AOL, Cisco, Tech Leaders Make Y2K a Family Affair; Nation's Leading Technology Companies Use Bright Horizons Y2Kids Program to Solve Millennial Workplace Bug.

Business Editors

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 30, 1999

Some of the nation's largest leaders in Internet, software, and networking technology are turning to a decidedly low-tech solution to solve a major workplace millennium bug. Major technology corporations, including America Online and Cisco Systems, are contracting with Bright Horizons Family Solutions (NASDAQ: BFAM) to run round-the-clock overnight child care to support employees who will be working overtime during the millennial turnover.

Bright Horizons, the nation's leading provider of employer-sponsored child care, designed the Y2Kids program to meet the unique worksite challenges facing technology companies as they prepare for the Year 2000 changeover. Bright Horizons will provide teachers, administrators, materials, supplies, food, support services, insurance and complete management of the child care operations so the technology companies and their employees can concentrate on keeping critical systems up and running as the clock hits midnight.

"As these major technology leaders prepare to work overtime to ensure a smooth transition to the Year 2000, we'll be there to support them," said Bright Horizons President and CEO Roger Brown. "Y2Kids may be a once in a millennium program, but it's part of the growing trend to make technology companies family-friendly, and Cisco and AOL are leading the industry and making that happen this New Year."

At Cisco offices in San Jose, CA some employees will be working round-the-clock to ensure a smooth transition into the Year 2000. While friends and relatives are working themselves, or partying for the New Year, the question arose of what to do with the kids during the overtime Y2K work schedules. Bright Horizons will be managing a child care center in San Jose beginning in the afternoon on Thursday, December 30th and continuing non-stop, 24-hours-a-day through Monday morning, January 3rd for a total of 89 hours.

Special accommodations will be made for Cisco kids as young as infants and as old as twelve years. At Cisco's San Jose headquarters, for instance, conference rooms will be converted to play spaces with a slumber party theme complete with pizza, hot dogs and plenty of PB&J. Kids will work on special Year 2000 art projects to bring home as souvenirs or to fill a time capsule.

The AOL Data Center in Dulles, VA will host a pint-sized party when the clock strikes midnight. Approximately 225 critical employees will be managing their computer systems while Bright Horizons watches the children of those employees. Executive conference rooms will become party central for seven hours when 90 children, ages six months to 12 years, set up their tents and break out the popcorn for movies and games from 7:00 pm on New Year's Eve until 2:00 am New Year's Day.

At other technology companies children will be ringing in the New Year with sparkling cider and a special visit from Frosty the Snowman while their parents are busy keeping all systems go when January 1, 2000 hits. Children will enjoy a pajama party atmosphere, make their own homemade ice cream and watch holiday movies as the calendar flips to the New Year.

Bright Horizons Family Solutions, providing on-site, near-site and back-up child care at the workplace, is on the cutting edge of early childhood education and work/life solutions. The company is the leading provider of on-site child care in the technology field and specializes in adapting child care programs to meet the special needs and culture of each individual employer.

Bright Horizons manages 291 family centers for more than 220 clients, which include 68 of the Fortune 500. The company employs more than 9,000 associates in 34 states and the District of Columbia. Bright Horizons is a winner of the Ron Brown Presidential Award for Corporate Citizenship. Husband and wife co-founders Roger Brown and Linda Mason have been named among BusinessWeek's "Best Entrepreneurs" and were named "Entrepreneur of the Year" by Ernst & Young/USA Today.