Employees remember fallen co-workers as anniversary nears

As the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks approaches, employees of the Census Bureau's New York office are still grieving for fallen co-workers Marion Britton and Waleska Martinez.

The two women, who were headed to a conference in California aboard United Airlines Flight 93 on Sept. 11, were killed when terrorists crashed their plane into a Pennsylvania field.

Britton, deputy director of the New York regional office, was a 21-year Census Bureau veteran, and Martinez, a computer specialist, had spent 13 years with the agency. The two women were both recipients of the bronze medal, the highest honorary medal given by the Census Bureau.

In the months since the attacks, the Census offices in New York have had to deal with the loss of their two co-workers, a narrow escape from their lower-Manhattan offices near the World Trade Center, and a return to their offices in the middle of the anthrax crisis. Now they have to get through the one-year anniversary of the attacks.

"I'm going to be giving folks liberal leave," said the agency's New York Region Director Tony Farthing. "If they have the time to take off, I'm going to let them take it off. Any fair, caring manager would allow them that day to pay their respects, to grieve."

A small, indoor rock fountain in the Census Bureau offices serves as a memorial to Britton and Martinez, added as a way to honor on a daily basis the two longtime federal workers.

"Usually a week doesn't go by that I don't end up thinking about them, or I'm not reminded about them; it's hard to not do that. You turn the television on and they are constantly talking about it," Farthing told Government Executive recently. "I've tried to shelter the staff, so that they don't have to be reminded about it every day."

On Wednesday, Farthing will be in Washington to participate in a ceremony honoring Britton and Martinez, and his deputy director will represent the Bureau at a ceremony in Pennsylvania.

Farthing said he's honored to participate in the ceremony, but that it's time to shift the focus to healing, rather than grieving. "People think you want to talk about this all the time, but it brings back very bad memories of that day," he said. "I think folks are ready to move on with their lives."

The Fish and Wildlife Service also lost one of its employees, Richard Guadagno, during last year's terrorist attacks. Guadagno, manager of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge in Loleta, Calif., was also aboard Flight 93.

Over the past year, Guadagno's friends and co-workers raised $23,000 for a scholarship fund created in his memory. The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, a nonprofit organization that awards grants for refuge projects, matched their efforts, bringing the scholarship fund total to $46,000.

"The purpose of the fund is to encourage young biologists of all kinds to choose a career as a refuge biologist," said Krystyna Wolniakowski, the foundation's Pacific region director. "It's essentially to leave a legacy of Rich's commitment to conservation and particularly his outstanding work as a wildlife refugist throughout the country."

Guadagno, who was 38 when he was killed, worked for the Fish and Wildlife Service for 17 years, and was trained at the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Glynco, Ga. During his career, he served as a front-line law enforcer at agency offices and wildlife refuges in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Oregon and California.

"The only way to deal with somebody passing at such a young age is to try to help make their memory and all the things they did for other people live on forever, and if any of these funds can be used to help bright young biologists out there to follow his lead, that would be the best memorial," Wolniakowski said.

"We have a way of celebrating his life and trying to keep his memory alive," she said. "That's the thing you have to hang on to when you are faced with the senseless act of terrorism, that at least his memory lives on and his good work is recognized and hopefully, other people will learn from what he has contributed."