The Boston Globe
July 12, 1996, Friday, City Edition
Investment firm shuts to help find girl; 50 employees fly to NYC in search for teen-ager
By Shirley Leung, Globe Staff
When Bain Capital Inc. executives learned the 14-year-old daughter of
a business partner was missing, they responded by closing the Boston
company's office and flew about 50 employees to New York City to look
for the girl themselves.
Yesterday, in their first day of searching, they pounded the pavement,
plastered the city with 200,000 fliers and quizzed teen-agers at
concerts and parks.
But as of late last night, Melissa Gay was still nowhere to be found.
"Our children are what life is all about," said W. Mitt Romney,
founder and managing partner of Bain Capital. "Everything else takes a
back seat."
Bob Gay, one of 12 managing directors of Bain Capital, last saw his
daughter Saturday. The family lives in Ridgefield, Conn., and Melissa
had been dropped off at the local tennis club around 3:30 that
afternoon.
When her mother, Lynette, called the club around 6 p.m. to see if
Melissa had finished playing, club staff said she wasn't there.
Lynette and Bob Gay assumed their daughter had grabbed a bite to eat
with her tennis partner.
Bob Gay waited until 2 that night. His daughter never came home.
"That's when we knew something was not right," he said in a telephone
interview last night from New York City.
They called all her friends and then called police. They soon learned
that Melissa had hopped a train with several friends to New York
Saturday night to catch the Rock Rave-Fantasia II concert in
Manhattan.
Her friends returned to Connecticut without Melissa sometime Sunday.
Bob Gay doesn't believe his daughter ran away, because she didn't take
any clothes and had only $ 10 with her. "I believe she fully intended
to go to the concert without telling us, but not stay there in the
city," he said.
Ridgefield and New York police are working together. Hospitals have
been checked and arrest records canvassed, Gay has been told.
New York police said her friends last saw her at a party at 11 a.m.
Sunday near the Whitestone Bridge, which connects Queens and the
Bronx.
Last night, officials from both departments would not comment on the
case, except to say that the investigation is continuing.
But Bob Gay just couldn't sit back and watch.
On Wednesday he walked the streets of Manhattan looking for his blonde
daughter, who was last seen wearing a blue or red-striped shirt and
baggy tan pants.
Gay, who has worked for Bain for eight years, kept his ordeal to
himself, confiding only in Romney.
But Wednesday, Romney decided to tell the other 11 managing directors,
and they decided that finding a missing daughter was more important
than operating a $ 1 billion investment firm.
The executives decided not only to give their time but their money,
paying all expenses for the search for the fifth of Gay's seven
children.
That night, 16 employees flew to New York, turned a function room of
the Laguardia Marriott Hotel into a "war room," and got printing giant
R. R. Donnelly to print 200,000 fliers with a color picture of
Melissa. They also hired a private investigator and set up an
800-number hot line.
Another 40 employees caught an early morning shuttle yesterday, and
later were joined by about 250 colleagues from other Wall Street
firms, including Goldman Sachs, Price Waterhouse and Bankers Trust.
"Most of us have children," said Stephen Pagliuca, 44, a Bain managing
director with four children. "That's the most important thing in our
lives. It wasn't even a question. We just decided to do it."
Anyone with information on Melissa Gay can call 1-800-783-7454, extension 1111.
