Metro unveiled a 12-foot tall pylon at Metro Center Monday bearing the names of 26 workers who died while on duty for the transit agency. The names etched into the black granite delve into the agency’s past. It shows Harold McLinton, a former Redskins linebacker who worked at Metro to help curb vandalism until he was killed by a drunken driver in 1980. And it has the most recently lost: Jeffrey Garrard and Sung Oh, two track workers who were killed on the Red Line by a reversing truck just over a year ago.
The families of the workers and the agency’s largest union welcomed the memorial, similar to those erected for construction workers killed while building skyscrapers or dams.
“It’s something that they deserve. To me, it’s very touching,” said Martha Lee, 21, who lost her father Jong Lee near Dupont Circle in 2006.
| Remembering the employees |
| » 1980: Harold McLinton, administrator |
| » 1981: James Jones, mechanic |
| » 1983: In Kim, maintenance mechanic, Leonard Makowski, bus operator |
| » 1985: Michael McKenna, mechanic |
| » 1987: Lonnie Adams, mechanic, Joseph Volpe, mechanic |
| » 1988: Ronald Dodson, bus operator |
| » 1989: Richard Gouff, mechanic, Carl Hale, mechanic |
| » 1993: Harry Davis, transit police officer |
| » 1996: Darel Callands, train operator |
| » 1997: Stephen Cady, mechanic, Robert Mitchell, bus operator |
| » 2001: Marlon F. Morales, transit police officer |
| » 2004: Alvaro Cruz, mechanic |
| » 2005: Michael C. Waldron, maintenance mechanic |
| » 2006: Matthew Brooks, maintenance mechanic, Leslie Arvell Cherry, maintenance mechanic, Jong Lee, technician |
| » 2007: Keith Dodson, bus operator |
| » 2009: Jeanice McMillan, train operator, John Moore, mechanic, Michael Nash, mechanic |
| » 2010: Jeffrey Garrard, mechanic, Sung Oh, mechanic |
She stood near a crowd of other workers’ family members making rubbings of their loved ones’ names. No one else from her family could attend because of a previously scheduled trip. But she planned to bring her mother the sheet showing her dad’s name.
“I think he deserves it for all the hard work he had done for Metro and all the hard work he had done for our family,” she said. “It makes me proud to see his name there.”
In the past, some Metro officials have blamed employees for accidents rather than recognizing the flaws in the agency’s culture, said Jackie Jeter, president of Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689.
“I think this is probably one of the better things that [Metro] could have done,” Jeter said. “It makes a difference. It makes a big difference.”
The memorial has been years in the making, long before the recent deadly spate of accidents shook the region’s confidence in the agency. The board of directors approved the creation of a memorial to fallen employees in July 2006. When CEO Richard Sarles joined the authority as interim leader last spring, he directed staff to complete it, spokesman Reggie Woodruff said.
“To me it means closure,” said Betty Waldron. “It’s been going on for me for five years. I’d like my son and I to be at peace.”
Her husband, Michael, a mechanic who loved to tinker, had finished up his shift around 3 a.m., said his brother Vince Waldron. He went back to get an extension cord but was struck by a train. He survived for two weeks in intensive care, he said, waking up once to tell his wife he loved her.
Their family is among the recipients of a Metro scholarship fund created for the deceased workers’ children. Waldron’s son, 13 at the time, just finished his first semester at University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he earned straight A’s, his mother said. “His father would be very proud of him,” she said.
