Scott Bates was more than 4,000 miles from Stonington on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001. He was in Kosovo, working with the Kosovars in their first election when he learned a plane had struck the north tower of the World Trade Center.

“I couldn’t believe it,” said Bates, 45. “I was just frozen.”

By the time the second plane hit the south tower Bates was in his car on his way to the U.S. Embassy with a feeling that hasn’t left him since those early moments. 

“The sense of mission and purpose in those initial days was overwhelming,” Bates said. “I just thought I have do something, I don’t know what to do.”

Bates spent the last 10 years answering that question—making sure that none of his days are wasted. In the days immediately following 9/11 he let the people he was working for know he wanted to be part of the team helping to build democracy in Afghanistan.

In the spring of 2002 he did exactly that, working to create a transitional government. After that he spent three years working as a Senior Policy Advisor for the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee and then five years as the Vice-President of the Center for National Policy.

“I’ve dedicated the last 10 years to trying to do that something that I was looking to do and I don’t know if I’ve done any good, but I’ve done all I can.”

But throughout the past 10 years no matter where his work took him Bates was never far from the Stonington community he calls home.

Before he left for Afghanistan in 2002 he returned to Stonington, taking a walk down to Stonington Point.

“To get my head together I went to the Point and I kind of looked out and I said to myself  ‘you know the men of Stonington have always gone to sea, gone out into the greater world.’ This is a beautiful place but to protect it to keep it strong every generation has had to send its people away off our shores,” Bates said.

Years later, the Point and the memorial bench to Joshua Piver - a Stonington native who died on 9/11 - still offers Bates a sense of direction.

“I walk down there sometimes when I get frustrated with the work I’m doing and then I see the monument to him and I think of my own son and I think alright just get focused and do the work.”

In a country that has become so politically polarized Bates believes that work now needs to focus on building stronger communities and knowing our neighbors, so that in times of disaster whether it be a terrorist attack, natural disaster or economic downturn communities are able to respond and adapt better.

 “That’s the challenge to create communities around positive issues.”