XEROX SHOOTINGS
Firm gives financial
and emotional
help to families
Xerox offers counseling to
By Christine Donnelly
its employees and will pay
victims' funeral expenses
and Russ Lynch
Star-BulletinA young widow may need money to put her now fatherless children through college, while an older woman frets about the mortgage now that her husband is gone. And all seven families devastated by the Xerox shootings face funeral expenses.
It's hard to ponder such financial issues when a loved one has just died. A company spokesman said Xerox is trying to help -- both financially and emotionally -- the immediate family members most directly affected by Tuesday's massacre. It is also offering counseling to Xerox employees who lost friends, co-workers and their sense of security at work.
"We can't control events, but we can control the way we respond to events," Glenn Sexton, vice president and general manager of Xerox of Hawaii, said at an employee gathering yesterday. "It is tragic that this can happen in such a small and close family. But that small, close family helps us to deal with this."
More than 100 Xerox employees attended yesterday's "family meeting" in downtown Honolulu, the first gathering since Xerox reopened locally following Tuesday's shooting rampage which left seven veteran employees dead and a co-worker accused of the slayings.
The public can express condolences to the loved ones of Tuesday's Xerox shooting victims in special memorial register books at five Borthwick Mortuary locations statewide. Public can sign memorial books
The books for John Sakamoto, Ron Kataoka, Ronald Kawamae, Melvin Lee, Peter Mark, Jason Balatico and Ford Kanehiro will be open for signing from Saturday through Nov. 11 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
The Borthwick locations: 1330 Maunakea St. and on the grounds of Hawaiian Memorial Park Cemetery on Oahu; 105 Waiale Road in Wailuku; 3168 Poipu Road in Koloa, Kauai; and 570 Kinoole St. in Hilo.
Star-Bulletin staff
Employees, who wore black ribbons on their lapels, gathered for about 90 minutes, meeting in small huddles to hug, cry and comfort each other and then as an entire group to pray and listen to their company leaders, according to notes of the gathering released by the company.
Rick Thoman, president and CEO of Xerox Corp., said that meeting with the families of the dead was the most difficult thing he has ever done in his working life. "But I must say that the strength the families showed in the face of such hardship was truly inspiring."
In an interview after the employee gathering, company spokesman Jeffrey J. Simek said Thoman and other executives were meeting individually with victims' families. "We'll be paying funeral expenses and then looking at what we can do based on the individual needs of each family. It's the right thing to do," said Simek, adding that Xerox required nothing from the families in return.
Killed were Melvin Lee, 58 (suspect Byran Uyesugi's direct supervisor), who had worked for Xerox for 32 years; Jason Balatico, 33, who had eight years with Xerox; Ford Kanehira, 41 (19 years with Xerox); Ronald Kataoka, 50 (27 years with Xerox); Ronald Kawamae, 55 (30 years with Xerox); Peter Mark, 46 (19 years with Xerox); and John Sakamoto, 36 (10 years with Xerox).
The slain employees were covered by company life insurance policies, which would pay out between two and five times a year's salary.
Xerox also is establishing The Fund for Victims of Violent Crimes in Hawaii, to provide scholarships and other forms of assistance for victims of violent crimes in Hawaii and their survivors.
