``A Human Tragedy, Not a Business Tragedy'': Fortune 1000 Business Operations Executives Worry Most about Potential Effect of Katrina on Employees.

WASHINGTON -- The Procurement Strategy Council, the Real Estate Executive Board and the Supply Chain Executive Board, three membership-based divisions of the Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ:EXBD), a company providing executives with best practices research, have released the results of a survey asking executives to forecast degrees of business disruption arising from Hurricane Katrina. Results can be found on www.psc.executiveboard.com (for procurement executives), www.reeb.executiveboard.com (for corporate real estate executives), and www.sceb.executiveboard.com (for supply chain executives).

The survey of 106 supply chain, procurement, and real estate executives at 92 Fortune 1000 companies reveals that, while companies across industries expect near-term, targeted economic disruption in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, they worry most about their company's ability to provide adequate support to employees and residents in the region. Executives were asked to forecast degrees of disruption across twelve different possible adverse business outcomes arising from Hurricane Katrina (e.g., disruption to energy supply, disruption to employees in the region, etc.).

"Many companies have told us that they lost a lot of infrastructure in the Gulf coast," said David Evans, Managing Director of the Supply Chain Executive Board. "But most of them are also good at disaster recovery and know what they need to do. According to our members, the real issue here is how to get support to people in the region. This is a human tragedy, not a business tragedy. And the data shows that: by a factor of nine, our executives are most concerned about how to help their employees put their lives back together. This is the lesson executives are taking back to their planning processes for 2006."

A director of procurement at a large North American building Materials Company agrees: "We are a large consumer of natural gas, but our business will be largely unaffected. We hold pipeline capacity in the company's name, have diversified sources of supply between Canada and the Gulf, deal with financially 'A-rated' suppliers, and are well-hedged. All these things have worked as they should under these unfortunate circumstances."

Key takeaways for executives include:

1. "Disruption to my company's employees" consistently ranks among the top 3 concerns across industries - the sole risk factor that registers this level of apprehension.

2. "Total disruption by the close of 2005" consistently ranked among the bottom 3 concerns across industries - comments from executives suggest a high degree of confidence in the ability of businesses to effectively mobilize disaster recovery plans.

3. The severity of impact does not correlate with company size or industry.

4. Surveyed executives confirm they share widely publicized concern with the availability of energy supply and cascading effects on energy pricing.

As companies enter an increasingly uncertain budgeting and planning period for 2006, the Supply Chain Executive Board, Procurement Strategy Council and the Real Estate Executive Board will be providing member executives with proven tools and management practices from the handful of companies whose planning process allows for early preparation and pre-emption of supply/demand imbalances.

The Washington, D.C.-based Procurement Strategy Council, Supply Chain Executive Board and Real Estate Executive Board are divisions of the Corporate Executive Board (NASDAQ: EXBD), a leading provider of advisory services, best-practice research, and quantitative analysis. The programs services and research are available exclusively to its global membership of senior procurement, supply chain and real estate executives at the world's pre-eminent corporations. Detailed analyses on related issues are available at http://www.psc.executiveboard.com, http://www.sceb.executiveboard.com or http://www.reeb.executiveboard.com.