Glenn Edward Thompson

• Death Notes
  • Died in World Trade Center Attack
    

• General Notes
  • An Adventurer, Always on the Move
    April 26, 2002
    
    Never tarrying long enough for the grass to grow under his feet, Glenn Thompson was a restless explorer of pastures near and far.
    
    Away from his 104th floor north tower office, where for the past decade he brokered bonds for Cantor Fitzgerald, Thompson fed an unquenchable thirst for the great outdoors. He skied. He biked. He hiked. He canoed. He trekked up Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps, climbed 20,000 feet up Africa's Kilimanjaro and explored the countryside of North and South Vietnam.
    
    For Thompson, his travels around the world represented far more than interesting vacation spots, said his cousin, Peter Wiederspahn of Somerville, Mass. They represented an inner search for himself. "He wanted to know how he fit into the world, how to find peace among the peoples of the world," Wiederspahn said.
    
    Thompson, 44, was a restless soul who, from his boyhood days in the Bay Ridge section of Brooklyn and his high school years in Valley Stream, embraced nature in his quest for peace of mind. Family members said they believe Thompson found the peace and the feeling of belonging he searched for right here in his own backyard.
    
    Thompson's father, Edward, recalled how his son -- the second of three boys, including Scott and Chris -- seized just about every moment of each day. Take the routine fishing trips to Captree when the three were still boys. While Chris and Scott would focus patiently on the bobber in the water for signs of movement, Glenn could never stomach such a passive activity for long. "He could never sit still," his father said. "He was always on the go."
    
    Thompson's penchant to keep moving pulled him from the perch he climbed onto in the business world. Still green at 32, he bought a new Chevy SUV, packed his skis and sparse belongings and headed west to Aspen, Colo. As long as there was snow on the mountain, so was he. He picked up where he left off in the investment world a year later after returning to New York. But it wasn't long before the urge to get up and go kicked in yet again.
    
    This time, it pulled him to Vietnam. He'd never been in the military, his father explained, so Glenn wanted to see firsthand the Vietnamese battlefields where American and Vietnamese solders fought and died. The experience was as eye-opening as it was sad, he told his father. Burrowing the network of dark, dank caves from which Vietnamese fighters ambushed Americans during the war, he could almost feel the terror of the raging battles. And seeing the children of the poverty-stricken villages throughout the countryside really got to him, his father said. So much so, he felt compelled to give them money. In return, they gave him hugs.
    
    His son wasn't one to display his generosity, Edward Thompson said. In fact, much of his generous deeds -- like the time he and a friend rescued a young skier trapped on a stalled lift -- never came out until friends eulogized him at a memorial service Sept. 29 at the Church of the Resurrection in Manhattan.
    
    It's comforting Thompson's life ended in the sky, his father said. The peacefulness of the heavens is where he would have wanted to be.
    
    In addition to his father and brothers, Thompson is survived by his mother, Violet, and his wife, Kai.