UpClose With Robert DiChiara of the World Trade Centers Association

Mention World Trade Center and a specific moment and a few horrific images come to mind. But for Robert C. DiChiara, the phrase means much more. DiChiara is vice president of business development for the World Trade Centers Association (www.wtca.org), and the vibrancy of this organization, a network of roughly 320 world trade centers in more than 95 countries, has helped to sustain him in the days following September 11. As DiChiara explains in an exclusive interview with GlobeSt.com, he was running uncharacteristically late that morning on his daily walk from nearby Battery Park City to his 77th-floor office in Tower One and witnessed the attack on the association’s flagship property from nearby Liberty Street.

Listening to him tell his story, one gets the sense that the World Trade Center was more than a mammoth place of business. It was for him a hub of community activity, a meeting place for business associates and friends, as well as his corporate home for 30 years. He works today in borrowed offices in Midtown, trying to piece together business contacts using only a handful of papers, a palm pilot and a cell phone. While he deals with massive personal loss, he perseveres largely through a sense of progress through the association’s work. “They blew up the icon,” he says, “but not the mission.” Here is his story.

GlobeSt.com: Explain the mission of the WTCA.