FAQs
Q: What are your company’s values? What do you stand for?
The core purpose of Black Umbrella is to make people, families, and communities more resilient. Our company values serve as the keystone of all of our recruitment and training efforts: confidence over fear, protection, and meticulousness. We believe that confidence in the face of the unexpected is a natural result of having made a plan in advance. We protect our clients’ information, choices, and privacy as if it was our own. And we bring meticulous attention to detail to every aspect of the process.
Q: How does the process work?
Once you become a client, we schedule a time for one of our specialists to visit you. Level I plans take one visit that lasts about 90 minutes. Level II plans and above start with the same visit, and additional visits are scheduled from there. No visit is ever over 2 hours, unless you ask for additional time.
Within 14 days of each visit, you receive the customized deliverables that you and the specialist created. Your specialist is always available to answer questions or return to your home to help with additional preparedness tasks.
Q: Can’t I make an Emergency/Safety Plan or Go Bags on my own?
Of course. Here’s a link to free resources to help you. As for Go Bags, if you have the time, you can certainly analyze, research, buy and pack your own kits, but our Clients find it much easier to purchase our pre-made kits to not only save time, but more importantly, enjoy our product testing and curation of each item in our kits.
Q: How can I work for Black Umbrella?
If you are interested in working as a Black Umbrella tactical specialist in your area, click on the Contact Us page and submit your request. Please bear in mind that we get many applications, and are looking specifically for candidates who are capable of understanding and sharing our company values. Experience as a first responder or in emergency management is a big plus, but is not required.
Q: Where does the name come from?
Umbrellas may feel like a modern convenience, but they are actually ancient technology. Visual representations of the umbrella first appear in the ruins at Ninevah, a city that dates to 1800 BCE. The umbrella appears in the writing and pictures of civilizations as diverse as ancient Egypt, Rome, Greece, China, India, and Aztec South America. In every culture, the umbrella is a symbol of protection and of special status. It is a shade that shelters – but only if you have it in advance. Since 2009, we at Black Umbrella build Emergency/Safety Plans for families that can serve as that umbrella for a different kind of bad day™.
Q: Does having a plan really matter? Can’t I just wing it?
Our brains work differently in a crisis. Building a plan with Black Umbrella serves to memorialize the clear thinking you can do now, when you are not in a threatening situation. That way, your best actions are documented for the moment when you really need it. Making a plan isn’t hard and doesn’t take a lot of time. So why not make a plan, and increase your survival odds in any time of disaster? You wouldn’t drive without your seat belt. You wouldn’t buy a new home without insurance. A Black Umbrella plan is better for your family than “winging it.”
Q: If you could have one survival tool in a disaster, what would it be?
The best survival tool is not a fixed blade knife or a fire making kit. It’s a prepared mind. Training trumps tools every time. Our process is designed to give our clients the prepared mind they need to face the unexpected, in doses both large and small.