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CWA Family Lost Two at World Trade Center

CWA Family Lost Two at World Trade Center

One CWA family's depth of suffering demonstrates just how far-reaching were the tragic events of Sept. 11.

Tina Grazioso, a former US Airways employee and member of CWA Local 1171 in Syracuse, N.Y., lost both her husband and brother-in-law in the World Trade Center attacks, reported local President Rose Mary Nickerson.

Tim Grazioso, 42, and brother John, 41, were born in Clifton, N.J. Both brothers played varsity football at Clifton High School. Tim attended Pace University and became a certified public accountant. John went to Mercer County (N.J.) Community College, then earned a private pilot's license at the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne. Because it would have taken another six years to earn a commercial license, he took other jobs.

John worked his way up from ramp agent to customer service representative to supervisor at Piedmont Airlines, and in 1985 met Tina Lytle, recently reassigned by Piedmont to Newark from South Carolina. Their courtship lasted five years.

Piedmont became USAir, then US Airways, and more than six years ago started laying off workers due to financial troubles. By then Tim, who commuted home to Florida on weekends, had become chief operating officer for over-the-counter trading and chief Nasdaq trader for Cantor Fitzgerald Securities at the World Trade Center. He steered John, who had by now become a licensed stockbroker, to a job at eSpeed, a Cantor Fitzgerald subsidiary.

Tim was at work on the 104th floor of the World Trade Center the morning the two planes hit; John worked one floor above him on the 105th.

Tina Grazioso, who watched the World Trade Center crumble from Newark Airport, where she worked, was laid off with 11,000 other US Airways employees in the wake of the attacks.