PTR coworkers confounded by Grabowski’s suicide

No one may ever know for sure why Horry County Councilman Bob Grabowski took his own life late Tuesday afternoon, least of all his co-workers at PTR Industries.

But it was apparent to company CEO Josh Fiorini Wednesday morning that Grabowski carefully thought through what he was about to do and how he would do it.

“I think he did it (on vacant land in the Cool Springs Business Park) because he didn’t want his family to find him,” Fiorini said. “He did it (behind a large berm perhaps 200 feet from the plant) because he didn’t want us to find him. He wanted the police to find him.”

In his office, Grabowski left a note for Fiorini, his keys, his computer passwords and his current work in a neat pile on his desk.

“He was definitely one of our MVPs,” said Fiorini, who didn’t want to say what Grabowski wrote.

Fiorini and PTR Vice President John McNamara on Wednesday morning were still processing what had happened, going through memories to see if there may have been clues they missed, wondering if things might have been different if they had done something differently.

“I don’t know,” Fiorini said. “What if I had insisted that we not postpone the meeting? What if we had gotten there sooner? Who knows?”

Employees noticed late Tuesday afternoon that they hadn’t seen Grabowski for a while. A couple began searching around the plant, calling his name as they scanned the area around them.

Fiorini said that one of them recalled later that at one point he was no more than 20 feet from the spot where Grabowski pulled the trigger on his Glock handgun.

Fiorini and McNamara had joined the search and heard the shot. McNamara immediately dialed 911 from his cellphone and Fiorini ran behind the berm where he discovered what had happened.

“What do you do?” he recalled his thoughts in the moments right after. “Do you call his family? Do you call …? Do you close his eyes?”

Fiorini said that Grabowski suffered from chronic back pain, but there were no signs that it or anything else had made him morosely depressed. He never complained.

In fact, Fiorini said he and Grabowski were talking about “all sorts of things,” including Grabowski’s reelection run next year, on Friday.

But he and McNamara recalled that Grabowski seemed to be having a bad day Tuesday.

“He seemed down,” Fiorini said.

There was nothing to raise warning flags.

McNamara said Grabowski was the one who was always trying to raise spirits around the office, bringing in doughnuts and doing other things to make his co-workers days better.

PTR had been through a tough spell financially since the company moved its operations from Connecticut to Aynor early last year, when Grabowski was hired. But the situation has improved markedly, with laid-off employees rehired and two shifts now working steadily.

The future looks more optimistic, Fiorini and McNamara said recently.

McNamara said he had been going through Grabowski’s emails Wednesday morning and realized how much he did for the company that neither he nor Fiorini were aware of. His experience of running his own business helped him steer through challenges at the gun manufacturer, McNamara said.

Grabowski owned Myrtle Beach Lighting and was an air traffic controller before that. He served in the U.S. Air Force.

The company hasn’t decided if it will hold any kind of memorial for Grabowski.

Fiorini said he wants to let the family take the lead on what happens next.

Likewise, he and McNamara are just beginning to process their own feelings, beginning to feel the brunt of grief, and despite a nearly sleepless night, still second-guessing.

What if?

“It’s hitting home more,” McNamara said.

This story was originally published April 1, 2015 at 2:35 PM with the headline "PTR coworkers confounded by Grabowski’s suicide."