Herndon

Hi, Peter.

Um, I'm right here in, uh, Corning, New York, but I live in Herndon, Virginia.

I came over here to see the falls and stuff.

I'm 60 year old, but whenever I can wait to listen to your podcast, when I do that, I become 16 year old.

So concludes hour one, the buildup and the day.

In hour two, the day from two places most of us never saw, the FAA Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, on Ben Sliney's first day on the job, and the CNN anchor desk on Aaron Brown's initial day.

Then the hunt for bin Laden from Tora Bora to Abbottabad, and in hour three, all new, my recent interview with Rudy Giuliani, an interview with Carol Rosenberg from The New York Times, and investigative reporter Gerald Posner.

Don't go away.

This hour begins with two men for whom September 11, 2001, was their first day on the job.

For Ben Sliney, it was his first day at his new assignment as the FAA's National Operations Manager.

He was manning the helm of the FAA's Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, the center that monitors all air traffic within and coming into the United States.

On September 11, Sliney and his crew received rapid-fire information as events seemed to spin out of control.

And the only one who faced criminal charges was the firefighter because, you know, he was well-known, and the FBI picked up that case.

And so we did it again in Washington, DC, outside of DC, in Herndon, Virginia, and even more guys showed up, and more prominent guys showed up.

And we still didn't work with authorities, but the Fairfax, Virginia, Police Department and the FBI did make a lot of these cases.

But it became very clear after that point that we needed to partner with law enforcement-

This is your host, Phil, and welcome back to our show.

Our next guest joining us here today is Valerie Cotullo, who's in Herndon, Virginia.

Her business called Creative Capabilities Coaching and Consulting, LLC.

How are you today? I'm

The two speak for another six minutes, with Olsen and passengers in the background relaying updated information to the Solicitor General.

While this is happening, FAA headquarters in Herndon, Virginia is finally made aware of an emergency aboard American 77 at 9.24am, but is not informed of any hijackers.

Two minutes later, the line between the Olsens once again goes dead.

Theodore Olsen will later recall, I dreaded the realisation that what had happened to the airplanes in New York was going to happen to her plane.

Yes, we know.

And so I've been working with her for a couple of months and I went to the coaching session with her and I live in Los Angeles and she lived in Herndon, Virginia.

And so I'm in Herndon, Virginia sitting with her and she said, before we get started, I just want to tell you, I was invited to sit on the executive committee of my company.

And I went to give her a high five because I thought, now here they thought she was too aggressive.

And now they're inviting her to be part of their team.

On the way back to Los Angeles from that coaching session, I started thinking about all the stupid things I've seen women do because of how they were socialized.

Not because they're stupid, but because they're following these rules for how they were socialized.

And I outlined all of what I was calling Quit Being a Girl on that six-hour plane trip from Herndon, Virginia to Los Angeles.

At some point, there was probably like a Coke bottling facility there, and they got the street named after Coca-Cola, and it's just called that now.

Like there's a street in Herndon called EDS Drive, which was a, it was Ross Perot's company way back in the day, EDS.

There's no EDS anymore, but there's still an EDS Drive in Herndon.

Over by me, there's a UUNet drive because UUNet was one of those like dot-com boom era companies.

And they