Northeastern
Remembers

The September 11 terrorist attacks stilled many lives, including cherished members of the Northeastern family.

They were business executives, salesmen, program analysts, students. Runners, clarinetists, collage makers, tutors. Fathers, aunts, sons, daughters.

Their flame will continue to burn brightly in the hearts and lives of the colleagues, friends, and family who loved them and hold their memories dear.


| Anna Allison | David Bernard | Jeffrey Coombs |

| Andrew Curry Green | Donald DiTullio and Natalie Janis Lasden |

| Peter Gay | Peter Hanson | Johnathan Henwood |

| Herbert Homer | Mark Jardim | Candace Williams |


By Karen Feldscher


The warmth of the sun

Vacationing on an island off the Maine coast, Anna Allison, MBA’81, would take in the view of sun and sky, open her arms wide, and exclaim, “Isn’t it beautiful?”

There’s a picture of Allison from when she’s about four years old, opening her arms in just the same way as she watches the Sputnik launch on television. “She’s looking up at the sky, and she’s got that unabashed sense of wonder on her face,” says Blake Allison, Anna’s husband. “It shows a fundamental part of her spirit.”

Her wonder at the world is what Blake says he’ll remember most about his wife of ten years, killed September 11 when her plane, American Airlines Flight 11, crashed in New York City. She had been headed to California on business.

Blake will also remember his wife’s positive attitude. “She had the ability to make a room brighter when she walked into it,” he says. “She had a cheery outlook and a great laugh. The glass was always half full.”

Allison, forty-eight, of Stoneham, Massachusetts, was accomplished in business. After earning her MBA, she began a career in software development, working at such companies as Lotus Development and Millennium Pharmaceuticals.

Just over a year ago, she founded her own consulting firm, A2Software Solutions, whose client list included Toyota’s Los Angeles operations. She gave lectures, trained people in the software industry, and wrote articles.

Outside of work, she liked the Boston Symphony Orchestra, gardening, and singing with her husband, who plays the guitar. “We knew the whole Beatles repertoire,” he says.

Anna met Blake, who was the manager of a small wine shop, in 1982 at a wine class he taught in Cambridge. But they didn’t start dating until two years later: After the wine shop had burned, Anna called Blake to express her sympathy and offer to take him to dinner. He said, “Fine, how about next Tuesday?”

“We realized later,” he says, “that we’d made a date for Valentine’s Day.”

Donations may be made to the Anna S. W. Allison Memorial; c/o Friends of the Library; Vinalhaven Public Library; P. O. Box 384; Vinalhaven, ME 04863. Or the Anna S. W. Allison Memorial; AIDS Action Committee; 131 Clarendon Street, 5th Floor; Boston, MA 02116.


Adventures great and small

David Bernard, BA’68, wasn’t keen on the idea of backpacking through the Grand Canyon. After all, he and his wife, Nancy, hadn’t done that sort of thing before. But Nancy wanted to go, so David agreed. “He was a good sport,” she says.

Afterward, he said it was the best trip he ever took.

The couple also traveled to Thailand not long ago—Nancy had to convince David on that one, too—and were planning more adventures, now that their three kids were grown. But those plans were dashed September 11, when Bernard was severely injured by falling debris outside the World Trade Center. Though he managed to cling to life for a while, he died December 11, three months to the day after the attacks.

Bernard, a fifty-seven-year-old Chelmsford, Massachusetts, resident who worked as an industry specialist with the Internal Revenue Service, was walking to a business meeting at building seven just as the first plane crashed. One of the first victims rushed to a hospital, he was placed on a respirator with severe spinal-cord injuries, punctured lungs, broken ribs, and a fractured shoulder blade. Nancy, ever hopeful, kept vigil by his side in New York, e-mailing family and friends with daily updates, until David was stable enough to be transferred to Massachusetts General Hospital early last month.

Nancy, also BA’68, got to know David at Northeastern; since her maiden name was Berg, she often sat near him in class. He was easygoing, loved life, and was “a good friend, a good husband, a good father,” she says. His sister, Fran Kline, recalls the big Christmas party David and Nancy held every year. His son Mark says his dad helped many friends file their income tax returns.

Bernard was into golf, tennis, and softball. When the kids were little, he made special time for each of them—basketball games with Mark and David Jr., shopping with his daughter, Jill. Once they got older, he played golf with them.

“He’d gotten me into golf, too,” says Nancy. “We had a deal. I’d play golf with him, but if I wanted to go shopping, he was willing to go.”

Bernard had really wanted to take a trip to Hawaii, but he and Nancy were saving that for when they were older, so they could have more “adventures” first. “Now,” says Nancy, her voice breaking, “he won’t get to do any of that.”

Donations may be made to the CR Paralysis Foundation; 500 Morris Avenue; Springfield, NJ 07081. Or the Nancy Bernard and Dave Bernard Survivor Fund; Enterprise Bank; 20 Drum Hill Road; Chelmsford, MA 01824.


Coffee carts and the real outdoors

Jeffrey Coombs, UC’92, loved hiking and camping. But in August, when he arrived at his friends and family’s campsite in, of all places, Foxborough—the only place they’d found that could accommodate five families—he couldn’t believe it.

The group was camped on what Coombs’s wife, Christie, calls “a patch of grass in what seemed like the middle of the road,” with a pool and a coffee cart a stone’s throw away. “You call this camping?” Coombs asked. “This isn’t camping—this is a hotel without a room!”

Then, laughing, he bought himself a cup of coffee. And proceeded to have a great vacation.

The Abington, Massachusetts, father of three, known for his dry sense of humor, was planning a “real” outdoors vacation in the Grand Canyon for late September, but he never made it. On September 11, Coombs, a project manager for Compaq Computer, was on American Airlines Flight 11, traveling for business.

Just shy of forty-three, Coombs intended to celebrate both his and his wife’s birthdays and their seventeenth wedding anniversary with a night on the town in New York City, also in late September. “It would have been our first overnight away from the kids in more than eight years,” says Christie.

She says her husband loved spending time with the kids. In fact, one reason he took the Compaq job last April was that, when he wasn’t traveling, he could work at home. “He could be home when the kids needed him, and go to their events at school,” Christie recalls.

Although Coombs was an average student in high school, he’d later become an avid learner, his wife says. After double-majoring in finance and real estate at the University of Arizona (where he and Christie met), he went on to earn a bachelor’s in management information systems at Northeastern and an MBA at Suffolk University.

“He took his work very seriously,” says Christie. “He’d lock himself in a room and do schoolwork. We joked around with him that he should read a book for pleasure.” She adds, “The kids thought it was nuts that he enjoyed going to school. But I hope his love of learning will rub off on them.”

Donations may be made to the Coombs Education Fund and Abington Education Foundation; c/o North Abington Cooperative Bank; 6 Harrison Avenue; Abington, MA 02351.


Boundless, fearless spirit

At age eighteen, Andrew Curry Green, MBA’98, almost died. He grabbed a flaming pan from the stove and ran outside to save his family and their home. He wound up with burns over 80 percent of his body and spent the summer recuperating.

But the experience didn’t make him timid, says his wife. “He continued taking risks,” says Shannon Curry Green, who started dating Andrew in their junior year at Chelmsford High and married him in 1990. “He didn’t live his life in a cupboard.”

Curry Green, a high-tech MBA graduate, was pursuing one of his adventures—serving as director of business development for Los Angeles–based eLogic—when American Airlines Flight 11 was flown by hijackers into the World Trade Center. He was returning home to Santa Monica from a business trip in Boston.

Taking the position at eLogic was a risk, says Shannon, because her husband wasn’t sure the company was a great fit for Cahners Business Information, his employer in Boston, which had recently acquired the smaller company. But after commuting to L.A. for six months, he was so charged by the job that he convinced Shannon—who’d sworn never to live out west—to make the move.

Curry Green’s athletic ability and taste for high adventure led him to kayaking, rock climbing, mountain biking, hiking, and skiing. As a boy, he led the rest of his siblings skiing backwards and spinning down the trails, says sister Sally Hunt. On his first ski trip in the West, though chastened by the challenge of western skiing, he set about mastering it. “Challenges didn’t stress him out. They excited him,” says Shannon. “They were his motivator for living.”

Curry Green made fast friends. Every year, he and scouting buddies—many of them Eagle Scouts, like he was—canoed and camped together. His friends from the MBA program, like Bill Schlageter, recall his good nature and “big friendly smile.” With Schlageter, Curry Green won Northeastern’s 1998 $60,000 Business Plan Competition, with a website that lets people buy wedding gifts from registries at various stores.

MBA friends also smile when they think of the game Curry Green invented, MBA Bingo, to break up the monotony of a day-long weekend class. The game had people in stitches, unbeknownst to the teacher. Says fellow student Rick Cunningham, “He loved to have fun.”

Donations in Curry Green’s name may be made to the Shriners Hospital for Children; 51 Blossom Street; Boston, MA 02114. Or to First Night Boston; 20 Park Plaza; Suite 1000; Boston, MA 02116.


“They so enjoyed each other”

They met about four years ago at a country-western dance. After they became a couple, they danced every Friday night at the Moose Club. They doted on their dogs, Shiloh, Sasha, and Jessie—they called them their “kids.” They loved to celebrate with family at birthdays, anniversaries, holidays. They loved to travel. And they loved each other.

Donald DiTullio, forty-nine, and Natalie Janis Lasden, forty-six, who lived together in Peabody, Massachusetts, were together when their plane, American Airlines Flight 11, crashed into the World Trade Center. They were headed to Palm Springs, California, for a vacation.

DiTullio, who was taking management courses at University College, was a quality-control inspector for Smith and Nephew in Andover, where he played on the company hockey team. Lasden, UC’84, MBA’97—a twenty-eight-year General Electric employee, most recently a program analyst at the Lynn plant—had earned a bachelor’s in information technology from University College, then returned to Northeastern for her MBA.

Ellen Lemire, DiTullio’s niece, says DiTullio and Lasden were very quiet people. “But they so enjoyed each other,” she says. “They were just great as a couple—they brought out the best in each other.”

DiTullio loved his Harley, Lemire says, but he wasn’t a “biker type.” DiTullio’s mother, Marjorie, says when he was young and had a dirt bike, he’d shut off the motor at the corner and coast home so the noise wouldn’t disturb her. Sure, sometimes he raided his sisters’ dessert plates, and he avoided taking the trash out, but he was a good kid. “He’s my son, after all,” Marjorie says. “He’s perfect.”

In class at Northeastern, DiTullio exuded charisma, says Tricia McConville, one of his instructors: “He was funny and sharp, and people were really drawn to him.”

When Ellen Lemire and her sister, Colleen, were young, they’d sit on their Uncle Don and ride him like a horse. More recently, he’d come to dote on his four-year-old granddaughter, Elizabeth. During the holidays, DiTullio and Lasden made sure they had a Christmas tree at their house just for Elizabeth, Lemire says.

Lasden endeared herself to the extended DiTullio clan by taking photos at family events and creating handmade collages from them. She was also adept at quilting, sewing, gardening, and computers. She helped Lemire build a website, giving her technical advice when she was stuck.

Same thing at work: Whenever colleagues came to Lasden with problems, her typical response was “Let’s get this taken care of!”

And it was the same at the home of Lasden’s sister, Linda LeBlanc. LeBlanc’s fourteen-year-old daughter, Melissa, who spoke at a memorial Mass for Lasden and DiTullio at Our Lady of Assumption Church in Lynn, says, “Auntie Janis fixed everything in my house that she noticed needed fixing, and she never waited. She did it right away.”

On her website, Melissa adds, “It’s not that I can’t live without her. It’s just that I don’t even want to try.”

As for Linda LeBlanc, she finds it difficult to talk about Lasden at all. She says, simply, “She was my only sister and my best friend.”

Donations may be made to the Donald DiTullio Scholarship Fund; c/o Eastern Bank; 771 Salem Street; Lynnfield, MA 01940.


Forever going the distance

Peter Gay, E’69, always said good night to his eight-year-old daughter, Larissa. Even during the nine months he spent working four days a week in California, far from his Tewksbury, Massachusetts, home. If he was in a meeting, “he’d skip out and call before she went to bed,” says Gay’s wife, Linda.

Though Gay didn’t much like his weekly commutes to California, he’d agreed to them when Raytheon made him vice president of West Coast operations last January. On September 11, his plane to Los Angeles, American Airlines Flight 11, was flown by terrorists into the World Trade Center.

The fifty-four-year-old Gay was a thirty-two-year veteran at Raytheon. He had five brothers and a sister, and was the father of three (his two grown sons live in Hyannis). He was also a runner, a volleyball whiz, and a wicked clarinetist.

Gay never sat still for long. “He used to make me dizzy sometimes,” Linda admits. “If it wasn’t the yard, it was the house. If it wasn’t the house, it was washing his cars. If the rag came out, you knew you’d be able to see yourself in the cars.”

At the family’s Cape Cod cottage, he was “Mr. Fixit,” says his sister, Laurel Gay. Brother David agrees: “Every project was going to get done correctly and efficiently and right away.”

And Gay was a big tease. He’d get the scoop on his employees from their spouses and use it to rib them, says Linda. (They gave as good as they got, right back at him.) At home, he’d call Larissa “Missy-Wissy,” Linda “Mommy-Wommy,” himself “Daddy-Waddy.” He called Laurel “Moo.”

Gay’s example had led Laurel to Northeastern to study medical laboratory science. “I thought it was really cool that you could go through school and help pay your way,” she says. Same with running. Gay kept bugging Laurel to run in the annual Falmouth Road Race, like he did. Finally, two years ago, she did—even though work kept Gay away that year. “But,” says Laurel, “I think I made him proud.”

Donations in Gay’s name may be made to the Peter A. Gay Scholarship Fund; Coyle-Cassidy High School; c/o Bill Tranter; 2 Hamilton Street; Taunton, MA 02780.


Within his broad embrace

Peter Hanson, AS’91, was a Grateful Dead fan who graduated from tie-dyed T-shirts to a suit and tie. An avid gardener, he labeled trees and shrubs with their Latin names. He collected many things, including a floor-to-ceiling stack of Wheaties boxes featuring pictures of sports greats.

But, most of all, he loved his family. “He really had his priorities in order,” says Scott Steinacher, a colleague at Waltham’s TimeTrade Systems. “You’d hear him talking to his daughter on the phone in baby talk, really loud, not trying to hide it. And whenever we went to a meeting out of town, he’d head back to the hotel to spend half an hour on the phone with his wife and daughter. Every night.”

Hanson, thirty-two, died September 11 holding onto his greatest loves—his wife, Sue, a Boston University medical student, and three-year-old daughter Christine—when United Airlines Flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center. The Groton, Massachusetts, family had been headed to California to visit Disneyland and relatives.

During the flight, Hanson managed to place two cell-phone calls to his parents, Lee and Eunice, in Easton, Connecticut, telling them the plane would probably crash. Saying good-bye.

After graduating from Northeastern, Hanson earned an MBA at Boston University, then became a salesman. He sold copiers and print servers and, most recently, web-based scheduling software for TimeTrade, where he was vice president of sales. At work, Hanson was “not only a great salesman, but an excellent manager,” says Steinacher.

Hanson used to credit Brian Starr, a sales coach, with making him a pro. “He was the ultimate client,” recalls Starr. “Half the things I suggested he’d say were crazy. Pete was a fiery guy. But after a while, he’d say, ‘Okay, I’m going to try it,’ and invariably it would work. And he had this skyrocketing career for six years.”

Steinacher recalls Hanson’s high energy, his respect for how music could bring people together, his wide knowledge of myriad topics. “He could talk to anybody about anything,” recalls Steinacher. “Once, at a restaurant, he started talking to a waitress from Lithuania. Five minutes later, they were comparing socialism with capitalism.”

Says Hanson’s father, Lee, “He was a guy who loved people, and they loved him.”

Donations may be made to the Christine Lee Hanson Memorial Fund; Congregational Church of Easton; P. O. Box 37; Easton, CT 06612.


A natural gift for life

Of the five guys rooming together in Brighton in 1988, only one was still in school: John Henwood, BA’89. Though busy with his Northeastern classes, he was generous, helping his buddies find jobs as waiters, bartenders, or parking attendants. He worked, too—as a Ritz-Carlton bellhop and a valet for a Beacon Hill restaurant, and at a ski shop on Commonwealth Avenue.

David Keefe, one of the roommates, calls Henwood “an amazing entrepreneur.” That aptitude would lead him to an internship at a London bank, to IBM in Spain, and, finally, to Manhattan’s bond-trading firms.

On September 11, Henwood was at work at Cantor Fitzgerald, on the 105th floor of the World Trade Center’s north tower. He died after hijackers flew American Airlines Flight 11 into his building, causing its collapse and killing thousands.

Henwood, thirty-five, left a wife, Concha Muñoz Garcia, whom he had met in Spain; two children, Alejandro, five, and Claudia, two; and grieving friends like Kevin Honan, who recalls Henwood’s “handsome cherub face” and “ear-to-ear smile.”

Three of Henwood’s Brighton roommates had gone to high school with him in Wilton, Connecticut. Keefe remembers riding bikes and hunting frogs with his friend. Doug Miller recalls that Henwood didn’t pay much attention in Spanish class.

Then, after graduating from Northeastern, Henwood traveled to Spain with another high school friend, Steve Wilson. Henwood wanted a job in a bank; Wilson was “along for the ride,” he says. They enrolled in a Spanish class, where Henwood picked the language up so effortlessly that the natives were convinced he was one of them.

Wilson headed home after a few months, but Henwood fell in love with Spain—and with Garcia. After finishing a stint at IBM Spain, Henwood, along with Garcia, returned to the United States to begin his bond-trading career, moving from Chase, to Lehman Brothers, to Cantor Fitzgerald.

Keefe says Henwood’s summer trips back to the Spanish coast with his children and his wife—“the center of his universe”—were the best times of his life. When in New York, he spent hours playing with his son in Central Park. Henwood and his wife had recently celebrated their ninth wedding anniversary—on September 10.

Donations may be made to the John Henwood Trust; c/o Doug Miller; 5 Red Mill Lane; Darien, CT 06820. Or the John C. Henwood Trust Fund; c/o Kevin Honan; 138 Fuller Street; Brookline, MA 02446.


“Miracles” in the background

Herbert Homer, LA’76, planned his proposal to Karen Pond very carefully. Christmastime, in front of the fireplace. “Miracles,” a Kenny G. song, playing in the background. Even the special wine glasses purchased in Las Vegas after Karen admired them were ready.

Unsure whether Karen, with her allergies to gold and silver, could wear a traditional engagement ring, Homer decided to give her a beautiful figurine instead, and pop the question as she unwrapped the gift. When Karen took her time with the package, Homer had to encourage her to just “rip it open.” She did, he proposed, she accepted—all before “Miracles” stopped playing.

That was Homer, his wife recalls, laughing softly. “He was a planner, a perfectionist,” she says. “Anything he did was done thoroughly and well, with a great deal of thought and attention to detail.”

The Milford, Massachusetts, man Karen Homer calls “her world” died aboard United Airlines Flight 175. “He was the best thing that ever happened in my life,” she says quietly.

Close to 1,000 people showed up at his memorial service at the First Congregational Church, says his wife. “I knew he was special,” she says. “Now I know that he was special to a lot of other people, too.”

A political science major at Northeastern, Homer, forty-eight, worked twenty-seven years, starting as a co-op student, at the Defense Department’s Defense Contract Management Agency, most recently as a corporate executive at Raytheon.

In mid-November, along with four other Raytheon employees who died aboard jets hijacked September 11, Homer received the Pentagon’s Defense of Freedom medal, the civilian equivalent of the Purple Heart. Karen attended the ceremony, along with Homer’s parents, William and Winifred; brother Stephen and his wife, Paula; and nephew Raymond Tiberio.

Homer had fond memories of his alma mater. He was trying to talk a niece into studying at Northeastern, and was planning to visit campus himself to see all the changes of the past decade.

Karen, who met her husband about seven years ago at church, says he was compassionate and giving, but never sought to call attention to his contributions. He was active in the Jaycees, served as a Special Olympics coach, and volunteered in the church’s crib room.

“He was wonderful with the little ones,” Karen recalls. “They knew what I know—that they were safe and loved in his arms. When he would lie on the floor, the toddlers would be crawling all over him. He was in his glory with the kids.”

Donations in Homer’s name may be made to the September 11th Memorial Scholarship Fund; Northeastern University; 346 Richards Hall; 325 Huntington Avenue; Boston, MA 02115-5000.


Pied piper in Manhattan

Four years ago, when John Jardim asked his brother for advice on getting engaged, Mark pulled out all the stops. “He was always full throttle on helping people out,” says John.

It all fell into place. At Christmastime, John and his girlfriend, Kim, flew from their Colorado home to Manhattan, where Mark and his wife, Jennifer, lived. The two couples went sightseeing at the Statue of Liberty State Park. Then Mark and Jennifer sauntered away so John could pop the question.

Every Christmas since, John and Kim spent time with Mark and Jennifer in New York. But this Christmas was different. Mark Jardim, BA’85, thirty-nine years old—remembered for his great smile and sense of humor—died September 11 at the World Trade Center. He was attending a conference on the 106th floor of the north tower.

Jennifer met Mark in 1988, when they both worked for the Boston Company. They married six years later. After working for Zurich Scudder in Boston, Jardim moved to the New York office. It was a busy life; to chase stress away, he ran daily. “He hated the gym,” says Jennifer. “Mostly he loved running in the backwoods in Cheshire, Connecticut, where he grew up.”

Work colleague Cara-Anne Gagliano says Jardim always remained “objective and unflappable,” treated everyone with respect, and knew how to have fun. “While you were out [after work], if you weren’t sure where Mark was parked, you just had to look for the guy with a crowd around him, laughing,” she said at his memorial service. “The pied piper.”

Jardim was often the one who arranged family get-togethers. “He knew you can never get enough of that time,” says John. Mark took a yearly golfing trip with his father, Tony, and every year he and Jennifer would visit John and Kim in Colorado to go hiking or mountain biking.

Mark dreamed of buying a ten-acre farm in Cheshire and turning it into the “Jardim family compound,” Jennifer says. “That’s what we were working toward, not to be in this mad place forever. We just ran out of time.”

Donations may be sent to the Mark S. Jardim Memorial Scholarship Fund; c/o The Cheshire Education Foundation, Inc.; 60 Quarry Village; Cheshire, CT 04610.


“Give me five more Candaces”

Candace Lee Williams was an honors student, an athlete, a budding stockbroker. She liked watching Friends and Beverly Hills 90210 reruns. She cooked dinner for her roommate and threw parties for friends. She tutored her classmates in statistics. She reached out to kids with disabilities.

As her mother, Sherri, puts it, “She was an amazing, inspirational, brilliant, beautiful, exciting, and fun-loving person.”

Williams, a twenty-year-old business administration junior from Danbury, Connecticut, died on September 11 when the plane taking her to California for a week’s vacation, American Airlines Flight 11, crashed into the World Trade Center.

Last year, on co-op, she worked for Merrill Lynch on the fourteenth floor of one of the World Trade towers. She loved the job, says co-op coordinator Mary Kane. And her spirit so impressed her Merrill Lynch colleagues that, when it was time to hire other co-op students, a Merrill Lynch exec told Kane, “Give me five more Candaces.”

NU classmates appeared on her doorstep before exams, knowing she’d help. “Candace was like a mother hen,” recalls her grandfather Charles Williams. Roommate Erin Harju—whom Williams planned to meet up with in California—says, “She was good at everything, and a good friend.”

In Danbury, Williams had been a top student at Immaculate High. She was a cheerleader, served on the student council, participated in clubs and activities, volunteered for the Special Olympics, played basketball, and ran cross-country.

Weekends and summers, she worked at her grandparents’ construction business. “She did everything, from the time she was seven years old,” says Charles. “She ran the trucks, helped put in septic systems, laid out concrete, and worked on billing,” he says. “I’m still amazed to this day. With Candace, you would go over something with her once, and she’d have it down.”

And she had a positive outlook on life. “I don’t think I ever had a bad day with her,” her grandfather says.

Donations may be made to the Candace Lee Williams Scholarship Fund; c/o Immaculate High School; 73 Southern Boulevard; Danbury, CT 06811. Or the Candace Lee Williams Scholarship Fund; c/o Valessia Samaras; Northeastern University; 360 Huntington Avenue; 347 Richards Hall; Boston, MA 02115.