BEACON CAPITAL PARTNERS
The Measles Outbreak of 2006 at Boston’s John Hancock Tower

SM&’s protocols and on-the-ground responsiveness were put to the test in May of 2006, when an employee working for a tenant in the John Hancock Tower, the largest tower in New England, was diagnosed with measles. Over the next month and a half, 14 more cases emerged in the city’s worst outbreak since 1989. Our client, Beacon Capital, the building owner at the time, was at the epicenter. Careful crisis management was required to protect Beacon’s impeccable reputation.

By establishing the crisis communications plan in advance, SM& was able to quickly put a clear strategy and process in place to control the flow of accurate information, both internally and externally, while keeping Beacon from being the public face of the crisis. To avoid unnecessarily worrying tenants and the general public going in and out of the building, it was essential to ensure the media reported any updates accurately. We also worked diligently to keep one step ahead of the media. We informed tenants about new confirmed cases and provided them with approved educational materials from the Boston Public Health Commission (BPHC). The building owner felt an obligation to do everything possible to protect the building’s maintenance and cleaning staff and tenants. We moved quickly to get the staff inoculated and worked closely with the BPHC to hold an inoculation clinic for workers at the affected company. This clinic occurred at a private location near the building but away from the media who had camped outside. 800 people were inoculated on the second day of the crisis.

Each day, we posted state-confirmed cases to the building’s internal website. We worked with BPHC to create a series of podcasts that featured the BPHC’s Director of Infectious Disease Control answering questions from the public. The podcasts were, in turn, posted on the building’s website. We directed all media calls to the BPHC so they could respond as experts with the latest confirmed information. Despite 600+ stories on measles in both local and national print and broadcast, no news coverage about the outbreak included the name of our client. We have been honored with professional awards for this work.