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Investment firm clings to morals as it rebuilds
By JOE NOCERA
New York Times
Posted: Sept. 8, 2006
Time passes. Time heals.
A few days before the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, I went to see James J. Dunne III, the managing partner of the small investment banking firm Sandler O'Neill & Partners. Sandler O'Neill was one of the hardest hit firms that day. Its primary offices were on the 104th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center; of the 83 employees (out of a total of 171) who were in the office that awful morning, only 17 made it out alive. Among the 66 who died were two of the three men who ran the firm: Herman Sandler, the co-founder, and Christopher Quackenbush, who headed investment banking.
Jimmy Dunne was the junior member of the ruling troika. He had been spared because he was on a golf course in Westchester County that morning, trying to qualify for an amateur tournament. Truth to tell, before Sept. 11, he played golf more often than he went to the office. At 45, he had one foot out the door.
But I learned that only later, and it came as a surprise. The Jimmy Dunne I met shortly after Sept. 11 was more committed to his work than anyone I'd ever known. Thrust into a role he never expected, and had never prepared for - not just to lead Sandler O'Neill, but to save it - he embraced his task with an unnerving intensity.
Back then, he was everywhere, doing everything: comforting grieving families, hiring equity traders (the equity desk lost 20 of its 24 traders), asking for help from competitors to get into deals, writing eulogies for dead partners, going on CNBC to refute a report that the firm was going out of business, figuring out how to rebuild the computer systems, and on and on.
There was something so raw about him then, so fierce, as if his life truly depended on rebuilding Sandler O'Neill.
I remember especially how openly emotional he could be. He would start talking about Sandler, who had been his mentor, or Quackenbush, his best friend forever, a man who helped him quit drinking in his 20s - and his eyes would well up while his voice would start to crack. He always seemed on the verge of losing it. But he never did.
Five years later, Jimmy Dunne met me in his paneled office on Third Ave. and shook my hand. His hair was whiter than it used to be, and he'd gained a little weight. What was most apparent, though, was that the overpowering intensity that had characterized him after Sept. 11 had lifted.
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=494019&format=print
_____________________________
Fake the heat and scratch the itch
Skinned up knees and salty lips
Let go it's harder holding on
One more trip and I'll be gone
~~ Stone Temple Pilots
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Good story - 
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