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Not a Lot of Spare Time

Gary Bright was still working flat out, usually seven days a week, sometimes at two jobs. Late last summer, he put together a combination that suited him fine: working evenings as a waiter at Spazzio's restaurant on Columbus Avenue and, during the days, as a temporary insurance analyst at Aon Insurance in the World Trade Center.

He came to New York from Indiana about six years ago with a master's degree in therapy, and in his spare time — of which there was not much — he counseled a child pro bono. But mostly he worked. "He was one of the hardest-working people I have ever met," said Sarah Adams, who worked with him at Spazzio's. "If anybody deserved success, it was him. He was intelligent, he was warm and he gave us all advice."

His mother, Anna Bright, said, "He wanted to get ahead, he was big on that." He had recently bought himself a house in Union City, N.J. — a "kind of a fixer-upper," said Mrs. Bright, who came east from her home in Muncie, Ind., to help with the fixing. "He turned the backyard into a little park, with a fish pond and a fountain," she said. But Mr. Bright was not planning to stay there long. "It was just a beginner house," his mother said.

Profile published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on December 8, 2001.