Richards & Richards

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – (Feb. 28, 2014) Richards & Richards CEO Steve Richards has been invited by NAID (National Association for Information Destruction) to speak at its annual national conference, to be held in Phoenix this April.

Richards, along with Eric Haas of Automated Record Management Systems in Green Bay, Wis., will lead a discussion records storage for destruction companies.

“Speaking at NAID is the equivalent of getting invited to perform at Carnegie Hall for someone in our business,” said Richards & Richards chief operations officer Jerre Richards. “This is a well-deserved honor for Steve and Eric.”

Steve Richards is also in the running for vice president of NAID. The election will be held at the conference.

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About Richards & Richards:

For more than 27 years, Richards & Richards has provided the highest level of professional records and information management services throughout Middle Tennessee. Focusing on traditional records management services, Richards & Richards offers records storage, data protection, secure paper shredding, magnetic media destruction, computer hard-drive destruction, e-vaulting, and copy and imaging services.

With more than 1,900 clients storing their records in its 251,000-square-foot records center, Richards & Richards is the oldest and largest single-market, independently owned and operated records management company in Tennessee.

Richards & Richards has a new DataVault - a FIRELOCK Class 125 Media Rated, Zone 4 seismic rated data protection facility and the only DataVault in Nashville that meets NFPA 75 and NFPA 232 standards for magnetic media.

Richards & Richards DataVault’s unique layout and ceramic fiber walls are designed not only to protect media from intense heat, but to reflect heat out, as well.

The walls are filled with a thick 8-inch layer of ceramic fiber, which can withstand 2000 degree heat for 5 hours. The temperature inside of the Richards & Richards DataVault will never rise above 125º F. (52º C) degrees during that time.

Below is a video that demonstrates just how effective just one inch of this fiber is:

More information about our new vault is available here.

Towards the end of each business day, you personally pop a backup cartridge into your tape drive, while doing a last check of emails and planning for the next day. When completed, the tape goes into your laptop bag so it can go home with you at the end of the day. You realize the importance of making sure that your data isn’t left on site after reading a disaster recovery article several years ago that made perfect sense.

You’re a control freak—and proud of it. You’ve gotten beyond trying to analyze why. In fact, you wear it with pride! After all, throughout the years it’s served you well—your firm control on daily operations and the ability to run a tight ship are the prime reasons your company is successful. You maintain hands-on involvement in virtually every area of your business, including the backup of your data.

Today on the way home, you stop at the dry cleaners—a routine you’ve followed hundreds of times. You run inside, pick up your laundry, and after a quick chat with store owner, you return to your car and place your clothes in the backseat. It isn’t until you’re halfway home that you notice your briefcase isn’t in its usual place on the passenger seat. You feel sick to your stomach.

It’s an instance where being a control freak may have cost you a lot more than your pride, but at least you can take solace in the fact that you’re not alone. According to the Ponemon Institute’s “2013 Cost of a Data Breach” study, negligence alone accounts for 33% of corporate data loss. So how could you have avoided this situation in the first place and maintained even more control over your data?

Acknowledging the risks of your current data protection strategy

The problem with taking a backup tape or hard drive home is the exposure to risk. In addition to the possibility of theft, there are other factors that can contribute to data loss. First, a private residence does not provide any more protection than leaving it within your office. While it may bring you peace of mind knowing that your backup tape is in the same building as you, it fails to acknowledge the probability, however slim, of a natural disaster or fire and flooding within your home. Your house simply does not provide the proper data protection environment.

The chances are even higher of the data written to your tape or hard drive being compromised from temperature and humidity conditions within your home or car. Given the climate fluctuations in our Nashville region, this is a very real possibility. Leave a tape in a hot car or humid room and your backup data could be gone for good.

Additionally, this purely manual process does not offer verifiable and controlled processes for managing your critical data. One mislabeled or improperly rotated tape can equally lead an audit nightmare—not to mention legal and regulatory problems. In order to ensure complete disaster recovery and business continuity capabilities, it’s important to be able to locate the exact critical data you need in the least amount of time.

Taking advantage of a professional data protection solution

A professional data protection solution can actually provide you with greater control of your data through the application of a professionally managed, off-site data storage and media rotation solution. Theft and disaster risks are significantly minimized by transporting backup media to a vault specially designed for the long-term protection and preservation of media assets and equipped with the following:

Tapes and hard drives containing vital data can be rotated and managed by professional data protection specialists, thus ensuring maximum recovery time objectives (RTOs) at all times. Barcode tracking interfaced with an inventory management system allows for a comprehensive audit trail of all media assets stored offsite.

Richards & Richards provides data protection solutions to businesses throughout Nashville. To find out more, please contact us by phone or fill in the form on this page.

Bowman Richards went to the University of Tennessee in Knoxville determined not to return to his family’s company, but his experience prompted a change of heart.

Growing up, Richards had worked in the physical operations of the record management company, moving and organizing boxes of paper files in the large storage facility. It was “extremely sweaty” work, he said.

Richards admitted he was fired at least 10 times as a kid.

Read the full article here:

Son grew into his family’s business – The Tennessean

This interesting Two Sides’ video, “Paper Because, Paper is Dead”, brings up several good points on why paper is not dead. Paper is a sustainable resource and at Richards & Richards we repurpose shredded documents into new paper products such as paper towels and toilet paper. Paper has a vital role in our lives and will never be dead. We might go more electronic but paper is still extremely efficient as you can see described in this entertaining skit.