A 9/11 Story

Thanks for sharing.

He was a really good guy, a really funny guy too.

To commemorate the 10th anniversary of 9/11 that's coming up this year and to give Tom's children a sign that he has not been forgotten and will never be forgotten, Tom's friends are inviting anyone who loves the sport of track and field to show your support for Tom by going to Facebook and friending Tom Glasser.

A real hero that too few know about is the guy who was the head of security for the WTC. When they had the truck bomb in the parking garage that killed a few people it took four hours to evacuate the buildings and only one of the towers was involved.

He took over security, increased its defenses to ground-based attacks, and most importantly worked to get evacuation of the building to be much faster and safer. Aside from the fire and police that went into the building most of the fatalities were in the first tower above the point of impact. Even though the second hit was lower (74th?) and provided a faster rate of burning (and hence collapsed on itself first), there were relatively few people from that tower that were killed.

This individual was stayed in the building to assist in the response even though he knew it would collapse on him eventually. I think he is responsible for saving at least as many lives as were lost and possibly up to 10,000 or more.

This is not just 'some story'; my wife was a (proposed) PI on a major grant application on building security and they consulted with this guy in the process (in part because another PI was in New York).

I can't remember his name, but there was a show on I believe the History Channel about this guy. Very interesting stuff, and his innovations and procedures saved a lot of people.

Wow, never heard of this guy... sounds incredible. Do any of you know his name?

only 3k died at wtc. a terrible tragedy for sure but not a huge catastophe. look how many died in the yugoslavian war in the 1980s. look at how many died in the iran-iraq war. look how many died in palestine from 1947-2011 and are still dying. look at how many died in darfur and are still dying.

Hopefully the mods clean up this thread and let it be a tribute to what sounds like a great guy rather than a politicized mess.

only 3k wrote:

only 3k died at wtc. a terrible tragedy for sure but not a huge catastophe. look how many died in the yugoslavian war in the 1980s. look at how many died in the iran-iraq war. look how many died in palestine from 1947-2011 and are still dying. look at how many died in darfur and are still dying.

what's your point? I don't live in Yugoslavia, Iran, Iraq, Palestine, or Darfur.

as for the original story, I cringed when I read he was a mortgage backed securities trader. Sad story though.

A death is a death, plain and simple. Playing a comparison game with numbers is disrespectful and quite frankly kind of bizarre. As if these other incidents are somehow MORE important? All of those incidents are tragic, no more/no less.

Rick Rescorla. A leader and a hero his entire life.

earplugs wrote:

as for the original story, I cringed when I read he was a mortgage backed securities trader.

You cringed when you read he was a mortgage-backed securities trader? Why? Tom's career was an honorable one. The mortgage-backed securities industry played an important role in the 1980s and 1990s bringing new sources of investment capital into the home mortgage industry, lowering mortgage rates for all homebuyers. Tom helped his investor clients navigate their way through this new class of investments. He died years before the disaster of under-regulated sub-prime lending run amok that brought down our economy in 2008 and his career was not tainted by that scandal. The fact is, most of the people who worked in the top floors of the World Trade Center worked in the financial services industry, and most of them worked in some capacity or other in origination, sales, trading or investing of fixed income securities -- predominantly at Cantor Fitzgerald, Eurobrokers, Keefe, Bruyette & Woods and Sandler, O'Neill. They were good, decent people who went to work, supported their families, paid their taxes, contributed to their communities. They didn't deserve to die. And from what we know they acted with great honor, dignity and humanity when confronted with death. They banded together, they helped each other out as best they could. They called home and said goodbye to their husbands or wives, their parents or their children. Hundreds of police and firemen died trying to save them because their lives were worth saving. They could have been any one of us. Their loss is still mourned and they will not be forgotten.