Sept. 11 haunted him to the end

A Wall Street exec, raised in Tampa, did all he could to help out six years ago today.

By ANDREW MEACHAM, Times Staff Writer
Published September 11, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT < Frank Fernandez, an economist who grew up in Tampa, remained consumed by Sept. 11. He helped the Federal Reserve flood crippled banks with low-interest loans, advised President Bush and tracked the terrorists' money trail and analyzed the smaller role played by the United States in world markets since Sept. 11.

Someone warned passengers to turn back: A plane had struck one of the World Trade Center towers.

Mr. Fernandez, an economist who grew up in Tampa, did not turn back. He raced to his building one block east of the towers. He hurried to the 35th floor, where he worked as a senior vice president for the Securities Industry Association.

As a floor captain, Mr. Fernandez was responsible for evacuations. On a second trip upstairs, he found a colleague watching the tragedy from the conference room. He would later write a poem, A Patch of Blue, about the moment:

Safer here than in the street he argues,So I stare. They climb out of windows

And step off,

Plummeting into the smoke. One, two, three.

Birds, the children called them.

The first tower then collapsed before their eyes. They struggled to get the ground floor door open, backed up with Trade Center dust.

Mr. Fernandez died in New York on Wednesday, days after undergoing heart surgery. He was 53.

The Sept. 11 attacks changed his professional life, which he spent developing strategies for economic recovery.

The son of a maitre d' and a school cafeteria worker, Mr. Fernandez grew his hair long in the 1960s, played football and wrestled for Plant High, and flirted with the Bible.

"He was the consummate hippie," said DeeAnn Athan, Mr. Fernandez's high school sweetheart and a Tampa defense attorney.

As an economist with an MBA from Georgetown, Mr. Fernandez limited his excesses to extravagant cooking on holidays, cheesecake at Cafe La Fortuna and Marlboro Lights.

He dreamed of moving back to Tampa so that his son, Felipe, 12, could play high school football. This summer, Mr. Fernandez had accepted a job with the Central Bank of Kuwait, Athan said. He planned to visit his family every six weeks.

Through it all, Mr. Fernandez remained consumed by Sept. 11. He helped the Federal Reserve flood crippled banks with low-interest loans. He advised President Bush and tracked the terrorists' money trail. He analyzed the smaller role played by the United States in world markets since Sept. 11.

His once-frequent nightmares had diminished in recent years, said brother Jose Fernandez of Tampa, 55. But the images remained, such as this one from A Patch of Blue:

Breathing the dead, I first smell

That smell: gray, ash-covered souls shamble past.

One is down, a woman whose trickle of blood

is the only color not muted with gray:

A gray man emerges from the cloud,

Looks down, speaks,

And lifts her up, carrying her away.

Andrew Meacham can be reached at 813 661-2431 or ameacham@sptimes.com.

BIOGRAPHY:

Frank A. Fernandez

Born: Aug. 3, 1954.

Died: Sept. 5, 2007.

Survivors:wife, Christina Briggs Fernandez; children, Francesca and Felipe; sisters, Carmen Smith and Mercedes Fernandez; brothers, Jose Fernandez and Julian Fernandez.

[Last modified September 10, 2007, 22:03:36]