We are now on the cusp of the 25th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, which took the lives of nearly 3,000 innocent people from 80 nations. In prior years, I have written about Edelman’s extraordinary response to the tragedy: Edelman colleagues volunteering at a New York City hotel to support grieving families of client Cantor Fitzgerald; a three-month sprint to build a website for the City of New York providing updates on air quality, local businesses and mass transit in Lower Manhattan; a three-year program for the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation supporting the rebuilding process; our work with Swiss Re on insurance litigation; and, ultimately, the opening of the 9/11 Museum in 2011.
On this anniversary, we also pay tribute to Suria Clarke, a brilliant 30-year-old corporate affairs specialist who, after five years at Edelman, joined client Cantor Fitzgerald just two weeks before the attacks. Edelman, and its people, established a scholarship fund in her memory at her university.
This is my story of 9/11. I left LaGuardia at 6 a.m., flying through Chicago to Omaha for a CEO golf and tennis event hosted by Warren Buffett. When I arrived, I was stunned to see the Twin Towers in flames on the airport monitors, then collapsing into a massive cloud of dust. I was unable to reach my family in Manhattan. The next morning, I rented a car and drove back to Chicago with three others. Along the way, I wrote a note to our staff about how to counsel clients: focus first on internal audiences; extend help to the community; don’t seek attention for good deeds; and reconsider all media activity, because there was only one story that mattered.
I met with the team in Chicago to reassure them about the safety protocols for the Aon Center, an 80-story structure clad in the same marble as the World Trade Center.
I got back to New York on Friday by taking a flight to Philadelphia, then taking a train. As we approached the tunnel connecting New Jersey and Manhattan I was overwhelmed by the smoke and haze over Lower Manhattan. I hugged my family close; my middle child Tory asked, “Daddy, why do terrorists do something like this to innocent people.” I then visited the Edelman team at the Cantor grieving center to thank them for their work, particularly Larry Koeffler and Barbara Taylor, who were leading our efforts there.
Our senior management team decided that we would come back to the office on Monday, September 17. In the words of Matt Harrington, then manager of the New York office, “Come Monday we must all show our resolve and take up our work again. There is much to do; not only will our clients need us more than ever but after the workday, there will be significant opportunities for us to contribute to the local community.” In the same spirit, I flew to Berlin to make a keynote address at the end of the week to the International PR Association about trust and resilience, echoing President Kennedy forty years before, saying that everybody is now a New Yorker.
A few weeks later, Klaus Schwab, founder of the World Economic Forum, decided to hold its Annual Meeting in New York City. I spent considerable time working with hotels and Forum staff to create a safe environment for the January meeting. In March, we were selected to work with newly elected New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and his administration on a website providing daily updates on recovery efforts, air quality, mass transit and rebuilding plans. Russell Dubner, Justin Blake and I spent much of that summer on the project, which launched a week before the first anniversary of 9/11. That work led to our being hired by the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation to communicate the long-term redevelopment plan, including a major transit hub, two museums and five office towers. On the first anniversary of the attacks, and for a decade thereafter, I attended a memorial service for the 67 employees of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods who lost their lives that day. The firm had been my ex-wife’s employer from 1979 to 1995.
The 9/11 Memorial and Museum has been a passion project for nearly two decades; I sit on the Board of Directors. I helped the Museum raise money. AB InBev donated funds for the damaged fire engine that sits on the ground floor. ScottsMiracle-Gro made possible the Memorial Glade, including the miraculous Survivor Tree, the only one to make it through the conflagration. PepsiCo was among the first donors for the construction of the Museum. We have done pro-bono PR for the Museum for the 9/11 remembrance ceremony for two decades.
I have always found it easier to talk about Edelman’s actions in the wake of the attack than to discuss myself. As a leader, you project strength for your team, even when you carry the emotions privately. I knew six people who died in the towers. I saw the political infighting and business wrangling over the rebuilding. I appreciated Mayor Bloomberg’s single-minded determination to make the area a living, breathing community again. And I have witnessed the reactions of hundreds of visitors to the Memorial and Museum as they take in the courage of the police, firefighters and other first responders, the loss of loved ones and the origins of the War on Terror.
I wasn’t going to join the military, but I could contribute in the way I knew best: using communications to help bring people back to New York and embrace Lower Manhattan. I also experienced the best of America during that time. Driving back from Omaha, I stopped at a gas station, and when people learned I was from New York, they hugged me and asked me to send their best to the people of Manhattan. I feel that I have done and will continue to do my part in this epic story; it is a source of pride and a daily inspiration to keep the story alive for the next generation.
Richard Edelman is CEO.
