George Kottemann, D.D.S. '55, ortho '59, traveled to New York to assist with the identification of September 11 victims as a member of the Disaster Mortuary Operation Response Team, part of the National Disaster Medical System of the U.S. Public Health Service.

"We were working with and under the New York City medical examiner's office," Kottemann said. Shifts lasted twelve hours, with approximately 150 people on duty during the day and about 100 at night. Families looking for loved ones would provide dentists' names to be queried for records by the DMORT team to identify matches.

Kottemann said the most difficult aspect was "the realization that many thousands of futures were wiped out. Looking at the remains was actually not as bad as looking at the pictures of people families had put in the files and all over New York. You'd see wedding pictures or a family portrait, and you'd realize that these young people had their whole lives ahead of them. That's what was tough."

UIC's Kottemann Gallery of Dentistry was created largely thanks to a gift of more than $200,000 from Kottemann and his wife, Norma. Occupying a one thousand-square-foot space on the fifth floor of the UIC College of Dentistry, the Kottemann Gallery features graphics and exhibits demonstrating the college's historical role in advancing the dental profession, as well as displays on current research initiatives and clinical advances.