in an effort to promote disaster awareness and preparedness in Japan, with particular emphasis on earthquakes and the Year 2000 computer problem.

Some 2,500 individuals have so far attended CMPO events, which are held nationwide on a wide range of issues, from seminars on data recovery in the advent of a Y2K-related glitch to simulated earthquake training courses.

Rhoden said the difference between BICEPP and CMPO is that whereas in the U.S., crisis management is "almost an industry standard," in Japan, CMPO is promoting "unfamiliar Western concepts" that are often shunned by corporations here.

"All too often in Japan, disaster preparedness consists of putting on a hard hat and running out of the building."

While some firms here have implemented contingency plans, Rhoden has "serious concerns as to whether they will be effective" in the event of a major earthquake in Tokyo, he added.

To combat the lethargic attitude in Japan, CMPO is promoting a system of information-exchange similar to that in the U.S.

Through its Project Impact, the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the U.S. promotes the sharing of disaster recovery information between corporations, local communities and the public sector.

"People in the U.S. are planning together and sharing resources and agreeing on what everyone's going to do first and how they are going to work together (in the event of a disaster). But these concepts are all very alien in Tokyo," said Rhoden, who has worked at several Japanese corporations, including Itochu Corp.

CMPO hopes to collaborate with larger companies so it can draw up contingency plans that can then be relayed to smaller, more vulnerable companies via the Internet.

Disaster, said Rhoden, is defined by emergency response experts as "an event that overwhelms the government's capacity to deal with it."

"This means people have to be prepared themselves. Unfortunately, the level of precautions are still inadequate when it comes to businesses here," he said.

"It's very difficult to get corporations to invest in a threat they don't perceive as being that real."

According to Rhoden, this is proof that little has been learned from the Hanshin quake.

While areas devastated by the temblor are largely "back to normal," the total economic output of the region has not yet fully recovered, he said.

"Far more lives will be saved by having a plan than just sitting on your hands and saying, 'There's nothing we can do.' That's the kind of attitude that needs to be overcome," Rhoden said. "There are always things businesses can do to increase their odds of survival."