September 11th is an eventful day!
- Swamy Vivekananda- Brothers and Sisters speech Chicago.
- Subramanya Bharati the revolutionary Tamil poet Death.
- Of course, the 9/11 attacks on United States! ( I was at Lahore, Pakistan that day)
It was also a personally a significant day for I met my very good friend and great EHS colleague for the last time at Phoenix, Arizona during my 2011 visit. Tony (Anthony Bucci) who was ailing for sometime had recovered well and took time to meet me at the Arizona Grand Hotel on the afternoon of September 11th, 2011. It was a Sunday, the 10th anniversary of 9/11 and so Tony turned up after morning ceremonies, post lunch. As we finished our talk around 3pm, Tony was leaving back home and started walking away good 20 feet towards his car, when I shouted, Tony let us have a picture. He agreed and walked back and the hotel staff of Arizona Grand, clicked the picture. 15 days later during last week of September 2011,Tony passed away at the age of 39. I still don’t know why I felt we need to take a picture for I have met Tony many times before and every likelihood I would have met him afterwards in my visits to USA!!
Tony is a classic case of how EHS professionals should be! A technically sound guy with amazing stamina to deliver training sessions 8 hours non stop taking all the questions, comments from people as required ( I do that now having got inspiration from Tony) as well as very forthright and candid in giving feedback to people on things he saw. Tony was always willing to share any information I reached out when I have to implement special projects across global locations. He had a good 4-5 years head start in the organisation and I had just entered in 2006to replicate some of the measures in my business locations across the globe as well as see synergy in some common initiatives. He never thought twice about sharing resources at his disposal and was always available for discussions despite 10 hour time difference between us. When not known or hitting a wall, Tony was always pointing to the direction in his network thus the solution to the problem or a resource is available.
Oh, Yes; The pranks he played on people who did mischief with him were legendary.
Tony will always be missed. Stay in heaven my friend until we meet.
Karthik
9/11/2001. 1150am !
Health, Environment, Safety, Sustainability (HESS) 