U.S. General Services Administration
Remembering OKC: GSA Retiree Richard Williams Shares His Story
Former PBS Building Manager Richard Williams started his work day like any other on April 19, 1995. He arrived at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building parking garage around 6:30 a.m. where he began his normal workout routine with the U.S. Marshals. Afterward, he headed inside the building to prepare for his first meeting. Around 9 a.m., when the meeting had ended, Williams and a colleague went inside Williams’ office, located on the first floor.
At 9:02 a.m., a bomb exploded just 75 feet outside of his office, and Williams’ life was forever changed.
The Oklahoma City Bombing is described as the “deadliest act of homegrown terrorism in the nation’s history,” where 168 people, including 19 children, were killed and hundreds of others injured. Yet, 29 years later, the stories of hope, courage, and resilience from those affected by this tragic event continue to inspire our nation.
Williams has one of those stories. After the bomb exploded, Williams’ next memory was waking up in a hospital bed. Over the years, he’s been able to piece together events from that historic day. He and three other GSA employees were rescued from rubble by Police Officer Terry Yeaky. Williams said he arrived at the hospital around 9:35 a.m.
“Keep in mind that the bomb went off at 9:02,” he said. “So those heroes and first responders—in our opinion—are the reason many of us are here and alive today.” Williams said there were many heroes that day, including many uninjured colleagues.
Although Williams retired from GSA in 2003, his memories are still fresh. He travels around the country sharing his experiences that he says aren’t about him but GSA and the people behind the stories. The former manager sat down with Region 7’s Office of Strategic Communications Team to not only share about his deep connection to the Murrah Building and the monumental task of rebuilding but also to reflect on what he calls the unforgettable “GSA response.”
Q: Tell us about your role at GSA in 1995.
A: My connection to the building and the people in that building was unique because I started my career with GSA in August 1977 as a maintenance mechanic. The Murrah Building was being built at that time, and it opened in April 1977. That’s when we moved our first tenants in. I knew if not everyone in the building by name, I knew them by facial recognition because I was in there everyday with those people. I became the assistant building manager in 1995.
Q: You shared that you didn’t hear or see anything after the explosion. Walk us through your experience after waking up in the hospital.
A: I didn’t know anything about what had happened at that point because I was pretty much out of it. My wife told me the first thing I asked was what happened, how everybody was, and how were the children? They did not let me see what the rest of the world saw (in terms of the video) until Friday; the bombing was on a Wednesday.
I stayed in the hospital for two days. I felt like I needed to get out and do something and find out what happened to my GSA friends, co-workers, and all the other friends I had made over the years. We were honestly like one big family in that building, with the 17 federal agencies and the three non-federal. We were all friends and we saw each other every day for 18 years.
A: It was very difficult for many reasons. One reason was the fact that we had lost people, employees, co-workers, and friends. It was difficult to try to function as a field office without those people we lost, those who were injured, and those who never came back to work. We were trying to function with less than full staff all the time, although we got a lot of help from people from the regional office and other field offices.
We were trying to put our operation back together as best we could with people that were most affected. Dealing with the emotional, physical, and the logistics of people that were affected was absolutely difficult under the circumstances. Every individual dealt with it differently, so we had to take it one day at a time in terms of who could function, who couldn’t, how well they could function and how long. That went on for numerous years.
We lost every document and every file that we had in the bombing. Every record that we had was gone, so it was really like starting over from scratch. And as we progressed with putting things back together, I got involved with the memorialization process and represented GSA on different committees. I served on the Memorial Trust, which was nominated by President Bush and President Clinton, representing GSA. Then I served on around 10-12 other committees involved in this memorialization process. That occupied my time away from work because I was there involved every day. A lot was happening over the next five years until the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum was opened and everything that went on involved a direct connection with GSA in some aspect.
Q: What is the “GSA response” and how did it impact the rebuilding efforts following this event?
A: After the bombing, there was an immediate, amazing response by GSA in the region. They sent people and others came on their own to help. The regional administrator was there. This cadre of GSA people came in, set up a command center in a hotel downtown, and started working on solutions for things like, what are we going to do with the building? Where are we going to put the agencies that were in the building? How can we rehouse them and set up leases and get them all the tools they need to continue their businesses?
It was pretty amazing how quickly that group of people from the regional offices, working in conjunction with local and state authorities, were able to get these agencies back in lease space and the employees who survived back working to be able to serve the public. The fact that these government workers were able to respond and what they were able to accomplish is pretty amazing.
Q: What is the biggest principle or life lesson that this experience taught you that you can share with others?
A: It is important for me to make sure that people understand that we as government employees are important. I was always proud of my job, and I think after this attack there was a different perspective of government employees. The fact that these people went to work every day just to take care of the public and do their service. We at GSA were there to take care of the people who were taking care of the public. I think people looked differently at us after that and hopefully have a little more understanding of GSA and what we do.
I hope GSA employees can be proud of what we do because it is a remarkable service that GSA provides. It’s really all about people taking care of people and people taking care of buildings—that’s our responsibility. We are proud of what we did and who we are as GSA, and I hope people feel the same way.
