PUBLISHER'S VIEWPOINT
October 2001
Let's Do What We Can

We were lucky Sept. 11. As a staff. As friends. As an industry, in which many of us are friends. We were lucky in part because of the timing of the end of the NAFEM Show. Many left Orlando, Fla., on Monday, Sept. 10. Many others, including all of us at FER, planned to leave Tuesday: Brian on his motorcycle at dawn (see his column); Rich on a 7:38 a.m. flight to Newark; Jen, Pat and I on a plane just after noon. (Chris was staying at Disney for vacation.)

By the grace of God, we all got home safely. Rich’s flight was diverted to Richmond, Va., where he found a rental car and drove home. Brian spent two days in a strange warp where he could only get news as he stopped for gas. Jen, Pat and I ran into Deirdre Flynn, NAFEM executive director, and Buffy Schechter, NAFEM show manager, and later found ourselves on a Chicago-bound bus chartered for the NAFEM/Smith Bucklin staff. FEDA’s Ray Herrick and his staffers were with us. It was a long, solemn 22 hours from Orlando to Chicago; we picked up radio news as we passed through major cities.

We haven’t heard of a single person involved in the E&S community who was hurt in New York or Washington, D.C., or who was on one of those four planes. Dealer M. Tucker lost a truck, according to Marc Fuchs. Steve Don says his New York metro area people are safe. Neither they nor Deirdre nor Ray nor MAFSI, FCSI or CFESA know of anyone in our world who was hurt. We are lucky.

But we all know thousands of others weren’t. Rich and his wife Phillis live in the Atlantic Highlands area of New Jersey. Their parish lost 56 members; their former parish, 75.

Two executives—Jeff Mladenik and Andrew Curry Green—from Cahners Publishing, where we worked for many years, were on the first plane from Boston. Windows on the World at the top of the World Trade Center lost more than a score of pastry chefs, cooks and prep people. We’re certain other operators lost people. We offer our sympathies to all their families and colleagues.

FEDA has launched a fund to aid victims and their families. NAFEM is supporting FEDA’s fund and also looking at other ways it can help. Check at www.feda.com  and www.nafem.org  for details. NRA, through its Educational Foundation, has established the Cornerstone Initiative Relief Effort that includes a number of efforts, including suggested relief funds. Information is available at www.restaurant.org. Do what you can. And pray for peace, justice and tolerance.

Cheers,

Robin Ashton
Publisher