An 18-year-old Vassilios Haramis came to the United States
looking for the American dream. He found it in his 1971
citizenship. He found it in his master's of science degree from
Columbia's engineering and applied science school in 1971. He
found it in his job with the Washington Group at the World Trade
Center.

Haramis, 56, emigrated from his native Greece in 1963. He came
to New York in the 1970s as an enginnering student, first at New
York University and then at Columbia. He was the first in his family
to graduate from college. He ended up at the World Trade Center,
where he worked as a mechanical engineer. During the 1993
Trade Center bombing, he and several coworkers waited for a
helicopter to rescue a pregnant woman before descending down
more than ninety flights of stairs.

He always kept his connection to Greece, even in his daily trips on
the Staten Island Fairy to downtown Manhattan. "I think it reminded
him of Greece. The water was calm and it was soothing," his wife
Gloria told The New York Times.

He also loved Greek music and food as well as soccer. His life,
including his children and his two favorite Audi cars, was in the
United States, though, and that's how he liked it.

"He came here with the idea of the American dream. I believe he
fulfilled that dream. He had an education, he had a family. He was
a hard worker," Gloria Hamaris told The Associted
Press.