On the day before the 25th anniversary of 9/11, Raytheon honored the victims of the deadly 2001 terrorist attacks, including four of the company’s employees, at its Goleta campus.
A large crowd of first responders, Raytheon employees and community members gathered Thursday for a procession and speeches to honor the almost 3,000 victims at the defense engineering and manufacturing facility’s 9/11 memorial in front of the campus at 6380 Hollister Ave.
At the memorial, a plaque honors the four Raytheon employees who were killed in the terrorist attacks 25 years ago.
Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown spoke about the four men — Peter Gay, 54, Stanley Hall, 68, David Kovalcin, 42, and Kenneth Waldie, 46.
Gay, Waldie and Kovalcin were all aboard American Airlines Flight 11 that was hijacked before crashing into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, according to reports.
Hall was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon and was reportedly on his way to the Goleta Raytheon campus, according to the 9/11 Pentagon Memorial.
Hall’s good friend and colleague, Gil Gutierrez, spoke about Hall on Thursday and described him as a kindhearted man, great engineer and technical manager.
“We lost a great man 25 years ago. We love and miss you, Stan,” Gutierrez said. “We live each day remembering your great spirit and hoping to do good work and inspire younger engineers just as you did.”
Michael Baladjanian, Raytheon’s vice president of Electronic Warfare Systems, spoke at the event, remembering the four men and highlighting Raytheon’s contributions to national security.
“The work we do is critical to maintaining the security of our nation,” he said. “Even more so, following these horrific attacks that claimed the lives of our colleagues and so many others.”
Santa Barbara Fire Department Chief Chris Mailes spoke about Douglas Oelschlager, a New York Fire Department firefighter who died in the line of duty on 9/11.
Oelschlager had ties to Santa Barbara and attended Dos Pueblos High School before moving to New York to pursue becoming a firefighter, according to Mailes.
“That morning, he had gotten off duty and, like many, he returned to the fire station to respond to the towers,” Mailes said. “They only found part of his helmet; his body was never recovered.”
Goleta Councilwoman Jennifer Smith shared Thursday that she had visited the World Trade Center three weeks before the attacks.
“Twenty-five years later, perhaps one of the most important lessons we can take with us is that especially in difficult moments, we have a responsibility to stand together and to resist division and to remember our shared humanity,” she said.
She also noted that a whole generation of adult American citizens were not yet born during the attacks or, if they were, are too young to remember.
“For them, it is especially important that we remember that day and we tell the stories and the meaning of what we carry forward,” she said.
The Thursday event is one of many scheduled across the county.
On Friday, remembrance events will be held at the Santa Barbara County Courthouse Sunken Gardens and at various fire stations to honor the victims of the 2001 attacks.
