*Quick Summary: The author gives insight into his day on the day of the Hendrick Motorsports plane crash.*
To prepare for this, I sat with John Wayne Stowe on July 2nd, 2020 to refresh my memory of the day’s events of the Hendrick Motorsports plane crash on October 24th, 2004. We met for lunch at a local seafood restaurant to discuss it, and they sat us in booth #17. A meaningful number, as it was Ricky Hendrick’s number in the NASCAR truck series, and Ricky perished in the plane crash. Neither of us felt it was a coincidence to land in this particular booth. He and I spent much of the day together that day in 2004, so many of our memories are shared. It was past time we had this talk. We both needed it. Much of what happened the day of the crash was a blur, so having John to bounce memories off of this many years later was a true gift. As it turned out, we remembered the day almost identically. It was good to have the confirmation. It was also good to thank him for what he did for me that day. Finally. Sixteen years too late. He was a supportive and stabilizing force that day, and I owe him so much for that. From the day of the crash until today I have wanted to finish this description of events. In fact, this website only exists because I eventually wanted to write this post, but like everything else with the crash, it has taken years for me to make progress. Here I am, over two years since my talk with John, and eighteen years after the crash, finally gathering myself together enough to publish this.
There are thousands of meaningful and devastating stories from this day. Mine is just one of many.
October 24, 2004. A normal day at work. It was a Sunday, but days of the week didn’t mean much then. Papa Joe Hendrick had died just months previous in July, and I was now in charge of his “baby”, the Showcar Department at Hendrick Motorsports. As the Showcar Manager, I was on call 24/7, and as far as being a manager in those days, I was less than competent. I have gone into that before, but suffice it to say I had to work a lot of hours to make up for my massive shortcomings in management ability. I would eventually get considerably more talented at management, but I certainly wasn’t there yet, and wouldn’t be for some time to come.
We had a showcar appearance in Greensboro, NC, some 80 miles from our shop location in Charlotte. NASCAR showcars are the retired race cars you might see at a Wal-Mart or gas station to promote the team sponsors. In this case, it was being used to bring attention to a booth at a product show. It had been dropped off days earlier, and we only needed to pick it up as the show closed. Because of an extremely busy schedule, all the showcar drivers were either performing appearances, or just getting home from an appearance. The schedule was so tight, I decided to fill in as I would do from time to time. I didn’t want my years of experience hauling cars to get too rusty, plus it was a polite reminder to my drivers I could also do the job I was asking them to do.
Neither John or I remember why he was at the shop that day, or why he came along to Greensboro. Clearly God knew I would need him to make it through the day. He was not on the schedule, but volunteered to not just go with me, but also drive, and I gladly accepted. The load-out time seemed flexible, so around mid-day we left with plans to pick up the car early if we could – If not, we would grab a bite to eat, hang out at the show, and see how things went. An easy, low-key day was planned.
I got a call as we were a little over halfway to Greensboro from Ken Torrence. “Kenny” or “K.T.” was a driver for me in showcars, had transferred to driving Ricky Hendrick’s coach, and when Ricky retired as a NASCAR Busch Series driver in 2002, Ken partially transferred back to my department. Ken told me he had been called by Rick Hendrick to pick up Rick’s mother Mary and bring her to the Hendrick’s home. He was on his way to Mary’s house as he told me, “something really bad has happened with a plane going to Martinsville”. He said he would call again when he knew more. Once at Rick’s house with Mary, Ken listened to the family discuss what was going on, and left the room to call me a second time. Clearly they didn’t want to tell anyone until they knew more details for certain, as there were several unknowns and they had a lot to process. He said they knew the plane was missing, but didn’t know who was on it. Knowing the plane left the Charlotte, NC area and was flying to Martinsville, VA, being “missing” wasn’t good. If they landed normally, or there was an emergency landing somewhere, the company would’ve known by now. He called back again soon after with a short list of names of who they thought could be on the plane, but still no confirmation of a crash or deaths, just a missing plane. Thankfully some names were ultimately wrong, while some sadly later proved to be right.
I told John Wayne the news from Kenny as soon as we hung up, and he promptly slowed the truck and started to look for an exit to turn around and go back to the shop. He said he could go get the car after he dropped me off, but he thought I needed to be at the shop. I told him to just keep going to Greensboro. We were close enough that turning around didn’t make sense to me, especially while not yet knowing what was going on. There was work to be done, and after all, a plane crash was the last thing you’d think would actually happen. Certainly there was a reasonable explanation I thought. We couldn’t just leave a showcar at the Coliseum, and I didn’t see how I could contribute at that point even if I was home. Continuing on seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
We got to Greensboro, I met our show contact and while being careful not to start rumors, I impressed on him we had a possible emergency at home, so we needed to leave as soon as we were able. He was extremely gracious, and started conversations with the arena to see if we could load-out early. While he was doing that, because we didn’t know what the future held and hadn’t heard from K.T. for a bit, we stopped, stunned and numb, and watched the race coverage on the TV’s in the coliseum. Without telling anyone why, we asked them to change the channel on one TV to a different channel so we could see if they would announce anything on the news. At this point, no news was good news. The one thing I didn’t want to do was disturb Kenny while he was with the family, so I decided not to call, and instead wait until he called me back. I’d rather hear the news from television than to bother the family or encourage Kenny to eavesdrop on them. I didn’t want him to betray their trust, but we’d sure take whatever information he wanted to give us. The last time I’d spoken with him, I asked Ken to tell the Hendrick family he was talking with me, and perhaps that explains the delay in hearing from him again. I can certainly understand them wanting to keep the information private until they actually knew what was going on with the plane.
Meanwhile, we heard nothing of any relevance on either the race broadcast or the news, so we turned our efforts back to getting the car out of the building and going home. I said a quick prayer. It was then the show contact came back and told me we could load-out. As we were pushing the car out of the coliseum, I got the call from Ken that the plane had indeed crashed. No other info, just that it was down. I asked for clarification on the names of the passengers, but he had no confirmed names. He said he thought Ricky Hendrick was on board, maybe John Hendrick, but they weren’t sure. He said he didn’t want to give me any more names because he knew some of the names he’d told me earlier were wrong. He was going to find out and call me back. Immediate regret hit me for not taking John Wayne up on his earlier offer to take me back to Charlotte. I shouldn’t be in Greensboro, 80 miles away. We had to get back home. I told John the news, and I told our contact at the event the very basics of it. We need to get out of here. Now. He jumped to action and started moving other companies displays out of the way to make us a clear path to the door. In fact, by this point, there was a buzz of activity all around us, I wasn’t aware if the contact had told the other vendors what I’d told him, or if they mentioned the crash on the race broadcast, but by now we had more help than we could use. From that point onward, I lost touch with what information the public had, or when they got it. If it would help us get home quicker, we would tell someone there had been a plane crash. It seemed inevitable the world would know soon if they didn’t already, and because we had no confirmed names, there were none to reveal. Just the facts, and the facts were our company plane had crashed, and we had to go. Maybe a dozen people came from everywhere to help. Now, it’s not unusual to get extra help when you’re loading a 850 HP NASCAR stock car, but this was more than usual, and they clearly sensed our urgency. I wish I could go back and thank those people. They did us a tremendous favor that day. They may never read this, but if any do – thank you.
I drove the car into the trailer, and having just climbed out of the car, I was at the back of the trailer about to slide under the rear of the car and strap it down. Kenny called again. I stopped to take his call. I couldn’t imagine anything more important, and John Wayne had plenty of help to strap the car down. I walked a few steps away from the trailer as Ken told me there was an update on passenger names. He told me what he knew for sure, as well as what they thought might be correct. They were now getting closer to being positive of who was on board, and they knew everyone had perished. We hung up. I said another quick prayer. I stared off into space for a few seconds, with memories of those folks flooding my mind. Not knowing for sure, and still having one name we would later discover wasn’t on the plane, I began to feel overwhelmed. A lifetime knowing John Hendrick. 24 years growing up around Ricky, and 22 years with Jennifer and Kimberly Hendrick – their entire lives. Several years working with Jeff Turner, Randy Dorton, and Joe Jackson. So much history flashing through my mind in an instant. When my phone rang again, I didn’t even look at the caller ID, I just answered. It was my good friend Eldon from Canada. He never calls me, so there must be a reason. My mind not completely grasping the news had traveled that far, and still not sure what was going on, I was less than ready for his call. These are Eldon’s words –
“I remember your voice being upset, and you said, ‘They’re dead. They’re all dead.’ I don’t remember how our call ended. I think I was obviously in shock and just like ‘Oh God, I can’t believe I just called him when this just happened’. I guess beyond what I said I don’t remember much other than the sound of your voice… And feeling bad that I had called at that specific time.” – Eldon Smith Jr.
Time was an absolute blur. In times like this, you have great clarity, and no clarity at all. Just a mixed bag of focus, where everything trivial falls away and you see what’s truly important. On the flip side, your mind does things to help you keep your sanity. Sometimes those little tricks are a distraction, and sometimes you need that distraction. Right now though, I was in full-on work mode, but acting more like a bulldozer or a tank than a devastated human being. Not wanting to slow progress of the load-out, I walked even further away from the trailer and immediately called my parents to give them an update. If Eldon knew in Canada, the whole world must already know, I reasoned. I called many of my employees and others in that brief time period, but I don’t remember who. I found out later, in some cases years later, that there were people I should’ve called but didn’t. People like Robert Thorpe, the longest tenured Hendrick employee, who at times helped babysit Ricky as a child, and was a crew member on some of his race teams. Robert worked for me in Showcars at this point and was at a Wal-Mart show appearance close to the track, where he heard about the crash from a fan. He then called me. He somehow finished the show appearance as several people asked him about it. He said his response to each was, “I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.” as we still didn’t know the whole picture when he called me. Years later when thinking about the day for me, Robert said, “It was so foggy that morning. I couldn’t see the mountain until after I got the news about the plane crash.” I’m very disappointed Robert found out from a fan, especially knowing he was right there at the scene. Compounding my failure, I didn’t keep him informed after we talked the first time. He found out most of the information he knew from others. I truly let him down, but he was not alone. I let many people down by not passing along what I knew that day. My only defense is I was struggling as best I could to get through the enormity of it. There were so many people calling, and the news was so devastating to deliver. Having to say those words over and over again to each new person was so difficult, even as I wanted to stop and cry.
I know I let several people down that day by not relaying the facts I knew for sure. Given the circumstances, I hope they’ve forgiven me. For those I did talk with, I specifically remember telling each person that I had to go. I had others to call. I was struggling to place calls for all the calls I was receiving. I’d totally lost track of who I’d talked to, or what anyone knew or didn’t know. I was an absolute shell of a person, but I had a job to do, and people that deserved to know what I knew, even if I was doing it poorly. Not knowing if or when Ken would call back with another update, and realizing my phone battery was about to die, each call had to be quick – “Hey, it’s Michael. I’m told our plane crashed. They don’t know who was on it, but it was key people. My battery is dying, I’ll call you back. Bye.” Not the most graceful way to deliver the horrible news; especially for those I never called back. These people deserved more, but that was all I had, and I had to transform into a machine to deliver that much again and again. I wanted to melt into the pavement, but there was no way I could stop to feel it. If I stopped, I’d collapse, and I had too many people depending on me at this moment to do that. I had to be a bit of a robot to survive. I was able to justify my brevity somewhat by the fact I was told the media was now reporting on it, and not knowing what anyone knew, I was only able to confirm the info I had from Ken. For all I knew, the people calling me might’ve had more information than I did.
John yelled at me from across the parking lot that it was time to go. I needed that jolt back to reality. I’m so thankful he continued to work while I was on the phone. He’d strapped the car down with a dozen of his new helpers, and we could finally leave. What seemed like hours was only a few minutes. I ran back to the truck, placed a whole case of Terry Labonte giveaway hero cards on the asphalt to thank the helpers for their work, and searched for a charger – there was none. My phone battery was dying quickly. There was no way I could make it home on this battery with the barrage of calls now coming in. So many people knew already, so I’m mostly answering calls instead of placing them. I knew I had to have a solution. I asked John Wayne if I could borrow his phone. I never asked him if he needed it to call his family or friends, but I knew I needed it. In our talk in 2020, he told me he needed to focus on driving us home anyway, but I feel bad for delaying his ability to talk to his family and friends, many of whom were close to the Hendrick family. Still, people would call me, and I’d tell them I’d call them back from John’s phone. Others would leave me messages on my phone while I was on a call on John’s. It was juggling two phones, a steady barrage of incoming and outgoing calls delivering the same bleak message, which was our plane had indeed crashed, I didn’t know for sure who was on the plane, and I’ll have to call you back later. Words that would echo in my head for days.
As we were almost back to the shop, I received a call from a Hendrick employee, I can’t remember who, asking me where I was. I told them we were coming from a show in Greensboro and were close to the complex. They called to tell me employees were assembling at the team museum just to be close to each other. They said TV news vans, crews, and cameras had started to assemble along both sides of the road and were looking for anything to use as a photo op for their broadcasts. Crying people, race haulers, anything. In fact, they had covered the signs outside the buildings so they couldn’t be used on TV. They told me not to talk to the media – That was fine as I had no plans to and I was beyond done talking about it thanks to the multitude of phone calls. I told them we were in a Hendrick Motorsports branded truck and trailer, with a huge decal on the sides, and they told me – “Well, don’t let it get on camera.” I hung up and realized the pace of calls had just about stopped. Good. I needed a break. But of course, we couldn’t take one. We would be the first official/branded vehicle to pull into the complex after the crash, as the race haulers were still at the track. If the news hounds were looking for a photo opportunity, we were clearly it. We were about to make the final turn to pull onto the road to the complex when I looked at John Wayne and told him – “They say the TV News people are on both sides of the road ahead, but we don’t need to be a photo op for them. DON’T STOP!” He looked at me knowingly and picked up speed. As we made the final curve on Stowe Ln., named for John Wayne’s family, we saw them and they most certainly saw us. It was clearly a moment they were waiting for. The scramble to get cameras ready would’ve been almost comical if it wasn’t sickening to me in that moment. I know they had a job to do, but so did we. They were not going to use us as the face of a grieving company. They weren’t going to take advantage of the situation we were in by blocking us. We were just two guys doing our job, hurting very badly, and they needed to let us get just a few hundred feet further down the road so we could have a moment’s peace. We were spent. We had nothing left to give. I looked at John again and said, “Do what you have to, but don’t stop!” Again, he picked up speed and added a little left/right swerve on the steering wheel. I don’t know what we’d have done if we hit those TV crews, but they seemed to understand the message he was sending as they scrambled first into the street, almost blocking the road to set up their shots, then very quickly reversing to get out of our way. To this day I haven’t seen any footage of our arrival. It may exist, but I haven’t seen any. With the benefit of hindsight, we could’ve and should’ve, either gone to my house or John’s, as both were close by, and parked the rig there. In the heat of the moment, with all the stress and emotions from the day, somehow this arrival method seemed like a better alternative. We just wanted to get back to our friends and family, and have a moment to adjust.
We arrived, John hid the truck and trailer as best he could, and we saw a group of employees already at the team museum. I tried to pray, but the words just wouldn’t come. It was at this point John and I split up. I gave him his phone back, and remember looking down at my phone to see if it had died. Somehow, it was still alive. Barely. As I walked towards the museum, I called my parents to tell them I was back. They told me what the news was reporting, which was more info than I had at that point. As I was about to hang up, my battery finally died. I still hadn’t had a final confirmation from Kenny, but I’m sure he was quite overwhelmed. He’d done an amazing job. Truly, truly amazing. He took it on himself to make sure I was informed, and I so appreciated that. I don’t remember anyone else calling me to give me information until I got back to the shop. Everyone wanted info from me, but K.T., to my recollection, was my only source of information for those long hours. I don’t know how I’d have heard about it if it wasn’t for him. Sadly, Kenny died in 2013 without us ever discussing that day again. I wish I could thank him one more time. https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/181031054/laverne-kindle-torrence
It was now time to join the others. I’d heard the family was gathering at the Hendrick house, but for me, my fellow employees were part of the Hendrick family too. They were also hurting. As I walked to the museum, people came to talk to me. Hugs, arms around the neck, and tears. Lots and lots of tears. I have zero memory of crying to this point. Maybe I did, but if it happened, it was brief. Until then, there was work to be done, and there wasn’t time for tears. I can’t tell you many of whom I saw there in the museum; I only remember two people specifically – Jonathan Dorton and Chris Rivers – Randy Dorton’s sons. I needed a connection with someone who could feel what I was feeling and there was no doubt those two guys were feeling that and more – Their father was on that plane. That’s when I remember the first tears. I specifically remember being about to cry, hugging Jon, and him telling me, “It’s alright buddy! It’s going to be alright!”. So typically upbeat of Jon. Knowing what he had just endured and how he was now trying to comfort me was more than I could take. I cried on his shoulder, but dried the tears as quickly as they’d come. I needed to be strong for Jonathan, Chris, and the others. There was so much pain here. So much disbelief. Still so much confusion. I needed to try to see, hug, and talk with everyone I could. We needed each other.
At some point, I began to look around for who was in charge. I was Co-Manager of the museum where we were, but had no clue who had let everyone in, or what else was planned, if anything. I needed some structure. I needed something I could either control or think about before the raw emotions took me over, and I knew work could provide that. As I glanced around the room, I looked through the windows and saw some managers and department heads going into the main office. As a manager, I felt I should go there too to get the lay of the land, so I did. The head of accounting and the head of marketing had taken control of the ship. Good. They clearly stepped up and stepped in when we so desperately needed a leader. I will always be thankful for that.
Now in the Administrative building, I noticed the head of our Aviation Department. This is a man I’d known for much of my life. A man I admired and loved. More importantly in that moment, a man who could tell me what happened. I grabbed him, hugged him, and he began to cry almost uncontrollably. I pulled him into Jeff Turner’s office, only realizing after I’d done so that Jeff was now gone, I faced him, put my hands on his shoulders, fought to make eye contact with him, and begged him to tell me what happened. To the best of his knowledge at the time, he did. There was a lot he still didn’t know in that moment, but what he knew or even suspected, he told me. While I won’t tell publicly exactly what he said, it was some of the most stunning and impactful words I’d ever heard in my life. It was also some of the most exhausting. Speaking with him took everything I had left. I needed the escape of sleep. I needed to rest. I needed to be alone. I left the main office with intentions of doing just that. But, again, there were other priorities. I stopped back into the museum to see if there was anyone I hadn’t talked with earlier, and there were. I spoke with them and tried to focus, but I felt exhaustion quickly overtaking me. It was time to leave. I went home, finally charged my phone, and collapsed without even trying to formulate another prayer.
The next day was a Monday. There was work to be done. We all came to work not knowing what would happen, or if we would even continue as a company. My boss came up to meet with us, and we decided to carry on as a department, giving our best until we heard differently. All of my employees knew most of the people on the plane, and many of them knew some of those folks quite well. A decision was made that we would call the sponsors and postpone or cancel some showcar appearances. Something we’d never done before. At the same time, there were other appearances that had to continue. Our showcar drivers stepped up and volunteered to take the shows that weren’t canceled, and somehow they were able to continue working. This was the beginning of a theme that developed – we didn’t take the time to properly grieve. There was work to be done. While I can’t speak for everyone’s emotional state, I don’t know of a single person, certainly none in my department, who stopped working. Collectively, we all stepped up, filled in the roles that needed to be covered, and just made it all happen somehow. It cannot be overstated how great these people were – in my group, and in the company as a whole. The majority of these folks were later on the 2006 Championship team who would then go on to win five straight NASCAR Cup championships. An achievement never before accomplished in the sport. To know they were shaken to their core in 2004, to come back and perform on that level is amazing. From the lowest low imaginable, to the peak performance the company had ever seen in such a brief period took a level of focus and determination that places that group as the single greatest stock car racing team ever. I salute you 2004 to 2006 Hendrick Motorsports. For those reasons, you were the best to ever do it.
On October 27, 2004, three days after the plane crash, my phone rang. It was Ricky Hendrick’s number. Stunned, I didn’t answer it. It went to voicemail. There was a message. Knowing it had to be a mistake, or maybe Ricky didn’t have this particular phone with him that day, I checked the message – faint white noise, a click, white noise, a click, white noise, a click. End of message. I can’t explain it, and I haven’t ever tried. I assume Ricky had both of his phones on him in the crash. We would talk every week or two, so I can only speculate his call somehow got hung up in the system, or maybe something else happened? It was 2004, and cellular technology wasn’t what it is today. To this day I have no explanation for that, I just know that because of that call, I delete the contact info of people almost immediately when they die now. Because I don’t answer calls from people I don’t have in my contacts, and can’t remember phone numbers well, it solves that problem for me. I would still get that message today, but wouldn’t necessarily know it was from him. Regardless – this was so strange.
It was time for the memorial service. I just bought a brand new Chevy Trailblazer a month or so earlier; a tribute of sorts to Papa Joe Hendrick, who had one as his last vehicle before his death. As it came time for us to go to the memorial service, I was told I needed to use my vehicle and drive, as we could fit more people in my SUV than some of the cars present. Honestly, my only thought was that was the absolute last thing I wanted to do. Selfishly, I wanted to be free to break down and cry if I felt like it. I wanted to be with my friends and family to feel what they were feeling, but at the least, I wanted to pause if I needed to pause. As silly as it sounds, the stress of having to get a vehicle load of friends there was too much for me. Yes, it was just driving my vehicle from point A to point B, but it was the last thing I wanted right then. Wasn’t there someone else who could drive? Can’t I just ride along? But once again, there was work to do. I’d have to park my selfish feelings and do this. I was a bus driver, a people mover, and it was time to get the people moving. Why not help serve these wonderful people that were grieving just like me? I sucked it up and did what I needed to do; the exact thing I should’ve done without hesitation all along – I drove.
Once at the memorial service, I had every intention of going in, but we could see the crowd was heavy and my employees and their families were asked to move to the overflow area, where there would be a large TV screen they could watch the service going on in the other room. I didn’t know a lot of the people going into the main area, but I’m sure with so many victims being memorialized at once, those in charge were doing the best they could to prioritize who sat where. They were organizing hundreds of people and no one knew everybody, so judgement calls were made. Priorities were set, and that meant someone had to move to the next building over to make room. I get that. I know it doesn’t sound reasonable, and I won’t defend it as such, but if my employees and their families couldn’t be in the main area for the service, I wouldn’t be either, despite the fact I could’ve been. As passive-aggressive as it may sound, in the moment, it was much more humble – someone more important could have my spot. The service was being broadcast on the radio, so I made the decision to sit alone and listen to the service in the parking lot in my new Trailblazer, just feet away from the church. Feeling guilty I wasn’t inside, feeling like I’d failed my family, failed my employees and their families, feeling lost, mad, sad, confused – just all the emotions at once. I was a mess, but finally I could be as alone as I felt. Finally, I could really cry.
With the bulk of things having passed after the memorial service ended, time certainly marched onward. I didn’t watch TV or take in any media about the crash. I collected newspapers and magazines about it, but I’ve still never read any of them. They sit archived in a plastic container under my bed.
Some odd things did happen in the days following. A few weeks later, a former employee called to remind me of something he’d told me years earlier. This is odd, so hang with me – this former employee went to see a psychic shortly after leaving the company in 2001. He called me after seeing that psychic to tell me she’d told him that Hendrick Motorsports was going to see a “great tragedy”. He said the psychic told him “death and despair would descend on Hendrick Motorsports like a cloud”. I transcribed this in a letter to Jeff Turner. At the time in late 2001, my letter to Jeff was about passing along information of a possible threat and legally covering for the company should anything “tragic” happen in the future. Forward to today, and while writing this account, I read my letter to Jeff again, and it brought back the same surreal feelings I had during the phone call with this former employee. I certainly don’t believe in psychics and never will, but the prediction of a “great tragedy”, “death and despair”, and “like a cloud” hit me, knowing the plane crashed in cloudy weather. The fact this person said this would happen 3 years before the crash is certainly a bizarre coincidence.
Upon proofreading this post, I’m struck by so many things I wish I’d have done better. People I didn’t call. Calls I didn’t return. My brevity with each person as they were learning this devastating news. My resentment towards the news crews. All the prayers I didn’t pray. Not going into the church for the memorial service. While I would handle the whole thing differently today, that day and the days afterward helped to shape the person I am now. I learned and grew from each mistake. I’ve changed a lot in the years since. So for that reason only, I take those lessons as being positive, even while the situation itself was terrible.
There is no way I can effectively bring you into my head on that day, but I tried. During this process, I healed a bit. Talking to others over the last few years to refresh my memory helped that. Sitting with John Wayne in 2020 recounting the day helped that. Writing this post helped that. Perhaps the biggest gain for me from putting this out into the world is cutting myself a little slack from the disappointment I’ve felt for years over how I handled things. With time and added clarity, I now think I did the best I could in that moment, but I’m so thankful I’m a better person, a better manager, a better friend, a better Christian, and a better coworker now. My sincere apology for the rest. Lessons learned.
And as I mentioned in the beginning, this is only one of thousands of stories of people that were impacted that day. Some were far more impacted than I. If you‘ve got a story from that day and would like to share, I’d love to hear it.
