Friends Remember Lives Lost in Taiwan
Jeannie Wu, 56, arrived from Taiwan decades ago barely able to speak English. Years later, as the president of a major Buena Park beverage bottling business, she remembered her beginnings.
She called the Fullerton Joint Union High School District and offered space and free utilities at her company, Ameripec Inc., if the district would open a school to teach English to her employees.
In September, the district’s only school sponsored by a company opened to 43 students.
Wu was one of 81 people killed in Tuesday’s crash of a Singapore Airlines jumbo jet, and as many as nine were from Orange County.
The school may have lost its benefactor, but not her spirit. Just two weeks ago, the district gave Wu an award of appreciation. Now talk is of naming the school after her.
“She was an inspiration,” said John Riley, the lead teacher there.
Ameripec was especially hard hit by the crash of Flight 006 from Taipei to Los Angeles. Wu’s husband, Richard Wu, a vice president of Ameripec, and Frank Zee, another vice president, also were killed.
The Wus and Zee were returning home after persuading their Taiwanese corporate parent, President Enterprises Corp., to spend $25 million to build a plant outside Corona. Ameripec bottles beverages for Snapple, Tree Top, Arizona and Hansen’s, among others.
The company’s 200 employees struggled Thursday to make sense of the deaths. Just when they seemed to be holding up, something would trigger a memory and the sad face or tears would return.
“They were utterly loyal to the company and their people,” said Chuck Caplinger, who has worked at Ameripec for 10 years. “They considered them family.”
At Jeannie Wu’s urging, Caplinger went back to school so he could move up from pest control to head the human resources department.
Those kinds of gestures were not unusual. Four or five years ago, Caplinger recalled, a worker died, and the Wus paid to ship the body to Mexico. Then they gave the worker’s wife a job at the plant.
At least once a day, Wu would go downstairs to the assembly line to check on operations. If there was a jam, she wasn’t above putting on a hairnet and jumping onto the assembly line.
“She was the Taiwanese Will Rogers,” said Edmund Muratori, Ameripec’s director of operations, who is now running the company. “I don’t think she met anyone she didn’t like.”
Others across Orange County were grappling with painful memories, even survivors of the crash.
Massoud Dabir, 41, was one. On Thursday, as he settled back into his Newport Beach apartment, still smelling jet fuel in his clothes and waiting for his bruises and burns to heal, Dabir said he will think carefully before flying again.
Dabir remembers pacing on the plane before takeoff and feeling it rock in the typhoon’s wind.
“Are we going to take off in this weather?” he asked a flight attendant. She told him not not to worry: “We’ve flown in worse conditions.”
More unfortunate words, Dabir said, never have been spoken. An executive with Valence Semiconductor in Irvine, Dabir flies to East Asia eight times a year on business.
But Dabir said he saw too much to consider getting on a jet any time soon: People in shock, burning skin, devastated families. “I’m glad to be alive. It was a catastrophe,” he said.
Chi An Sung, husband and father of passengers Selina Sung, 29, and Yvanie Sung, 3, presumed dead, left for Taiwan on Wednesday evening, according to Chi An Sung’s brother and business partner.
Neighbors said the family had moved into a new Anaheim Hills housing development in January. They said Selina Sung divided her time between caring for their daughter and taking classes. Her husband owns a seafood restaurant in Riverside with his brother.
Neighbor Lisa Ho said the husband would not see visitors before leaving.
“He’s very distraught,” Ho said. “We went next door to see how he was and he wouldn’t even talk.”
At Ameripec, Richard Wu, 56, and Frank Zee, 72, were also remembered. Richard Wu was quiet, the money man for the company. He and his wife lived in a multimillion dollar house in a gated community in Orange.
Zee, who led the sales force, was a screamer and a yeller.
“But underneath, he was a lot softer than Jeannie and I,” said Muratori, 76, the director of operations. “He was more bluff. Frank would demand extreme things, and everyone knew it was [hot air].”
Muratori saw Jeannie Wu’s charm up close. He had been retired and came to work for Ameripec for a few weeks as a trouble-shooter.
When the company wanted to hire him, Jeannie Wu called his wife.
“She apologized to my wife for taking me out of retirement,” he said. “She was like that.”
Outside Ameripec’s two-story offices, workers were blocking out a parking space as a memorial for the Wus and Zee.
“So we remember them,” Muratori said, straining to hold back tears. “Or on the chance they may drive by some day, there will be a parking space for them.”
Contributing to this report were Times staff writers Mai Tran, Matthew Ebnet and Monte Morin.
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Orange County Crash Survivors
Jamal Obagi
42, Huntington Harbour
Holds dual United States-Syrian citizenship. Runs import-export business with his brother and shuttles between homes in the two countries.
Massoud “James” Dabir
41, Newport Beach, Santa Cruz
Executive for Irvine-based Valence Semiconductors. Returned Wednesday and is resting at his Newport Beach apartment, where his fuel-reeked clothes are hanging in the patio.
William Wang
37, Newport Beach
Scheduled to return Thursday night.
John D. Wiggans
45, Tustin
Being treated for smoke inhalation and bruises but will return home within a few days.
