The California Governor's Office of Emergency Services (OES) is calling for papers and presentations for the Fourth Annual Disaster Resistant California (DRC) Conference.

The Conference will be held May 3-5, 2004, at the historic Sheraton Grand Hotel in Sacramento, California.

The DRC is the premiere west coast conference, continuing its tradition of offering an exciting and highly dynamic exploration of disaster mitigation, planning, preparedness, response and recovery through plenary panels, workshops and professional development courses.

The DRC is designed to bring together emergency management professionals, local and state government representatives, private business partners and researchers to share ideas, technology and resources for the purpose of mitigating disasters. As in past conferences, DRC will strive to promote partnerships, including public/private partnerships, in an effort to reduce the vulnerability of individual communities to natural and human-caused disasters. In addition, the DRC will continue to highlight California hazard mitigation success stories and recognize those California communities which have made significant strides toward making their individual jurisdictions Disaster Resistant California Communities.

Focusing on the importance of disaster resistant communities, the conference's exhibits, displays, and demonstrations will emphasize successful systems, technologies, and strategies to implement hazard mitigation measures and programs. As in the past, there will be a diverse representation of vendors and exhibitors from the public and private sectors on-site to answer questions and showcase the latest developments in emergency products.

The Conference theme is "Disaster Resistance: Realistic Strategies". Papers incorporating the theme are being solicited. Suggested topics include, but are not limited to:

• Technology in emergency management
• Strategies for securing mitigation funding
• DMA 2000
• Cost-Benefit Analysis
• Role of community based organizations during mitigation and recovery
• Successful community emergency preparedness/mitigation education
• Hazard mitigation in educational institutions
• Legislative initiatives in support of multi-hazard mitigation
• Practical applications in emergency management
• Successful mitigation projects based on cost-benefit analysis
• International multi-hazard mitigation efforts
• Vulnerable populations issues with respect to response, recovery and mitigation efforts

Papers in other areas that are related to multi-hazard mitigation, response and recovery will also be considered.

The deadline for receipt of one-page (250 words maximum) abstracts is December 10, 2003. Potential authors will be notified of acceptance/rejection of their abstracts by January 10, 2004. For accepted abstracts, the deadline for the full-length paper is March 12, 2004. Please send abstracts to the Conference Co-Chair:

Dr. Guna Selvaduray
San Jose State University
Chemical & Materials Engineering Department
One Washington Square,
San Jose, CA 95192-0082

Abstracts may also be submitted in MS Word format via email to sjsu_cdm@email.sjsu.edu.

Further information on this conference and registration information can be obtained by contacting:
Jessica Tran, CDM: Voice: (408) 924-3596, Fax: (408) 924-3857, E-mail: jessica.tran@sjsu.edu, or by accessing the DRC website at www.drc.ca.gov.