Undefeated Seasons
It's been a year since September 11 made Americans ask how we would ever get back to business as usual. How have business owners fared? Resisting the dual forces of terror and recession proved to be a challenge entrepreneurs were able to step up to.
If Shirley Dreifus had not overslept on the morning of September
11, 2001, she and most of her staff would most likely have died
when a Boeing 767 plowed into 1 World Trade Center. Her company,
Strategic Communications Group Inc., had offices several floors
below the main point of impact. "I understand that my office
was gone immediately," says Dreifus, who was on the phone with
her staff when the first plane hit. "I think a lot of people
wouldn't have made it because we would have been meeting in my
office--if I had been on time."
As it turned out, all 22 employees made it out safely after
Dreifus directed rescue workers by phone to the adjoining office
where they were trapped by a locked stairwell. "It really was
a miracle," says the 54-year-old Manhattan resident, who owns
Strategic Communications with Farhan Ali, 40.
Nearly as miraculous is the fact that their company, which
provides marketing and communications services to financial
services firms, is alive and well, despite losing almost everything
in the attacks. Like many entrepreneurs, Dreifus and Ali went into
high gear that fateful day and in the hazy weeks that followed,
focusing on their business, not their emotions. "We didn't
give ourselves a lot of time to think because we knew what we had
to accomplish," says Dreifus. "You have to keep going.
You have a job; you have to do it."
"A lot of
small-business people didn't give up because they knew there
were a lot of people out there trying to help
them."
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Their story of survival is not unique. Across the country, small
companies are finding ways to survive and thrive despite the
combination of terrorism and recession. While initially devastating
to many businesses, the terrorist attacks did no permanent damage
to the majority, say experts.
"I've seen a number of businesses that suffered
physical damage or were at Ground Zero, and they were able to
relocate 10 or 12 blocks away, re-establish their business and
reconnect with their customer base," says Jim King, director
of the New York State Small Business Development Center, which
dispatched business advisors to New York City in an effort to
assist small firms with their recovery efforts. That meant helping
companies apply for disaster loans, file insurance claims and even
simply retrieve their e-mail using SBDC computers. "A lot of
small-business people didn't give up," says King,
"because they knew there were a lot of people out there trying
to help them."
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