Purple Tree retains big-name emergency management consultant

by David Reed

April 7,2008

      Local technology startup Purple Tree Technologies hopes to widen its profile by working with a global emergency management consultant. The company announced that it has retained James Lee Witt Associates, the emergency management arm of GlobalOptions Group, for consulting services over the next year.
      Purple Tree's Early Alert Response System, EARS, can broadcast location-specific emergency alerts to receiving devices called e-Fobs or through cell phone networks.  The company is marketing the system for use by corporate campuses, universities and cellular providers.
      James Lee Witt Associates will help Purple Tree identify target sectors and specific clients for the EARS system, according to a press release by the company.
      Purple Tree spokesman Mark Farnen said last week that the partnership is a major step forward and lends the company credibility in the marketplace. James Lee Witt Associates is headed by its namesake, a former FEMA director, along with former NATO commander and presidential candidate Wesley Clark and former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater. The consultant firm's clients list includes Sprint Nextel, the State of Maryland, Northwestern University, and about two dozen other governments, companies and organizations.
      "When it's appropriate, they'll recommend our product as part of a package of services that GlobalOptions and James Lee Witt would recommend," Farnen said.        "They'll act as a recommender, an introducer, a promoter of the EARS system."
      The backing of a credible matchmaker may give Purple Tree an edge over competitors like Glendale, Calif.-based 3n, which has licensed a modernized alert network to about 100 American universities, including the University of Missouri.
      Bill Karl, a former engineer at Columbia's 3M plant, founded Purple Tree in 2001. The company has attracted local business leaders like ABC Labs CEO Byron Hill and Orscheln Products president Robert Orsheln to its board of directors.