THE LOST

Thomas Maier; Sandra Peddie

September 20, 2001

'97 Princeton Graduate Planned to Marry in '02...An Easygoing Bond Trader...Colombian Immigrant Didn't Like Retirement...Two Friends Were To Open N.J. Office

'97 Princeton Graduate Planned to Marry in '02

Robert McIlvaine had only been working in his new job since early summer. He was at the World Trade Center to attend a breakfast business conference at Windows on the World when the hijacked airliners crashed into the buildings.

McIlvaine, 26, of Manhattan, had recently left a New York public-relations firm to join Merrill Lynch as a corporate communications specialist. He was among the victims confirmed dead Monday by the city medical examiner.

Ken Senior, a longtime friend who shared a Manhattan apartment with him, said McIlvaine graduated from Princeton in 1997, was engaged and planned to be married next year. "He had done some work for Merrill Lynch and they wanted him on their side," Senior said about the job switch. McIlvaine is survived by his parents, Helen and Robert Senior, and his brother, Jeff.

- Thomas Maier

An Easygoing Bond Trader

Peter Genco never fit the stereotype of a bond trader. Soft-spoken, gentle, easygoing, he was always calm in an emergency. When the first plane hit just a few floors below his office at Cantor Fitzgerald, he called his wife, Diane, to put her at ease.

Friends and family have not heard from him since.

"You always say, 'Why couldn't it be me?'" his father, Vincent Genco, of Garden City, said yesterday. "But he happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. There are no answers for why it happened."

Genco, 36, had christened his newborn daughter, Victoria Rose, two days before the attack, at St. Agnes Church in Rockville Centre. His wife, Diane, his 2-year-old daughter, Annalisa, and other family members attended. With the birth of his second daughter, he felt his life was complete, his sister, Christina Genco Brown, said.

A devoted father, he was always the first one in the playhouse or the pool with his daughters. "He cherished spending time with them," said John Despagna, who was the best man at his wedding.

The night before the attack, Genco had dinner with his parents, Vincent and Barbara. He had followed his father into the trading business and his career was flourishing. He anticipated his best year ever, Vincent Genco said. That night, said his mother, Barbara, was "a gift from God."

As a child growing up in Huntington, he was close to his parents and sisters, Christina and Jennifer. Genco graduated from Holy Family High School in Huntington; the school now is known as St. Anthony's High School. He attended Boston University and St. John's University.

He was lighthearted and irreverent, said his friend Matthew Bloom. At Boy Scout meetings, Genco would be the one cracking jokes on the side when the troop leader was talking.

Bloom often went over to the Gencos' home on holidays and, "I'd always leave feeling so good. They're such good people. My father told me he would have wanted Peter as a another son," he said.

Another friend, Joe McGill, was his roommate for five years in Greenpoint, when they were just starting out after graduating from college. They never had a squabble. He never heard Genco say a bad word about someone else.

"He was always there for you," he said. "He didn't deserve to die like that."

- Sandra Peddie

Colombian Immigrant Didn't Like Retirement