Fish and Wildlife Service remembers fallen comrade

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees have been gathering in person and on the Internet to remember the life of a wildlife refuge manager killed in the crash of the hijacked United Airlines jetliner in the Pennsylvania countryside last Tuesday. Richard Guadagno, 38, manager of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge on the coast of northern California, was a passenger aboard the flight, which was bound from Newark, N.J. to San Francisco. Based on cell phone calls from the plane, the flight's passengers are believed to have thwarted attempts by the terrorists to use the plane to destroy a target in the Washington area. The plane crashed in the hills of western Pennsylvania, killing everyone on board. No one on the ground was injured or killed. If the passengers did thwart the attack, Guadagno would have done anything he could to stop the hijackers, former Wildlife Service colleagues said. Guadagno was trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga., and served as a front-line law enforcer at several wildlife refuges. "He was a consummate law enforcement officer, fully trained in all aspects of the discipline, and he performed in an admirable, consistently professional manner," said Peter Nylander, supervisory special agent for the Wildlife Service in Oregon. "He was a damn good cop." The six employees who worked with Guadagno at the Humboldt Bay refuge in Loleta, Calif., organized a remembrance for their manager on Saturday at the refuge's new headquarters and visitors center, which has yet to be formally opened, Acting Refuge Manager Lawrence McGowan said. Guadagno had been overseeing development of the facility, which was completed the Friday before the hijackings. One of Guadagno's last actions was to order furniture, said David Paullin, Guadagno's supervisor. The Wildlife Service will name the new Humboldt Bay facility after Guadagno, Paullin said. New landscaping will probably include a garden with a flagpole and plaque. Law enforcement officers throughout the service have placed black ribbons on their badges, and employees are wearing buttons adorned with Guadagno's photograph. Wildlife Service employees have organized blood drives in his name. Officials at the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, where Guadagno previously worked, are planning to name a wildlife observation deck in his honor. Guadagno's name will also be added to a wall honoring Wildlife Service employees who have died in the line of duty. The wall is at the Fish and Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, W. Va. Wildlife Service employees and citizens from across the country also posted their thoughts, stories and photographs of Guadagno on a memorial Web site run by Wildlife Service workers. "I feel privileged and honored to have known and worked with Rich and salute his life as a person, a biologist, a refuge manager, and as an American who I believe made the ultimate sacrifice to safeguard and protect this great nation of ours," a colleague wrote on the Web site. Guadagno worked for the wildlife service for 17 years, serving at agency offices and refuges in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Oregon and California. He had been promoted to refuge manager at Humboldt Bay a year and a half ago. His duties included administration, wildlife management and law enforcement. While at a refuge in Oregon, Guadagno subdued a person suspected of shooting up signs on the refuge. Guadagno was out for a nightly run, Nylander recalled, when he spotted a man in a vehicle, shooting off a handgun. The vehicle turned toward Guadagno, who hid in a ditch until the vehicle came closer. Without a badge and armed only with a pen-sized flashlight, Guadagno jumped from the ditch, ordered the man to stop his vehicle, secured the gun and took the man into custody. "That was the kind of individual Rich was," Nylander said. During his time in Oregon, Guadagno was statistically the most effective refuge officer, issuing more citations than anyone else, Nylander added. The role of Guadagno and other passengers in the downing of the flight may come to light after investigators release the results of an examination of the plane's data recorders, or "black boxes." The memorial Web site is at http://pacific.fws.gov/guadagno/.