Last month, a Cessna crashed onto a residential street in the San Diego area, hitting a UPS truck and killing Steve Krueger, a longtime delivery driver, before crashing into two homes. The freak accident hit close to home for Rich Soergel, CEO of Pacific Emblem Co., whose office is located near the crash site.

Rich Soergel, CEO of Pacific Emblem, designed memorial patches after a UPS driver was killed by a crashing plane near the patch manufacturer’s office.

Soergel is a private pilot in addition to running the San Diego patch manufacturer that’s been around for more than three decades. Plus, his first job was working for UPS. “I felt in my heart I had to do something to honor Steve, who drove for 30 years at UPS and was about to retire,” Soergel said.

Soergel, who goes by the nickname “Dr. Patch,” designed a memorial patch for Krueger that drivers could wear on their sleeves “to keep Steve and his life at UPS in their minds.” The regional UPS manager ordered the memorial patch for his drivers, with Pacific Emblem donating 300 of them to the delivery service. “It was the right thing to do,” Soergel added.

A driver holds one of 300 memorial patches that Pacific Emblem donated to UPS in remembrance of a longtime driver who was killed on the job.

Krueger, 61, was doing his regular delivery rounds in Santee, a suburb of San Diego, when a twin-engine Cessna C340 nosedived and crashed into the residential neighborhood, according to news reports, killing Krueger and pilot Dr. Sugata Das. The plane also crashed into two homes, burning and destroying them. Neighbors were able to rescue a couple in their 70s from one of the homes. The owners of the other residence weren’t home during the incident. Federal investigators are looking into what caused the crash, according to the San Diego Union-Tribune.

UPS issued a statement honoring Krueger after his death, according to NBC: “Those who knew Steve said he took pride in his work, and his positive attitude and joyful laugh made the hardest days a little lighter. Steve was held in high regard and will be greatly missed.”