Company arranged a chartered flight departing for Memphis; some staff went to facilities in other parts of the U.S.
Raymond James on Sept. 8 shifted critical business operations from its St. Petersburg, Florida, base to other facilities nationwide due to the threat of Hurricane Irma. Personnel are being moved to Memphis, Tennessee; Detroit and Denver, where the company has facilities.
“We have a charter flight for operations [staff] going to Memphis,” CEO Paul Reilly said on CNBC Friday afternoon as people across the state were being asked to evacuate certain areas.
“I am heading to New York. Management is all hooked up, including access to our database, in case there are issues.”
The executive, who said some 800 employees had been effected by Hurricane Harvey, told CNBC that the company’s servers are in Denver with backup servers in Detroit.
“We can handle client volume — though people may have to work some extra hours,” he added.
On the charter flight for Memphis, staffers being “redeployed” will be joined by family members and pets. Hotel rooms also have been reserved for employees, if they are unable to evacuate.
“The cost of this is secondary,” Reilly said. “First and foremost is the safety of our associates and their families.”
This work is part of the firm’s disaster recovery and continuity planning.
“The good news, we have practiced this. The bad news is that we using it for the second time” over the past few weeks, the executive said. “We closed our offices early and assured folks they will be paid.”
As for his own home in the St. Petersburg area, Reilly said: “I live on the beach. I put down the shutters and will hope that it’s there when I come back.”
In 2014 Raymond James Relocated its Data Center to Denver
From Investment News
Concerns about increasing hurricane frequency prompted Raymond James Financial Inc. to move its data center to Denver from its headquarters in St. Petersburg, Fla.
Plans for the relocation have been under way since mid-2012, but the most extensive data move occurred over the three-day Presidents Day weekend.
The Denver facility will have 30 employees. Globally, Raymond James employs 10,000 people, with approximately 3,500 at its home office.
The decision to house Raymond James’ primary technology hardware in a 50,000-square-foot facility in Denver was triggered by concerns about the weather and potential natural disasters, according to company officials.
The new center will feature feeds to multiple power grids, expanded Internet capabilities and additional redundancies, said David Allen, chief technology officer.
Before selecting Denver, the company studied a handful of geographic locations across the country, according to Mr. Allen.
“Denver was most immune to natural disasters,” he said. “We are at the scale and failure capabilities of a world-class data center.”
Raymond James’ operations, information technology and other support functions continue to be located in St. Petersburg, as well as in Memphis, Tenn., and Southfield, Mich.
David Shepard, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Fortrust, a large data services provider with offices in Denver, Phoenix and Edison, N.J., said that risk mitigation is a primary reason why financial services firms move data centers.
“Denver is an ideal location for a data center because of its central proximity and low geographic risk,” he said. “For financial services, the Denver location provides access to a low-cost power grid and a strong employment base because of tech sector investment by the state of Colorado as well as colleges with computer engineering programs.”
