Six weeks ago Provo-based investment research software company Neovest Inc. moved its New York City sales office from the 84th floor of the World Trade Center's north tower.
It was a move that Michael Hanahan, Neovest's senior vice president of marketing, regretted at the time.
Months earlier, the software development company had moved to the tower at the invitation of one of its strategic partners, Wofex, a start-up company specializing in electronic securities trading.
But Wofex couldn't raise a final round of venture funding and by spring had shut down its operations. With a couple months left on the original lease, Neovest decided to stay in the tower through July.
"I remember standing in one of the corner offices looking down on the Statue of Liberty and thinking what a spectacular view it was and that it was a shame Wofex went out of business. It was a shame that our offices had to move," Hanahan said.
On Tuesday, from his Atlanta-based office, Hanahan watched in horror as the World Trade Center towers came crashing down.
"The ironic thing is if Wofex had been successful and raised the money they would probably all be dead right now, and our guys might have been up there with them," Hanahan said. "We have lost some clients. Of course, we're not sure who is missing, but we definitely had clients in that building."
In fact, Neovest was working with Streamline Capital, located on the 91st floor of the north tower.
"I'm just waiting to hear. I don't hear anything from my guys on the 91st floor," said Adam Beeler, Neovest's senior vice president of sales.
Neovest had also recently completed an online demonstration of its software for associates at Cantor Fitzgerald, a market equity trading firm located on the 101st through 105th floors of the south tower.
"Cantor has apparently been decimated by this attack. I've checked on a dozen former colleagues and friends. So far none of them have been accounted for," said Robert Trimmer, Neovest's senior vice president of institutional sales.
Beeler and Trimmer, based at the company's Atlanta office, traveled to New York nearly every other week.
"I was due to get on an airplane Tuesday morning at 6 a.m., and due to a personal problem I postponed the flight to 6:40 that evening, and obviously did not get on the plane," Trimmer said.
Bryce Byers, Neovest's president, said the company had seven employees in New York at the time of the attack, including Todd Rohlin, who saw the second airplane slam into the south tower as he was riding the Staten Island ferry to Manhattan.
"I happened to be on the front deck when the second airliner went over the top of us," Rohlin said. "It came in really fast, really low. The most unique thing about that was the sound of it all. You could see the force when it entered. It was shocking to everybody. People immediately just yelled and cried."
Other Utah executives in Manhattan Tuesday included Thomas Wright, president and chief executive officer of Salt Lake-based Real Estate Federation, a Web-based software company.
Wright and his senior vice president of sales, Vince Allen, saw the burning towers from about 10 blocks away.
"As we came around toward the middle part of the island you could see a gaping hole in the second tower with fire and debris falling out," Wright said. "The mood in Manhattan was something that I had never seen before. People were walking slower and seemed like they didn't know where they were going."
For Byers, the scene on television was too close to home.
"You've been in board rooms up there on the 45th floor. You know those people. Those are colleagues that you work with. It just tears at your heart."
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