U-M chosen to honor memory of 9-11 victim Endowment from alum Todd Ouida's estate to fund research into childhood anxiety
By Tracy Davis
News Staff Reporter

January 9, 2003 - The last time Todd Joseph Ouida spoke to his mother, he told her he was in the stairwell of the World Trade Center on the way down from his 105th-floor office at Cantor Fitzgerald.

Don't worry, the 25-year-old University of Michigan graduate said that Sept. 11 morning. I just talked to Dad, too, and he's fine.

Todd had not actually spoken to his father, Herbert Ouida, who worked on the 77th floor and made it out before the building collapsed. But he comforted his worried mother even as he tried to save his own life.

That was his spirit, family members say: He always thought of others first.

Now his family is honoring the memory of the young currency trader with a $250,000 endowment from Ouida's estate to the U-M Medical School for research, treatment and awareness of childhood anxiety disorders. The money is in addition to about $100,000 more the family has given to various organizations in New Jersey.

As a child, Ouida, who grew up in River Edge, N.J., suffered from a panic disorder so severe he had to leave school, ultimately missing three years while in intensive therapy. He returned to school in seventh grade and grew into a popular, generous teen who earned honors in his classes and helped other children as a camp counselor by telling them about his own experiences.

"I remember Todd not being able to get on his bike and go to school," said Herbert Ouida, retired executive vice president of the World Trade Centers Association. "At Cantor, he was getting on a plane to Brazil.

"Todd loved Michigan," he said. "He came into his own at that school in many ways. Of course we had to do something at Michigan."

An avid sports fan who attended every U-M game he could get to - his father speculates he spent four and a half years at Michigan so he could squeeze in one more football season - Ouida made close friends at U-M, where he was a psychology major, and volunteered in an area child-mentoring program.

"The one thing we can do is try to help other people in his name," Herbert Ouida said. "If Todd had been given a normal life span, what would he have done? It's our responsibility to do what he would have done, and he had used his experience to help others.

"The good that he would have done, we're doing in his name. This is coming from Todd, not from us."

With the gift, the U-M Medical School will establish the Todd Ouida Clinical Scholars Award and annual Lecture in Childhood Anxiety and Depression.

"The Todd Ouida Clinical Scholars Award will support new research on the genetic, biological and psychosocial factors contributing to childhood anxiety disorders, and the development of more effective treatments for these disorders," said Dr. Gregory L. Hanna, a medical school associate professor and director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. "And the annual lecture will allow us to focus national attention on these important problems and to provide information to clinicians and researchers about the latest advances in the field."

Ouida's family - Herbert and mother Andrea Ouida, a brother, sister, niece and a nephew - knew they wanted to do something to keep his memory alive. They mulled over options as time passed and began to think about something at U-M a year ago. Meanwhile, they were contacted three different times when parts of Ouida's body were found. Eventually, there was a cremation and service.

The family recently visited ground zero for the last time; soon it will be closed to the public as workers prepare the site for a new building and memorial that's yet to be decided upon.

Just last week, the week Herbert Ouida retired, the phone rang one last time. Authorities had found his son's wallet amid the rubble being landfilled.

By then, his family had settled on the endowment for the award and lecture series. It seems perfect for Todd, Herbert Ouida said, noting that Michigan is a leader in child psychology issues.

Todd even wrote about his struggles in his application essay to U-M, an essay his father is convinced sealed his admission to the school.

"Many people have life-changing experiences every day, and they don't even know it," Todd Ouida wrote. "My life-changing experience lasted two and a half years, and I remember it vividly. Am I lucky? Maybe. I suffered for two and a half years, but in those two and a half years I learned more than most people learn in a lifetime. I realized that the time a person wants to give up is the time when it is imperative for that person to fight the hardest. I learned that with family a person can overcome anything.

"And I discovered no matter how big the person is on the outside (for I am only 5' 5" tall) that the size of the heart is always going to be more important."

Tracy Davis can be reached at tdavis@annarbornews.com or (734) 994-6856.