Transcript for complete interview. - Voices of September 11th

Interview with John Duffy, chairman & CEO of KBW
Conducted by Mary Fetchet
quite sure how the government was going to handle compensation like, insurance issues and
how they would be resolved. I think ultimately that was done very fairly with Feinberg, but we
certainly had a sense of responsibility, and we felt the best way we could take care of that
responsibility was if we built the firm and in some way or fashion then were able to take care of
the families who had relied on the breadwinner who had worked here. One of the things we did
fairly early on I think was at the suggestion of one of our clients – we were I guess so focused
on getting the firm built that one of our clients actually said to us, “You should establish a
family fund.” We raised quite a bit of money, ultimately between $15 and $20 million dollars,
and the bulk of that money I think was raised in two trading days that we did around the first
and second anniversary, the fund where we donated all the commissions that the firm made
into the family fund, because initially we weren’t really quite sure how insurance would be
handled. In some cases we had wives with multiple children. In most of the cases, the children
were very young. So we weren’t just thinking about how do they get through this year and next
year, it was more long-term. How do we get these kids an appropriate education and make sure
these families are taken care of So there really was a sense of responsibility here that we
weren’t just kind of looking out for ourselves and trying to rebuild a career, that we had a lot of
people that frankly were in a lot worse shape than we were and we wanted to make sure that
they might be in worse emotional state than we were and we wanted to make sure they
weren’t any worse financially. We felt the best way we could help them financially was to get
the firm rebuilt.
[Mary]: Well John when I think back, I think about all that you’ve done to help the families and
from the very beginning I remember that first service that you had and then the gathering that
you had across the street. It was a blur to me at that point but I actually just went to a gala
party at the hotel or restaurant…
[John]: Across the street from Ground Zero
[Mary]: No, you had that service and then we went across the street…
[John]: Oh, I think the first one might have been at the Helmsley Palace. I think that’s right.
[Mary]: How did you, and here you were a father yourself, and you lost as you said your son
and all of your colleagues, they were probably like brothers to you because it was a
brotherhood here, how did you decide as a firm, how to proceed with the families that lost
people
[John]: We want to stay connected to the families of the people that we lost. We don’t want to
lose the memories of the people that we worked with and the best way of preserving those
memories is staying in touch with the families. Every family reacts differently: some of them
have come to almost every memorial service we’ve had, there are others who’ve in the early
years didn’t want to be reminded or felt such a gathering would be too painful, didn’t
participate, and some of them have ultimately kind of changed and have come and are ready
for it. So it’s never anything we force upon people but I think we’ll have a memorial service
every year for the employees we lost as long as people show up and the attendance the last
couple years has been quite strong. We have a plaque at the Central Park Zoo, Harry Keefe was
a beneficiary of the nature conservancy which I think manages the Central Park Zoo and they