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Commemorating 9/11

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US.

Our company lost 16 colleagues in this tragedy, along with 71 clients, at what was the first-ever WatersTechnology conference.

The conference was held at Windows on the World on the 106th floor of the World Trade Center’s North Tower and was due to start at 9.00 AM; the tower was struck at 8.46 AM, destroying all three staircases in the building. No-one above the point of impact escaped.

At the time, WatersTechnology was part of a company known as Risk Waters Group, and was a small, collaborative organization. Although the conference was a Waters event, held in the US, those attending included members of the Risk team, and others who had recently switched from Risk to Waters.  Some had travelled from London to attend. Others were based in New York. Obviously, everyone at the company – wherever they were based, and whatever their role – was affected.

We will not forget this part of our history, the people we lost – or the efforts on the part of other colleagues to continue the business in the aftermath of the attacks. As a public tribute to those colleagues, a series of articles has been published on the Risk.net and WatersTechnology sites. You will find them here.

Anchoring the series is an article by Anthony Malakian, editor-in-chief of WatersTechnology, based on interviews with former colleagues – it records for the first time the impact 9/11 had on our company, and the people who worked here at the time. Around that article, we have collected individual tributes to those who died from their families and friends, and from some members of the business at the time.

Our thanks go to the small team who put our tribute together, led by Duncan Wood: Alex Krohn, Jon Lloyd, Anthony Malakian and Tom Osborn.