It’s safe to say this hasn’t been the best of years here in the United States. From the destruction and havoc of Hurricane Sandy to a nationwide outbreak of meningitis, and mass shootings at a college in California, a movie theater in Colorado and an elementary school in Connecticut, it wouldn’t be surprising to hear many Americans saying they feel considerably less safe headed into 2013.

The emergencies and tragedies that have affected our country in 2012 — and will continue to affect us in ways we can’t yet predict in the months and years to come — have led the Amatra team to refocus on our core business and what’s truly important to us.

Amatra began as an emergency notification and mass communication tool to help inform people quickly of a situation and what to do to minimize risk and damage, and more importantly, maximize safety.

A New York Times article from mid-December talked about how crucial social media strategy was during Hurricane Sandy for transit agencies, both from a marketing and branding perspective as well as a safety and logistics perspective. In fact, the story posited that sometimes communicating the status of service is equally significant as the service itself: “If there is one lesson transit officials have learned from Hurricane Sandy, it is that in the Internet era, keeping riders up to date is just as important as tracks and rolling stock.”

Yes, Amatra will be able to scale and expand easily when it’s time — our capacity to becoming a flexible, widely encompassing messaging system is well within reach. But the events of 2012 have taught us that it just makes sense to remain focused on our core value proposition: emergency management.

As part of our commitment to focusing on emergency management, we’ve brought on not only John O’Neill, our new director of sales and client success, but also Paul Foreman, a longtime tech-industry professional who will be working with us on an advisory basis.

Paul has been an investor and adviser for 10 years. His consulting work focuses on developing excellence within the sales process in major corporations and early-stage companies. He was impressed with our story and will be working closely with Amatra to develop a structure for success.

“This is my way of giving back to the industry where I spent my career,” Foreman says. “I want to help Amatra grow but base each step on a solid foundation.”

We’re looking forward to helping our clients manage risk and minimize damage in 2013, and though emergency management is our business, we’re always hoping for a safer year to come with fewer emergencies and disasters.