story7937.xml

story7937.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-09-18

I was in an engineering test lab in Dearborn, Michigan, testing vehicle strategy software for Ford Motor Company, when I received a text message on my Company pager. At first I thought it was a prank, but all of us in the group received the same message at the same time: a commercial airliner had plunged into the World Trade Center in New York City. For a while, we continued testing software, not really sure if we should, or could, believe what we were being told. By the time the news of the second strike reached us, we started wandering out of the lab in search of confirmation, and as the reality struck home, we went off in search of our families. I, in particular, was worried about my brother-in-law Glen, who is a Day Trader in New York. At first we couldn't reach him, but he finally reported in, and said that on his way into the city that morning, he had a strange feeling and turned around, deciding to trade from home.
For the last several years, I have been on a committee at Ford Motor Company that produces entertainment videos for Company holiday parties. I was so moved by the experiences of 9/11 that I decided a video tribute was in order. I approached the committee with the proposal, and was given unanimous approval to produce something to be shown in addition to the normal entertainment video which we produced for last December's holiday season.
At first I was drawing a blank on what to produce, but then I noticed a recurring theme across the U.S.; cheerleading squads and other entertainment troupes were spontaneously, without warning, breaking into routines revolving around the Tom Petty song "I Won't Back Down". For some reason, this had a tremendous effect on me, somehow perfectly encapsulating the patriotic feelings that were sweeping the nation at the time.
So that's what I did; I created a montage of 9/11 photos synchronized to Tom Petty's "I Won't Back Down", and produced a Windows AVI file, which was subsequently incorporated into our Ford Motor Company entertainment video for last December's holiday season as a leader to the video. The video was very well received, and we sold several copies of the video (entitled "Car Wars"), donating all the proceeds to Operation Good Cheer, a charity in Michigan that buys holiday gifts for orphaned children. After all, several children were orphaned on that terrible day. Some managers in Ford Motor Company donated as much as $100 each for a copy of the video!
Our little grass-roots video production "company" is called "PGPjr inSecurity Productions" (derived from the names of the first four members -- Rob Perini, Kirk Goodell (me), Steve Powers, and Eric (junior) Jefferson). We sort of derived the name from "PGP Security", a well-known computer security protocol. We were extremely strengthened and inspired by these events, and are determined to continue producing entertainment videos for Ford Motor Company for a long time to come.