9/11: Memories and Meaning

Note: For a deeper dive into the conversations featured in this article, listen to 9/11: Memories and Meaning – The Interviews, a special episode of the Wide-format Impressions Broadcast.

Looking back on my own memories, I find it incredible that it’s been a quarter of a century since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. While much has changed in those 25 years, many of the memories of that day still feel fresh in my mind. While my memories herein, and the memories of three other industry veterans — Eric Henry, Marci Kinter, and Mark Michelson — who were interviewed for this recollection, are certainly less traumatic or dramatic than those of some others, they are in no way less real. I’m sure most of us who were around that day have some sort of story to tell. So, this is my story, their stories, and a part of our industry’s story.

From Light to Darkness

The morning of 9/11 was beautiful in the Eastern United States. I was working, as I had for the previous 10 years, in Fairfax, VA, offices of the Specialty Graphic Imaging Association (SGIA). We – the 50-or-so staff – were in final preparation mode for the 2001 SGIA Expo, which was scheduled to begin September 19^th, in Anaheim, CA.

I’d been listening to the radio in my office and was struck by the change in tones of the rather jovial programming I was listening to. Something happened in New York. An airplane hit the World Trade Center, the host shared. That news was grim on its own but turned out to be only the introduction of the many-chaptered story that was about to unfold. At the time, the Internet had started to change our lives but had not yet brought the transformational change that would follow. I remember “going on the Web,” which at the time was a discrete activity — a choice one made — and seeing photos of what was being described over the radio. Co-workers visited my office: “Have you heard?” they asked. “Yes. Wow … crazy!” I likely replied.

Soon, the office television was rolled into a common area, and some other staffers and I began to witness the tragedy in real time. The second plane hit; the buildings burned. Gruesome images, some played on a loop, magnified the horror. A growing group rolled their chairs to the common area and watched, transfixed, as the confusion over what happened began to give way to a sort of clarity about what was happening.

Marci Kinter

It didn’t end there. As I watched the events in New York, I was paged overhead. My supervisor at the time, Marci Kinter, who was then VP of Government Affairs at SGIA, was on the line. “A plane just went into the Pentagon!” she said in rushed words — the first I had heard of that attack. She was calling from a pay phone. She had been attending a conference at Arlington, VA’s Sheraton National Hotel, which was less than a mile from the Pentagon, and under the descent path of American Airlines Flight 77.

She heard the impact. “I remember that we were all sitting in the ballroom,” she tells me. “And the hotel was undergoing renovations. So, we heard a huge bang, and we thought someone had dropped an air conditioning unit from the roof. Only to be interrupted two minutes later by the moderator telling us that a plane had gone into the Pentagon.” She was heading back to the office.

“I remember calling you and saying, ‘A plane just went into the Pentagon,’" she recalls. “And you said the planes went into the Twin Towers in New York, and you hung up on me, and you went back to the TV.”

Not only was that call my first knowledge of the pentagon attack; it was her first knowledge of the World Trade Center attacks.

Within minutes, my colleagues and I were watching a live feed of the burning Pentagon. Twenty minutes later, the South Tower collapsed in New York; half an hour after that, the North Tower came down. Word came of another plane, downed somewhere in Pennsylvania. I remember shivering, wordlessly. Marci returned, sharing her experience; her words still rushed, immediate. Very early that afternoon, we were told to go home.

Traffic going home was virtually non-existent. My Arlington, VA, home, which was under the flight path of Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport (DCA), was, for the first time, quiet. The skies were empty. The television filled the house with updates as the day unfolded. Birds were audible outside. Eventually, the silence above was interrupted by the “whump whump” of helicopters — the sound of then President George W. Bush returning to Washington — the same helicopters being shown on my TV screen. Again, silence.

That evening, seeking time to think, I walked from my home and across Key Bridge, which connects Arlington to DC’s vibrant and usually busy Georgetown area. From the bridge, looking to the south, I could see bright lights illuminating the Pentagon impact site, as well as a cloud of smoke rolling off the building’s roof and dissipating into the cool night air. As I walked through Georgetown along M Street, I found it to be mostly empty except for armed soldiers on street corners and military Humvees creeping past.

The only other civilians I remember seeing on the sidewalk were a man and woman, speaking Italian and looking forlorn and confused. Each time I approached a soldier, I prepared what to say if I was asked, “What are you doing here?” Instead, each soldier and I simply exchanged serious looks: Mine silently said: “I’m not a threat,” and “I’m on my way somewhere,” and “Yes, so horrible.” Hours later, I returned home.

After the Fall

I returned to work on the morning of September 12 to a changed world. The disruption caused by the cessation of air travel brought fears that exhibitors, and then registered attendees, would be unable to get to Anaheim. The United States was in crisis mode, and SGIA members worried about the future of their businesses. It was our own dark corner of a very dark time.

On September 18^th, after a call with the SGIA Board of Directors, the decision was made to cancel the Anaheim event. Beyond being a disappointment to those who were planning to be there, the cancellation was a nearly existential blow to SGIA. The Association event did not have event cancellation insurance; the financial consequences were profound. One of the things that ultimately kept the doors open was a plan where exhibitors, instead of accepting a refund, could opt to either move their booth fees forward to the 2002 Expo, or to donate those funds to keep the Association afloat. Many, through reeling, opted for one of those options. It meant the world.

On 9/11, Eric Henry, president of apparel decoration company TS Designs, got a call from his wife. “She knew I was on the West Coast,” he says,” so I knew she's calling me this early in the morning, something can't be good.” Henry was just a handful of days from becoming chair of SGIA – a year-long post much more complicated than expected.

Eric Henry

“She just says, ‘Cut on the TV.’ And so we cut on the TV, and about that same time we saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center.’

Asked about that time and its repercussions, he says, “John Crawford [then CEO of SGIA] built that association from the ground up. The trade shows were by far the biggest revenue source. Among the early challenges faced by Eric Henry, its board and its leadership, was the cancellation of the Expo and its financial consequences. “The board had to really get in the trenches. We had a tremendous financial debt to deal with. This could have been the collapse of the association.

Asked about his service as chair, he shares, “It was an honor to do it, and I was glad to do it. That quickly changed with 9/11.” In just over two months, another massive challenge would arrive.

On November 18, 2001, John M. Crawford, who had held his position for 30 years, died suddenly of a heart attack on. While I believe his general health was certainly a factor in his death, some of the staff and leadership, in retrospect, believe the shock of 9/11 and the organizational repercussions of the Expo cancellation were also a contributing factor. The association had truly been Crawford’s passion, and he took what happened very personally. In the time between the attacks and his passing, he was different — unfocused, disheartened, beside himself. He was interred at Arlington National Cemetery, just a short distance from the profound, still-present destruction at the Pentagon. The board chose Michael Robertson — a long-time SGIA staffer. As Crawford’s interim, then permanent, replacement. He would hold that position until 2016.

The challenge for the Association to truly get back on its feet following the Expo cancellation was long and arduous, and the challenge was amplified on August 23, 2005, when Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the scheduled location of the 2005 SGIA Expo, which was to take place a month later. That event was also cancelled, and while wisely purchased insurance significantly softened the blow, it is not to say it didn’t hurt.

What makes the 2005 cancellation worth mentioning in this 2001-focused reminiscence is that it resulted in the hastily-planned but highly successful SGIA Digital Expo, which was a turning point because it provided proof positive that digital wide-format technology, which was considered novel, and also somewhat of a threat to what was, in 2001, an industry segment dominated by screen printing technology. The SGIA Digital Expo, conceived of and open for registration during an 11-day period, and held only once, gave the Association a new life and a new direction. It also proved that wide-format digital printing technology would bring profound change to the graphics printing space (and eventually much more). In retrospect, it seems mythologically appropriate that event was held in Phoenix.

A Different Expo, a Different Experience

While the 2001 SGIA Expo never happened, another printing-related show — Print 01 (September 6-13, 2001) – was taking place on 9/11, in Chicago. Because the skies were closed, attendees and exhibitors were challenged to get home. Thousands of printing industry professionals were stuck. With no flights to take and not enough rental cars to meet the need, people clambered to get back to their houses, their shops.

Mark Michelson, former editor-in-chief of Printing Impressions, recalls the day this way.  “It was surreal. Graph Expo used to be three days, but the Print show was much longer. I'd already been there multiple days when that happened, and I was actually scheduled to fly home that afternoon.”

Mark Michelson

Though the event stayed open, the tone of Print 01 changed. Michelson says, “They kept the show open, and people kept going to the show because … people didn't know what to do, you know? And a lot of the exhibitors were putting TVs in their booths. And people were just standing around watching the TVs. It became less talking about the printing and much more about, ‘How do I get home? What's going to happen next?’ Because when 9/11 happened, there was a lot of fear that that was just the first strike of many.”

Michelson says one thing that helped Print 01 attendees manage both 9/11 and being stuck in Chicago was human connection. “People do feel better in numbers together, in a crisis, I think, than alone,” he says. “That was a positive and, as you know, it's a big industry, but by the same token, it's a small community. A lot of people knew other people, which helped.”

The October 2001 cover of PRINTING Impressions illustrated the "before and after" reality of PRINT '01.

Michelson began making his way home on Friday, September 14^th, when a rental car became available. He, a colleague, and the publisher of another printing-related magazine drove straight through, first to North New Jersey, then to Philadelphia.

Defining the Change

On the surface, some of the changes resulting from 9/11 are easy to see. New York’s Twin Towers have been replaced by the Freedom Tower. The Pentagon looks largely as it did on September 10, 2001, and a patch of rolling farmland in Western Pennsylvania has taken on a history much deeper than its agrarian past. All three locations are now memorial sights. Heightened airport security remains a reality.

From a professional standpoint, the Association’s odyssey in 2001 (and 2005) cemented my commitment to it and to the industry – it transformed what I was doing from a job to a career and replaced my indifference with meaning. The SGIA staff – me included – toiled and recovered, much like our country. We became stronger through our unity. Evidence of passing time: Only two people on staff on 9/11 — Cecilia Goycochea, currently controller at PRINTING United Alliance, and myself, are still with the Association. Others have either retired, moved on, or passed on.

The Association has also changed dramatically. At the final SGIA Expo in 2018, it, and the industry it served, had undergone a digital transformation. Wide-format digital became dominant in the graphics printing space and ushered in new business models, changed or enhanced markets, new types of products and services – a profoundly different playing field. By that 2018 event, the SGIA Expo was widely called a “wide-format show,” even though its aisles highlighted much more than that.

That same association, known as PRINTING United Alliance since its 2019 merger with Printing Industries of America, now represents the whole of the printing industry, driven largely by the effects of convergence and the process commonalities presented by digitally driven workflows. The Association’s singular mandate, to represent the whole of the printing industry, serves to de-silo the industry, making it a strong, sizable, diverse-yet-cohesive force. We are stronger and more unified, defined physically by the annual PRINTING United Expo, which is an industry nexus.

Personally, I have also changed. Compared to 2001, I’m married (again) and the father of a young man who just turned 20. He experiences 9/11 in much the same way I think I experienced the assassination of John F. Kennedy — an event recent enough to be relatable, but distant enough that it has melded in with other events marked along history’s timeline. That said, his life was disrupted significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic. For most of us, there will likely be periods of tragedy, uncertainty, and even fear. There will also be times of recovery.

I expect that in another 25 years, I will still remember the events and aftermath of 9/11. Though many of the minute details may fade with time, I believe I will retain the feeling of that day: Confusion, horror, sadness, anger, and the loneliness of that quiet, cool night 25 years ago when I walked for hours, trying to make sense of what still seems unimaginable.

Note: For a deeper dive into the conversations featured in this article, listen to 9/11: Memories and Meaning – The Interviews, a special episode of the Wide-format Impressions Broadcast.

Also: Feel free to share your thoughts or memories in the comments field below.