Rochester Responds: Employees, Alumni Help In Recovery

For the 11 days after September 11, Jack Herrmann put his own emotions aside to help others with theirs.

Hermann, an associate in the Department of Psychiatry at the Medical Center and the New York State mental health lead for the American Red Cross, was in Manhattan five hours after the first plane struck the World Trade Center.

"It was certainly overwhelming emotionally to see the magnitude of what happened," Herrmann says. "As a mental health professional and disaster relief worker, we have to at times wall ourselves off emotionally to meet the needs of our clients."

Hermann, who assisted victims and family members in dealing with the tragedy until the national chapter of the Red Cross took over, was one of several University employees who volunteered to help with the recovery.

Rosemary Dow, coordinator of graduate studies for the economics department and a national Red Cross volunteer who assisted in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait during the Gulf War, spent two weeks serving meals to the search and rescue workers and helping in other ways.

"There was a great sense of pride in the American people," she says. "There were constant lines of people volunteering. Companies brought in food. There was wonderful support from the whole country. That's what I took from this."

Other staff volunteers included Christine Tebaldi '96, '01N, a nurse practitioner in psychiatry at Strong, and Cathy Peters '00N (Mas).

Alumni joining the volunteer effort near ground zero included Kim Callahan '93, chair of the New York Regional Alumni Council, Julie Katz '95, and Martha Dowd Jacobs '50 of Rockford, Michigan.

And as the focus of the terrorist threat shifted to anthrax and other possible biological weapons, federal officials appointed Donald Henderson '54M (MD), the scientist credited with eradicating smallpox, to chair a new bioterrorism advisory panel.

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