From Police Heroes, a book by author Chuck Whitlock:

Fred Morrone, superintendent of police, was not in his World Trade Center office on September 11 but in a New Jersey office. But after the fist plane hit, he got into a car and drove to the Twin Towers. He was last seen near the forty-fifth floor of One World Trade Center, the first building that was hit. Port Authority employees evacuating their offices on the sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh floors said they passed Morrone as he was heading up, offering encouragement and help to everyone he encountered.

Superintendent Morrone was sixty-three years old. He was born in Brooklyn, raised in Rocky Hill, New Jersey, and earned a bachelor’s degree in Political Science and a master’s in Public Administration. His first law enforcement job was with the Franklin Township (New Jersey) Police Department. After that, he became a New Jersey State Trooper. One of his colleagues said he was a tough investigator and would never give up on a case. After Morrone was promoted to lieutenant colonel, he was in charge of the intelligence services and casino gaming sections. One of his last cases as a state trooper was the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center, where he and three dozen other troopers were assigned to help the FBI. He retired from the state troopers in 1993.

Three years later, Morrone joined the Port Authority. He is credited with starting many programs such as the Port Authority Police Academy’s residential training program, the International School of Airport and Seaport Security, bike patrols t the airports, a scuba team, a Commercial Vehicle Inspection Unit, and Airborne Services Unit, and a Motorcycle Unit. He also toughened training standards for recruits.

Morrone was a member of the terrorism subcommittee of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the vice president of the International Association of Airport and Seaport Police. He was on the board of directors for the New Jersey Special Olympics and on Seton Hall University’s Board of Advisors for the New Jersey State Police Graduate Studies Program.

A Lakewood, New Jersey resident, Superintendent Morrone is survived by his wife, Linda, and three grown children, Fred, Alyssa and Gregory and two grandchildren.

Portraits of Grief, The New York Times

A Hidden Spirituality

Fred V. Morrone enriched the graduate level course in public management that he taught at Seton Hall University with his experience as superintendent of the (then) 1,300 member Port Authority police force. But his most important lesson was the one he never lectured about: living a moral life.

“My husband wasn’t a saint,” said Linda Morrone, “but he was a spiritual person, and he lived his life according to that.” It was well known that Mr. Morrone, 63, was a 30-year veteran of law enforcement, a tough former New Jersey State Police lieutenant colonel who ran the casino gaming and intelligence services sections.

But hardly anyone knew that several times a week he attended 6:30 A.M. Mass near his home in Lakewood, N.J., before boarding a train into the city, or that he prayed at the start of each and every morning. All that was visible of Mr. Morrone’s spiritual side was an occasional glimpse, like the time he had to decide what to do with a young new employee who had gotten into serious trouble.

“Most other people would have given up on him,” said Mrs. Morrone, “But my husband took the time to pray about it, and he came away with a feeling that he should act in favor of that person.”

“Fred did that with a lot of different aspects of his jobs,” Mrs. Morrone said, “but most people who worked with him would not have guessed that at all.”