Patricia “Muffy” Sloan experienced a rush of emotion Sunday night when she watched President Barack Obama announce on TV the killing of Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Sloan’s son, Paul, was one of the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City.
“He’s where he deserves to be,” she said of bin Laden. “At least he’s off the face of the Earth.”
Paul Sloan, a 1993 San Marin High School graduate, was working for the financial services firm of Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, which had offices on the 89th floor of the South Tower.
He was one of several Marin County residents killed in the terrorist attacks that day. Sloan and Jack Keohane (Class of 1978) were victims from ; Keohane, a New Jersey resident who was an attorney for a Swiss company, was struck and killed by falling debris near the base of the towers. Novato resident Jeffrey Collman was a flight attendant on one of the planes that struck the towers, and San Rafael’s Lauren Grandcolas was on Flight 93 that crashed in Pennsylvania.
Muffy Sloan could not experience Sunday’s news with her husband, Ron, because he was on a flight home from Houston. She was watching a movie when her friend Terri Walsh told her to turn on the news. Muffy said she texted her husband.
“I’m surprised it took this long,” she said. “They found him in a stupid palace as opposed to a hole in the ground, but I’m just glad they got him. You knew they were eventually going to get him, but after a while you stopped thinking about it.”
At a Novato Mexican restaurant, brothers Alex and Henry Hautau had a drink in Paul Sloan’s honor after they heard the news. Alex Hautau was one of Sloan’s best friends at San Marin High and Henry, who is seven years older, helped Sloan get job with his company in the late 1990s.
“It’s bittersweet, I guess,” Alex Hautau said of Bin Laden’s demise. “He probably went out better than he should have. He didn’t get what he deserved. He deserved a lot worse.”
Henry Hautau said his brother was highly emotional Sunday. “He’s ecstatic, but wishes it had happened quicker,” Henry Hautau said.
Only a three weeks ago, about 150 friends and family of Paul Sloan gathered in his memory to participate in the Emerald Nuts Across the Bay 12K, a run between Sausalito and San Francisco. Sloan ran in the race back when it was known as Houlihan’s to Houlihan’s 8-Miler.
“Every year, people come from New York City, from Rhode Island and other places to run in his honor,” said Henry Hautau, owner of Finnegan’s Marin bar/restaurant on Grant Avenue in Novato. “After the race we went to Finnegan’s and had a really nice party for the Sloans. It means a lot to us to continue to do this each year.”
Paul Sloan was an academic standout and football star at San Marin. He wore No. 78 and wreaked havoc on opponents, earned all-league status and went on to star at Brown University in Providence, R.I. He played on the offensive line for the football team there, joined a fraternity and majored in history before graduating in 1997.
With Henry Hautau’s help, Sloan got a job with Sutro & Co. in San Francisco. He worked on the syndicate desk while Hautau worked in institutional bond sales.
“He worked there six months or a year before he got the job he had on Sept. 11,” Hautau said.
In the 48 hours after the attacks, friends and family — Paul was one of four Sloan children — convened at the Sloan home on Novato’s west side, Hautau recalled. He heard that Paul had been on the phone with his parents when the phone line went dead. Hautau was booked on a flight to New York City on Sept. 12 for business and had planned to get together with Sloan.
“Everybody was hoping for the best,” Hautau said. “There were a lot of message boards up and people were looking for other people on the Internet. There was a lot of misinformation, which was tough. We never really found out. There was no information at all.”
Muffy Sloan’s friend Terri Walsh, whose daughter went to San Marin with Paul Sloan, has served as committee chair for a commemorative brick project on the San Marin campus. The group that built the San Marin High Paul Sloan 9/11 Memorial next to the football field in 2002 kicked off a brick initiative a few months ago to beautify and complete a memorial to honor Sloan and Keohane.
Walsh said she has felt compelled to help make sure Novato remembers Sloan. She said Sunday’s news was important to all of Sloan’s friends and family, who support a perpetual scholarship in Paul’s name at San Marin High.
“I think it’s a sign of relief, but (the Sloans) know it’s not over,” Walsh said. “As Muffy has said, Paul was not a hero, he was just a fine young man. He lives in all our hearts.”
The memorial site at San Marin consists of a flagpole next to the track and football field, a memorial plaque and a bench. Walsh said four people signed up Sunday to buy a brick in the hour after Obama’s speech.
“Our goal is to fill the area around the flagpole with commemorative bricks honoring Paul and Jack,” Walsh said. “Not only will the decorative bricks make the site look better, they will also eliminate the need for site maintenance which has been handled completely by volunteers to date.”
There is space for 250 personalized bricks, and the committee would like to see them all in place before a remembrance of Sloan’s birthday on July 30 and the 10th anniversary of 9/11 in September.
“Now I think it’s going to be a good year to celebrate Paul,” Walsh said.