DAVID GARCIA, 40: A Life Composed of Courage and Passion

(May 11, 1961 – September 11, 2001)

A smiling man in a suit with dark hair, captured in a close-up photograph.

David Garcia, 40, loved music: YES, Miles Davis, Acoustic Alchemy, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Debussy. Music underscored his challenges, triumphs, and dreams, a passion he enjoyed sharing with his young sons. “You could almost relate anything to music,” he said. College breaks were spent feverishly recording vinyl albums to cassette, listing the discography on 2×3 cards and arranging them alphabetically in the stereo cabinet he built himself. “I’m just sittin’ here, recording,” he noted, whilewriting song lyrics in letters to me, through the dating years. He built a pair of console speakers and shouldered a 20lb boom box built from car speakers and plywood. In his 30’s, he avidly supported the IMAC Theater (Inter-Media Arts Center) in Huntington Station, NY, friending the owner. We had tickets to see Acoustic Alchemy at the IMAC September 29, 2001.

Born and raised in the mid-Hudson town of Wappinger’s Falls, David graduated from Roy C. Ketcham High School with honors in 1979. Despite receiving devastating news that he was losing his eyesight to Retinitis Pigmentosa two years prior, he left home in the fall for SUNY College at Cortland, earning a B.S. degree in math and computer science, where he met his wife in 1981.

David and Deborah were 25- and 23-years-old when they married in July 1987. They purchased a ‘fixer-upper’ home in the seaport village of Freeport, Long Island, where he went to work replacing plaster with sheetrock, re-wiring, re-plumbing, and building tiered flower boxes along the front of the house for Deborah. This father of two sons put in twelve-hour workdays, taking over childcare after returning home. On the side, he coached his sons in little league, skiing, and building Lego worlds. He also loved spending weekends in his hometown, racing his newly purchased boat along the Hudson River.

He did not let the absence of a driver’s license or employment discrimination due to his disability keep him from moving forward. In 1985, he moved to New York city where he began his professional career as a mainframe programmer. Over sixteen years, this devoted family man carved a robust career as an IT professional and CEO of his consulting LLC, Rapid Business Software, developing a sought-after reputation in software-engineering with leading global financial companies, ultimately bringing him to Marsh & McLennan at One WTC in 1999. He had been planning a career shift from software engineering to web development in the Summer of 2001. Three weeks after 9/11, Deborah discovered a To-Do list on his computer synched from his Palm Pilot on September 9— Send web resume to concentric.net, Morgan Stanley… . A resume was sent 9/10, interviews were scheduled for 9/27. Also noted, Wills – Due Date, 9/10/01: Discuss simple will with financial planner: ask for testamentary trust and guardianship of children.He journaled, “There are many things to do in the time that is left.”

He was always willing to help family and friends with home repair and computer jams. His boys knew that Daddy could fix anything. A basement bench held a rotating supply of broken toys, notably a prized remote control boat that he had stayed up late repairing on the 10th.

David’s enthusiasm for life was not lost to the questionable future of his vision. He moved through the world with such finesse that few noticed his blindness. “The one thing in life,” he wrote, “is to try and get a lot of fun”—a mantra that epitomized his resolve to capture rich experiences before his world went dark.

Portions of David’s remains— recovered from the rubble of the World Trade Center— were identified between February and August 2002. He was among 295 colleagues whose lives were taken in the attacks.