9/11 Victim's Son Launches Scholarship

Peter Guza, who recently moved to North Andover, remembers Sept. 11, 2001, vividly.

"I was a junior at Lehigh University and I was sleeping in that day because I had a late class," Guza said. "I lived in a fraternity house, so I had a lot of friends close by. A friend of mine called me and woke me up after the first plane hit, but my dad worked in the second tower."

Guza's father, Phil Guza, worked on the 105th floor of the south tower of the World Trade Center.

"I knew that he worked on a very high floor," Guza continued. "He was on 105, and there were only 110 floors. My initial instinct was ‘he’s fine because the accident was at the other tower' -- at the time we were thinking it was an accident."

Even when the second plane hit the south tower, Guza said he thought his father was safe because he worked so high up in the building and that plane hit below the 90th floor.

"We later found out that workers who did decide to evacuate after the first plane hit, got out just fine," he said. "But anyone who didn’t never got out. And there was no question that he was still up there because his co-workers said that he was sitting at his desk crunching numbers."

Guza and his family went to Manhattan and put up missing person posters, holding out hope that his father was in a hospital somewhere.

"The thought was 'okay, well he’s probably in the hospital, and we just got to find him.' Someone’s got to ID him and connect him with us.”

Phil Guza did not make it out of the tower, though. He was one of thousands who died on what started out a normal September day.

Legacy of Learning

Last year, in honor of his father Phil, Peter set up the Phil Guza Memorial Charitable Trust, which includes the Phil Guza Memorial Scholarship. The $1,000 grant will be awarded to a graduating high school senior who plans to pursue a bachelor’s degree in math or science.

As a new resident of North Andover, Peter hopes to embolden community involvement in both the fundraising and applying aspects of the scholarship.

“Some people hang on to it in a negative manner or they have grown hateful or revengeful, and that’s just not how I think for some reason,” Guza said.

He described his father as an extremely intelligent person who got upset in high school when he got one question wrong on his SATs. Phil studied mathematics at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He then received his PHD at Princeton University. Peter remembers his father of having a “unique sense of humor that was very dry and either you got it, or you didn’t get it at all. I got it.”

Holding Memories

Although Phil was not a very social or athletic person, he took his two sons who loved to snowboard to Colorado each year for a week.

“He didn’t ski or snowboard at all, it was all for us. He was an extremely proud father,” Peter said.

One of the hardest parts for Peter was dealing with the fact that there were no remains of Phil’s body.

“There was never any proof,” Peter said. This places Peter and his family as one of the 1,717 out of 2,800 family members to have not received their loved ones' remains.

“It was hard but my family has grown very strong from it," Peter said. "I don’t think about the towers crashing down when I think of my dad, I think of the warm memories."

Moving Forward

It wasn’t until last year when Peter finally got the inspiration that he needed to put the scholarship into action. Last February, his first son Owen was born.

“I was suddenly inspired by his birth to make this dream a reality. It was quite a bit of work," Peter said. "But, really it was about getting motivated. I was self-motivated after he was born."

A month later, the trust was founded. Guza registered the scholarship under the IRS as a non-profit and decided to include science majors applicable for students. He didn’t want to limit it to math, which was his father’s profession, because there are not many people who choose to pursue mathematics.

The four trustees include Peter, his brother, mother, and a close family friend. Peter says that fundraising for the scholarship is especially challenging for a small organization. This year, Peter’s mother created a quilt to help the fundraising campaign fund the scholarship.

“Although my parents split when I was three years old, she has been extremely helpful and an outstanding support system for me and my brother,” Peter said.

Last year, Guza bought a set of six Red Sox tickets, and then donated them to the charity as a fundraiser around the Fourth of July. The trust is offering the admirable hand-made quilt as a giveaway for all of the donations made before the end of September. Each $10 donation that a person makes towards the scholarship, receives an entry into the giveaway.

Guza moved to North Andover four months ago and hopes to get several applicants from He is working on making a clear connection with the guidance department to target gifted students.

Donations can be made online through www.philguzamemorial.org (where students can also apply) using PayPal, or checks can be mailed to 40 Booth St., North Andover, MA 01845.