Rob Peraza was a bond trader who worked on the 104th floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center. For about a year before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, he lived with his parents in Mason.

Twenty-five years later, his brother Neil Peraza still speaks about him in the present tense.

"He is my brother. He will always be my brother; he's not in the past tense," Neil Peraza told Fox 19 in a story published Tuesday, Sept. 8.

Rob Peraza worked for Cantor Fitzgerald, the financial firm whose offices spanned the 101st through 105th floors of the North Tower. Of the firm's 960 New York employees, 658 were killed that day. It was the largest loss of any single organization in the attacks.

His parents, Bob and Sue Peraza, had settled in Mason while Bob worked for Procter & Gamble. Rob lived with them before moving to New York.

Neil Peraza was in Florida on the morning of the attacks. He called his parents right away, telling them Rob's office was in the World Trade Center. His father believed Rob worked in Midtown. Neil Peraza told Fox 19 that breaking the news was one of the worst conversations of his life.

He drove up the East Coast, picking up his sister and uncle along the way. He knew the odds. Neil Peraza said he held out hope but recognized that once both towers collapsed, it was not a survivable situation.

Asked for one word to describe his brother, Neil Peraza chose "loyalty." A $50 check Rob wrote on Sept. 10, 2001, to a friend facing a medical hardship was later returned to the family. Neil Peraza said the friend included a note, calling it proof of the kind of person Rob was.

Rob Peraza earned his bachelor's degree in 1994 and his MBA in 1996 from St. Bonaventure University in New York. He captained the rugby team and was named MVP. His family established the Robert David Peraza Rugby Scholarship after his death. The four-year, need-based award supports student-athletes at St. Bonaventure.

In 2025, the university inducted him into its inaugural Rugby Hall of Fame class as part of the program's 50th-anniversary celebration. The St. Bonaventure rugby program won national titles in 2021 and 2025 at the Division I-A level.

Neil Peraza told Fox 19 the family takes pride in the program's growth, saying Rob would have loved seeing students attend college partially paid for in his name.

Upcoming commemoration: The Mason Police and Fire Department will lead a community-wide moment of silence Friday, Sept. 11, at the City of Mason 9/11 Memorial inside the Mason Municipal Center.