The 9/11 attacks changed everything five years ago -- including the company whose leaders were supposed to ring the opening bell on Wall Street that day.
That bell never rang, of course. The bell at the New York Stock Exchange was silent for four days as a result of the attacks. Sept. 11 was supposed to be a very important day in the life of one company. And it still was. But not at all the way the company's leaders imagined.
It was supposed to be a day of triumph – a $2.5 billion deal just sealed between company drug distributor Amerisource Health and arch-rival Bergen Brunswig. That day was to have been Amerisource Brunswig's coming out party. At the NYSE, the new board would hold its first meeting, and Amerisource Health CEO Dave Yost would ring the opening bell.
"You know, I had my mother watching, and my relatives, my children all knew it was there,” said Yost.
So, on the morning of Sept. 11, the new team from Amerisource Bergen walked from their hotel on Wall Street to the New York Stock Exchange -- and their little place in business history. The time was 8:30 am.
And then it became clear history would take a much different course.
"It was surreal," said Amerisource Bergen's chief operating officer, Kurt Hilzinger. "We were in the boardroom and had just opened up the meeting and were just beginning the agenda, and we hear this boom. Very large boom.")
“When the second plane hit, the ground kind of shook," said Yost.
“And I remember wanting to duck under the table," said Hilzinger.
"And within minutes, the spokesman from the New York Stock Exchange came in and said 'You've got to vacate this building right now,'" said Yost.
For the next two hours, they would stand on the floor of the exchange – corporate board members who had never met before watching the crisis unfold around them.
YOST: "We were not at ground zero, but we were close to it, and we also thought the New York Stock Exchange might be another target."
CNBC: "Were you scared?"
HILZINGER: "Yeah. I think we all were.")
And they were wondering -- when they were finally allowed to leave -- what kind of new world would await them.
“It was a matter of going from really being all focused on the company to being all focused on the country," said Yost.
Five years later, Amerisource Bergen is a global player with $55 billion a year in revenue. And those strange beginnings may well have played a role in that success.
“I think in some respects, it formed a bond among our board members that probably would have taken years to establish any other way," said Yost.
“When you go through something like that, you pretty much become a group at that point," Hilzinger.
Back at headquarters, framed in the lobby, the company flag that flew outside the New York Stock Exchange that morning is still covered in World Trade Center dust -- a reminder that some things in business are bigger than business.
Amerisource Bergen did not lose any of its people on 9-11. And officials say the new company gained some perspective. The company is more focused on charity now than it might otherwise have been; it’s been a big contributor to the relief effort after hurricane Katrina.
And after completing a merger in the midst of tragedy and building a new company in the most uncertain of times, there is a feeling there that they can withstand just about anything.
