Timothy McGuirk ’11 The Pursuit of a Meaningful Life For nearly 365 days a year from the summer of 2018 until March 2020 Timothy McGuirk ’11 would emerge from the subway in Manhattan, cross a 16-acre plaza, and arrive at a place dedicated to remembering: the National September 11 Memorial & Museum. As the communications manager for the museum, Tim threw his “sense of duty and responsibility” into telling and preserving the stories of the 2,983 people who perished in the attacks of September 11, 2001 and February 26, 1993, helping to make it an important gathering place for families and visitors who wanted to reflect, mourn and gather strength. Among his many duties, Tim worked closely with family members to “try to understand how they wanted the story of their loved one told.” He quickly learned that family members felt strongly about depicting how their loved one lived, rather than died – what made him or her such a special person. “That was really the core of my work – trying to answer questions, help media professionals get it right, tell
Tim speaks with visitors to the National September 11
it accurately, and do well by the victims and their families.
Memorial & Museum
You want them to feel proud; you want them to feel that their loved ones are truly never forgotten.” Tim says it’s thanks to his experience at Portsmouth Abbey that he’s drawn to a life – and a career – of purpose and meaning, and it’s where he learned the sensitivity and grace that allowed him to navigate such delicate topics
communications for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security (EOPSS). The city was familiar to him – he grew up in Brighton, graduated from Boston University in 2015 and worked as a communications associate at the
with families and visitors.
Archdiocese of Boston. His role also invoked the same
“I had four incredible years of learning, of being formed,
sustained him in his previous work.
ingrained sense of duty to serve the community, which
of thinking about the kind of person I wanted to become as an adult,” he says. “My time at the Abbey was nothing short of extraordinary, and for me, it just changed the course of my life. It made me think differently about the
“It’s important to me that I’m doing something really meaningful because that helps me to wake up every day,” Tim says. “I think about first responders, and I’m not one
world and understand how to become a force for good.”
of them. I’ve not taken a badge, I’ve not taken an oath,
After two years at the museum, he has recently moved
do anything I can to help them accomplish their work in
back to Boston to take a post as the deputy director of
the service of our Commonwealth.”
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but I will do anything to support those people, and I will
P ORTSM O U T H A BB E Y S C HO OL
