Brad Hoorn ’01, a tall, thin and quiet economics major working as a first-year research associate at Fred Alger Management in One World Trade Center, is missing in the aftermath of Tuesday’s terror attack in New York City.
No one — a roommate, a colleague, a family member — has heard from the Calhoun alum.
“He was on the 93rd floor. The plane hit 20 stories down,” his mother Kathy Hoorn said. “You do the math.”
Hoorn’s family and friends have spent the last three days calling anyone they could think of, begging for answers about the Michigan native, who loves driving around quickly in his Porsche, playing golf and playing tennis. But no answers have come.
Alumni, friends and family can only wonder, nervously, if there are others who, like Hoorn, are among the 4,700 who vanished in the chaos, rubble and smoke.
In the days following Tuesday’s tragedy, many alumni have been e-mailing their class lists and hearing only good news. The University says it has not heard of any current students, faculty or staff among the missing. The Association of Yale Alumni reports little information about possible missing graduates.
“We haven’t had anyone [in the Class of 1991] say they have not heard from anyone,” said Brian Steinberg ’91, who as the class secretary has been closely watching his class’ e-mail list. “But you could be part of the class and not answer.”
Hoorn has not answered e-mails and has not answered phone calls, and his family has not heard from him. His New York roommate Steven Sion ’01 tried calling Hoorn’s cellular phone Tuesday morning as he stood in Battery Park and watched Hoorn’s building being consumed by flames.
The pair lived together their last three years at Yale. Hoorn was a member of the student investment club and the Calhoun College Housing Committee. Sion said Hoorn gets up early, eats very little and works hard.
“He’s probably the most genuine person in that he acted exactly the way you’d think he would act,” Sion said. “Everything you saw was exactly the truth. Not many people are that way.”
It was only natural the pair would room together in New York. Hoorn began working this summer for Fred Alger, and investment management firm, and Sion started up with Lehman Brothers.
Hoorn’s days had been busy, but he called his mother Monday night to confirm his Thanksgiving travel plans back home. Then he and Sion had a normal night, talking about work and playing James Bond video games. Sion rolled over in bed at 7 a.m. Tuesday just as their apartment door shut. Hoorn was on his way to work.
Kathy Hoorn is returning today to her teaching job. She, her husband and their 21-year-old daughter have spent days on the phone, only taking breaks to walk their two yellow labs and look out at the lake near their home. It’s a lake Brad loves to water ski on.
She’s called Fred Alger Management — which had 55 people working in its World Trade Center office — and heard that the firm had only accounted for about 16 workers, all of whom were out of the building at the time of the attack, Kathy Hoorn said.
A Fred Alger Management phone recording said last night that the company has no further information on its missing workers. The company’s information phone line opens at 6 a.m. today to continue fielding calls.
Sion, Hoorn’s roommate, will spend the day heading back to the Lexington Avenue Armory, a center for missing people, turning over Hoorn’s picture, toothbrush and hairbrush. Sion was at the armory for six hours yesterday. Sion wishes now that he’d said goodbye to Hoorn Tuesday morning but, he said, “it’s the kind of thing you don’t realize.”
The University does not yet know how many Yalies were victims of Tuesday’s attacks in New York and Washington.
Undergraduate Career Service Director Philip Jones said it is too early to ask for a “Yale head count.” Several financial recruitment talks set for this week were cancelled because some of the financial center speakers are missing, Jones said.
Yale has not heard of any missing current students, faculty or staff, said Martha Highsmith, a University deputy secretary said. And only a handful of people have called the University about missing alumni, said Jeff Brenzel, executive director of Yale Alumni Association.
The alumni lists are helping many cope.
On any other day, the messages would trickle in from the Yale Class of 2001 e-mail list. Updates on jobs. Invitations to parties. Reflections on starting life as a young adult.
But on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, the traffic was frantic. Yale’s most recent graduates, so many concentrated in New York’s financial district, were looking for each other. There were updates, sightings, joyous reports of breathless phone calls. And disappointment.
Yale is not searching for alumni because the University does not want to tie up information phone lines, Highsmith said.
“I think families are doing a lot of looking,” Highsmith said. “And we’re hoping that when families get confirmed information, they will let us know.”
But a sense of fear hangs over everyone. When will that confirmation come and what will it be?
“I and all the Yale alums I’m in touch with are unscathed,” said Erik Kulleseid ’85, secretary for his class. “Shaken and anticipating the bad news still to come, but OK.”
[ydn-legacy-photo-inline id=”20389″ ]