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Compucast CEO discusses lessons of Katrina at Women Business Owners conference. Founder of web design and marketing firm Judy Weitz to recount how her business has bolstered New Orleans’ hospitality industry and thrived post-Katrina. New Orleans native national finalist for 2007 Woman Business Owner of the Year.

NEW ORLEANS—Oct. 4, 2007—Being prepared is a mantra that many business owners have taken to heart following the lessons learned in post-Katrina New Orleans. For businesswoman Judy Weitz, emergency planning meant securing dedicated servers in San Francisco and Philadelphia so her web design and marketing company Compucast would be operational in the event of severe weather.

Today, many of her hospitality clients say that Compucast’s foresight helped them maintain and rebuild their businesses by keeping them connected to customers and employees when all other communications were down. 

Interactive entrepreneur and New Orleans native Weitz will participate on a panel of women-owned businesses who are working to recover from the effects of Katrina during the National Association of Women Business Owners (NAWBO) Regional Conference Friday at the Astor Crowne Plaza.

The Compucast Interactive CEO will recount how her company was able to provide emergency communications capabilities and generate traffic and revenue for clients in the weeks and months following Hurricane Katrina. Weitz was honored by NAWBO as one of five finalists for their “2007 Woman Business Owner of the Year” award for her tireless efforts establishing connections between businesses and their employees after Hurricane Katrina and was one of six 2006 Small Business Administration “Small Business Champion” recipients for the State of Louisiana.

Utilizing her remote servers and working from her temporary location in a Houston hotel room, she provided clients 24/7 access to their web sites so they could continue to make announcements and communicate with employees and customers. To help connect stranded employees with jobs in New Orleans, Compucast developed a free employment engine—NewOrleansHospitalityJobs.com—for the New Orleans hospitality industry and continued this service at no charge until clients were back on their feet.

As an online representative for some 250 New Orleans businesses, many depended upon Compucast’s online marketing to bring business back post-Katrina. Compucast, based in Metairie, immediately put its own hospitality marketing websites to work, posting images and news on the French Quarter and other viable tourist attractions onto ExperienceNewOrleans.com, NewOrleansRestaurants.com and MardiGrasNewOrleans.com. Since Katrina, Compucast has booked more than 100,000 room nights for New Orleans hotels.

Compucast also set up mailing lists for local non-profit associations, including the New Orleans Bar Association and the Greater New Orleans Hotel & Lodging Association, to reach out to dispersed members.