George K. Baum & Company (GKB) is furnishing this document to you to provide information about our efforts to ensure that you are not significantly affected as a result of an emergency or significant business disruption.

Securities Industry regulations require each member firm to create and maintain a business continuity plan reasonably designed to meet its obligations to its clients and other counter-parties.  In accordance with these requirements, George K. Baum & Company has designed a business continuity plan to address possible scenarios in efforts to minimize the impact to your account.

In keeping with the regulatory requirements, the business continuity plan for George K. Baum & Company is designed to address key areas of concern - including but not limited to the following:

• Data back-up and recovery
• All mission critical systems
• Financial and operational assessments
• Alternate means of communication between GKB and its customers
• Alternate means of communication between GKB and its employees
• Alternate physical locations of employees
• Critical business constituent, bank and counter-party impact
• Regulatory reporting
• Communications with regulators
• How George K. Baum & Company will ensure that customers have access to their funds and securities in the event George K. Baum & Company determines it is unable to continue its business.

Since events creating business disruptions may vary in nature and scope, George K. Baum & Company has anticipated scenarios in which the following are affected:

• George K. Baum & Company headquarters location
• A George K. Baum & Company branch location
• A city wide area
• A regional area

Regardless of the scope of potential disruption, George K. Baum & Company intends to continue to provide service to its clients as soon as possible.

George K. Baum & Company has an alternate operations site identified in its headquarters’ geographic area.  In the event where the headquarters building or business district is affected, the other building can be used to help restore operations. 

In the unlikely event of a citywide or regional disruption, George K. Baum & Company has established a recovery site approximately 500 miles from its headquarters that can be used to restore time sensitive functions as soon as key employees are relocated to the facility.  Additionally, George K. Baum & Company would intend to take advantage of any available facilities at any of our offices that may be located in other geographical regions.  In the event that any such disruption occurs, we have developed alternative service arrangements, systems, locations and contingency plans to ensure that any service is quickly restored.

At a minimum, the George K. Baum & Company business continuity plan is reviewed, updated and tested on an annual basis.  Additionally, our primary internal and external application providers periodically conduct testing of their own back-up capabilities to ensure that, in the event of an emergency or significant business disruption, they will be able to provide us with the critical information and applications we need to continue or promptly resume our business.

If SIPC determines that we are unable to meet our obligations to our customers or if our liabilities exceed our assets in violation of Securities Exchange Act Rule 15c3-1, SIPC may seek to appoint a trustee to disburse our assets to customers.  We will assist SIPC and the trustee by providing our books and records identifying customer accounts subject to SIPC regulation

Making sure that any type of disruption does not unduly impact our clients is extremely important to us, and our business continuity plan is designed to allow us to continue to provide the quality service you have come to expect from George K. Baum & Company.