A paratrooper of the 101st Airborne, a student of martial arts, and a man who taught welding to union apprentices at night. Forty years with Ironworkers Local 46, and proud that he had helped build the World Trade Center. He was flying west with his old friend Patrick Driscoll to hike in Yosemite.

Killed aboard United Airlines Flight 93, which came down in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, on the morning of 11 September 2001. The aircraft had left Newark forty-two minutes late, which is the only reason those aboard learned by telephone what had already happened in New York before theirs was taken. They had about thirty minutes. They voted, and they went forward at the cockpit door. The aircraft never reached what it was aimed at.