Staffmark Feels Tragedy

Staffmark, which is owned by Stephens Group Inc. of Little Rock, had more than 200 temporary workers assigned to the World Trade Center in New York City and surrounding buildings on Sept. 11, the day of the terrorist attacks. All but one of the workers have been accounted for, and that person is among the thousands missing in the aftermath of the WTC twin towers collapse.

Staffmark’s New York City office is about 32 blocks away from the site of the tragedy, but workers there could see the fire and destruction from their 20th floor offices.

Andrea Edwards, vice president of marketing at Staffmark’s Fayetteville office, said there were also others with mild injuries. She said many of the workers were scheduled for different times during the day.

The Staffmark office immediately checked to see who was scheduled to be in the vicinity of the WTC, then tried reaching everyone via telephone.

“We work with [temps] on an individual basis, and you really get to know them,” Edwards said. “You have lunch with some of them.

“It’s a source of pride for me personally to see how Staffmark reacted so immediately. It made us all so proud. Our people were sad and scared, but they thought, ‘We’ve got to help these people.’ They provided grief counseling. And the temporaries still needed a job. We had some of them that were down there call the next day saying they needed to keep working.”