Survival skills: How do you hold your company, your family and yourself together when the world is coming apart? (Internal Affairs).

If you own a company, you know all about bumps and thumps and rough terrain. If you run a dot-com, you've taken some wallops. But few business owners have been hit harder emotionally this past year than Bryan Thatcher and Laura Michaels-Thatcher, chief executive officer and chief creative officer, respectively, of Fusebox, a $5.6 million Silicon Alley technology and design firm.

Put yourself in their shoes for a moment: It's the morning of September 11, and this husband-and-wife team -- who lived just four blocks from the World Trade Center -- are running for their lives with their 7-year-old daughter and their dog. The details of that day need no repeating. The next few days bring the realization that the only thing the Thatchers can be certain of is uncertainty. No one knows when or if their apartment building will reopen, where their daughter, Kassandra, will go to school, what will become of Battery Park City, their beloved community.

But Bryan and Laura can't focus on their own fears and trauma. They have 45 jittery employees who need their leadership, relentless optimism and compassion. Fusebox has big clients. The Thatchers have a business to run.

They immediately set out to make sure all of their employees are accounted for. Everyone is fine, though some have friends and family who are missing. "There was so much upheaval in our own lives that it was difficult to think about the emotional toll on the staff," Laura admits. "But we had to think about their needs."

As soon as everyone could return to the office, the Thatchers held a company-wide meeting. More than anything, their employees needed to talk. "It was pretty amazing," Laura says. "Everyone shared stories and talked about their concerns going forward. While still pretty traumatized, everyone appreciated getting together. I think the shared experience made an already close-knit group even closer."

In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks, Bryan seemed to land on his feet. "I believe that being a business owner better prepared me to handle the stress of 9/11," he says. "Not a week goes by that something incredibly stressful doesn't happen here."

He and the senior management team contacted clients to check on the status of projects. When the dust settled, Bryan calculated that business had dropped by about 20 percent. Forced to think quickly, yet compassionately, about cost control, he asked employees to take two months of Fridays, as well as the week between Christmas and New Year's, as unpaid vacation. Not only did they understand, he says, it also spurred everyone to focus on current projects -- and on reeling in new business. The strategy seemed to work: By January, Fusebox had signed four more clients.

Laura found it much more difficult to get back to business. Her immediate solution was to delegate management responsibility and find ways, such as yoga, to reduce her own stress. She took charge on the home front, finding a new apartment and helping Kassandra settle into two different temporary schools.

She also threw a great deal of her energies into community activism, especially concerning the air quality around Ground Zero. "Fighting for the good of the community has helped me heal," says Laura.

No matter what happens on the work, home or community front, they feel fortunate. "We're lucky that we survived," says Laura. "Our daughter is happy. Our business is stable. We made it."

Contact

Bernadette Grey. ("Survival Skills")

Fusebox www.fusebox.com

Bernadette Grey has been the editor in chief of several magazines, including Working Woman and Home Office Computing. Until September 11, she and her two children lived a few blocks away from the World Trade Center.