Harvard Business School’s most recent alumni have conducted a rapid head count among their ranks using message boards on the Internet. While most people have turned up safe and sound, some remain unaccounted for as their classmates request and hope for good news.
The most active site for the online head count is www.finebrand.com/statuses, where members of 16 different HBS classes have posted messages. Within 36 hours of the first crash at the World Trade Center, the class of ’99 had records for 329 of its members on the site, the class of ’98 had 180, and the class of ’01 had 108.
Most of those records were simply affirmations of good health like “OK” or “fine.” Some were more lengthy reports of personal experience.
Ivan Ivanov ’98 wrote, “Plane crashed next to my office in Pentagon, but I made it out OK.”
Tamar Fellner ’99 wrote, “I live 3 blocks from the WTC and was there when it happened. I have been evacuated from my home. My neighborhood is destroyed. The fear, destruction, and horror is unbelievable. But I am OK — thank god — and offer my best wishes and any help to anyone who needs it and my prayers and condolences to everyone who lost loved ones.”
The class of 2000 set up its own message board, where messages included pleas for information like, “Has anyone heard from…?”
The Alumni Office has set up a message board exclusively for HBS alumni use
at www.alumni.hbs.edu/community/boards.
