Four days after the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New York, a team of volunteers that included Novell employees made their way with flashlights through the darkened halls of damaged buildings in New York's financial district to help salvage the networking systems of the New York City Department of Health.

That is just one example of the efforts the Provo, Utah-based networking company has been involved in to provide help to businesses destroyed or affected by the attacks last week.

On the day of the attack, Novell formed a team of technical volunteers that tried to contact more than 200 companies in and around ground zero, the company said.

"As we struggled to take in the magnitude of the disaster, we realized that any of Novell's customers in those buildings would need immediate help restoring their networking capabilities," said Novell COO Steward Nelson, in a statement.

Nelson and Novell CEO Jack Messman authorized the use of the company's full resources to help customers and businesses restore business functions and networking capabilities, the company said.

Novell volunteers helped the U.S. Census Bureau repair servers that went offline in a building near the World Trade Center. They also helped the Federal Emergency Management Agency by setting up a server and licenses for 1,000 nodes in its New York command center.

A group of ten Novell employees who were in New York attending a training seminar when the attack occurred worked with local Novell personnel to provide onsite assistance to affected customers, the company said.

"Although our efforts pale in comparison to the recovery efforts taking place at ground zero, we tried to support an area that needed help,any way we could," said Laurie Teal, president of IT Systems and Consulting and New York area president of Novell Users International, in a statement.

Novell on Friday identified one employee lost in the terrorist attack. Joseph Mathai worked for the company's Cambridge Technology Partners division focusing on financial services. He had a meeting in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, the day of the attack. People who knew Mathai described him as a "person with great intellect and wit," the company said. Services for Mathai will be held Saturday, Sept. 22.