Lauren Grandcolas
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Lauren Grandcolas (August 31, 1963 – September 11, 2001) was one of the passengers on board
United Airlines Flight 93 United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in S ...
on September 11, 2001, who made calls, providing information about the hijacking of the flight as part of the
September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...
. She made a call to her husband on an airphone, and left a message telling him of a "problem with the plane".


Biography

Grandcolas (née Catuzzi) was born on August 31, 1963, in
Bloomington, Indiana Bloomington is a city in and the county seat of Monroe County in the central region of the U.S. state of Indiana. It is the seventh-largest city in Indiana and the fourth-largest outside the Indianapolis metropolitan area. According to the Mo ...
. She attended Stratford High School in
Houston Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...
, Texas, and later the
University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...
where she was a member of
Alpha Delta Pi Alpha Delta Pi (), commonly known as ADPi (pronounced "ay-dee-pye"), is an International Panhellenic sorority founded on May 15, 1851, at Wesleyan College in Macon, Georgia. It is the oldest secret society for women. Alpha Delta Pi is a memb ...
. She met her husband, Jack Grandcolas, at the university. She worked for a law firm and for
PricewaterhouseCoopers PricewaterhouseCoopers is an international professional services brand of firms, operating as partnerships under the PwC brand. It is the second-largest professional services network in the world and is considered one of the Big Four accounti ...
before becoming a
marketing Marketing is the process of exploring, creating, and delivering value to meet the needs of a target market in terms of goods and services; potentially including selection of a target audience; selection of certain attributes or themes to emph ...
expert for ''
Good Housekeeping ''Good Housekeeping'' is an American women's magazine featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, and health, as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Hous ...
''. Grandcolas was also writing a book on self-help for women, covering
finance Finance is the study and discipline of money, currency and capital assets. It is related to, but not synonymous with economics, the study of production, distribution, and consumption of money, assets, goods and services (the discipline of fina ...
and other topics. At the time of her death, a publisher was interested in her book. Her sisters worked together with the publisher, Chronicle Books, to get the book published after her death. The book, entitled ''You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls'', was published on April 10, 2005. It provides a guide, modeled on the Girl Scouts' merit badge system, covering skills, such as
negotiation Negotiation is a dialogue between two or more people or parties to reach the desired outcome regarding one or more issues of conflict. It is an interaction between entities who aspire to agree on matters of mutual interest. The agreement c ...
s, and life goals, such as
horseback riding Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding (Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, driving, and vaulting. This broad description includes the ...
,
scuba diving Scuba diving is a mode of underwater diving whereby divers use breathing equipment that is completely independent of a surface air supply. The name "scuba", an acronym for "Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus", was coined by Chris ...
, and completing a
triathlon A triathlon is an endurance multisport race consisting of Swimming (sport), swimming, Cycle sport, cycling, and running over various distances. Triathletes compete for fastest overall completion time, racing each segment sequentially with the t ...
. Book excerpts have appeared in ''
Parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, float (parade), floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually ce ...
'', '' Glamour'', ''
Shape A shape or figure is a graphics, graphical representation of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external Surface (mathematics), surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, Surface texture, texture, or material type. A pl ...
'', ''
Good Housekeeping ''Good Housekeeping'' is an American women's magazine featuring articles about women's interests, product testing by The Good Housekeeping Institute, recipes, diet, and health, as well as literary articles. It is well known for the "Good Hous ...
'', and other magazines. Grandcolas's sisters appeared on ''
Good Morning America ''Good Morning America'' (often abbreviated as ''GMA'') is an American morning television program that is broadcast on ABC. It debuted on November 3, 1975, and first expanded to weekends with the debut of a Sunday edition on January 3, 1993. Th ...
'' on April 19, 2005, to discuss the book. The proceeds from sales of the book go to the Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas Foundation, which contributes funds to a college scholarship program. Grandcolas was also involved with charitable organizations, including the
United Way United Way is an international network of over 1,800 local nonprofit fundraising affiliates. United Way was the largest nonprofit organization in the United States by donations from the public, prior to 2016. United Way organizations raise funds ...
,
March of Dimes March of Dimes is a United States nonprofit organization that works to improve the health of mothers and babies. The organization was founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1938, as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, to comba ...
, Project Open Hand, Juvenile Diabetes Foundation, Breast Cancer Awareness, and Glide Memorial. She was also a certified
emergency medical technician An emergency medical technician (EMT), also known as an ambulance technician, is a health professional that provides emergency medical services. EMTs are most commonly found working in ambulances. In English-speaking countries, paramedics are ...
.


September 11 attacks

Grandcolas had been attending her grandmother's funeral in Carlstadt, New Jersey, and was returning home to
San Rafael, California San Rafael ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Raphael (archangel), St. Raphael", ) is a city and the county seat of Marin County, California, Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), ...
. She arrived early at the airport on September 11, 2001, allowing her to board
United Airlines Flight 93 United Airlines Flight 93 was a domestic scheduled passenger flight that was hijacked by four al-Qaeda attackers aboard the plane on the morning of September 11, 2001, as part of the September 11 attacks. The plane eventually crashed in S ...
, which was earlier than her originally scheduled flight. Grandcolas, who was originally seated in seat 11D, called her husband from towards the rear of the aircraft in row 23. She left a message for her husband, who was still sleeping, telling him of the "problem with the plane". Her last phone message to her husband was played in the
docudrama Docudrama (or documentary drama) is a genre of television and film, which features dramatized re-enactments of actual events. It is described as a hybrid of documentary and drama and "a fact-based representation of real event". Docudramas typic ...
'' The Flight That Fought Back''. She then passed her phone to Honor Elizabeth Wainio. At the time of her death, at the age of 38, she was three months pregnant with their first child. Grandcolas' father, Lawrence R. Catuzzi, served as co-chairman of the
Flight 93 National Memorial The Flight 93 National Memorial is a memorial built to commemorate the crash of United Airlines Flight 93, which was one of four aircraft hijacked during the September 11 attacks in 2001. The memorial is located in Stonycreek Township in Somer ...
task force, from 2002 to 2005. Grandcolas and her unborn child were memorialized at the South Pool, on Panel S-68, along with other passengers on Flight 93, at the
National 9/11 Memorial The National September 11 Memorial & Museum (also known as the 9/11 Memorial & Museum) is a memorial and museum in New York City commemorating the September 11 attacks of 2001, which killed 2,977 people, and the 1993 World Trade Center bomb ...
.


Published works

*''You Can Do It!: The Merit Badge Handbook for Grown-Up Girls'', 2005 Chronicle Books; Bk&Sticker (''Published posthumously through the efforts of her sisters, Vaughn Lohec and Dara Near'')


References

23
Elizabeth Wainio


External links


Lauren Catuzzi Grandcolas Foundation

Lauren Grandcolas On-line Tribute
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grandcolas, Lauren 1963 births 2001 deaths People from Bloomington, Indiana United Airlines Flight 93 victims University of Texas at Austin alumni American terrorism victims American self-help writers People from San Rafael, California People murdered in Pennsylvania Terrorism deaths in Pennsylvania 20th-century American non-fiction writers 20th-century American women writers Victims of aviation accidents or incidents in the United States American women non-fiction writers 21st-century American women