Heroic reminders on historic day
Businesses find ways to honor Sept. 11, 2001, fallen.
By ELISABETH DYER, Times Staff Writer
Published September 11, 2007
TAMPA - On the 35th floor overlooking the city's downtown, clients of attorneys at Broad and Cassel meet in the Flight 93 Heroes boardroom.
The law firm's managing partner, Steven Burton, came up with the idea during remodeling work to name meeting rooms for the passengers aboard the hijacked jet that crashed in a Pennsylvania field Sept. 11, 2001.
Plaques outside doors and handouts inside tell details of passengers' lives. Like Jeremy Glick's last words to his wife, to take care of their baby girl.
Clients call back to say they are touched. Time dulls the ache, yet businesses across the nation find everyday ways to remember.
A yellow rose named Forty Heroes will be marketed nationwide next spring, in memory of the passengers on the plane that crashed near Shanksville, Pa.
There, a national memorial is set to be completed by the 10-year anniversary. Chris Sullivan, former CEO and co-founder of Tampa's Outback Steakhouse Inc., heads the memorial capital campaign to raise $30-million from private donors.
It was Sullivan who spurred Burton to name the rooms. Stories of ordinary people cooperating with courage.
"I just like to think that I would do the same thing," Burton said.
Reminders of those passengers are scattered around Florida.
"Let's Roll" is painted on a 30-year-old Boeing 727 used to train law enforcement officers to respond to terrorists at a Hillsborough County sheriff's facility. Viewers suggested the name after the aircraft was featured on America's Most Wanted.
A patch of steel from the World Trade Center, dirt from the Shanksville crash site and limestone from the site of the Pentagon crash are at the University of South Florida's Joint Military Leadership Center and will be displayed when the center opens in November.
In June, a national trail in Basket Slough Refuge outside Dallas, Ore., was named for Rich Guadagno, its manager.
His parents, Jerry and Beatrice Guadagno, , sat last week in their Florida living room in Ponte Vedra surrounded by reminders of their son, a passenger on Flight 93 that day.
"We try to keep him with us," Jerry Guadagno said.
There's a bass guitar he made. A perched bird he stuffed. His badge from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The FBI returned the badge from the crash site months later.
"They think it was wedged in a tree," Guadagno said.
Plenty of work remains
After a weak start to raise $30-million for the Flight 93 National Memorial, organizers tapped Tampa's Outback Steakhouse co-founder Chris Sullivan in early 2006 to help lead the fundraising.
The effort has been slow. Sullivan pledged $2-million, a record at the time from an individual, though the total sum raised as of the 2006 summer (the latest update provided at www.honorflight93.org) was less than $8-million.
An estimated additional $28-million is required for buying land, a visitors center, roads and parking. More information can be found at www.honorflight93.org.