Changed by 9/11: Seth Cirker, Entrepreneur

Local resident Seth Cirker – the founder of Port Washington-based SituCon Systems – says he was in lower Manhattan on the morning of Sept. 11.

“On that particular morning, I was standing at a jobsite with two co-workers, just a couple of blocks north of the World Trade Center when the first plane flew over my head and hit the north tower,” said Cirker, who at the time worked in fiber optic communications.

The attacks changed Cirker on both a personal and a professional level. He refers to that day as “an awakening” that terror “can happen in my backyard.”

Not long after, Cirker moved from his Greenwich Village apartment to Port Washington where he now lives with his family.

But it was five years later, following the shooting in the single-room Amish schoolhouse, he said, that he decided to launch . The company provides cameras with “eyelids” that are normally closed. With the push of a button during an emergency the eyelids open, enabling first responders to see the situation in real time.

The acts of terror, he said, ultimately prompted him, as a father, to apply his technology expertise to help protect children and community members.

Relocating to Port Washington and launching a new company are transformative events.

Yet Cirker said the attacks touched him in smaller ways, too.

Now, he said,  “I’m leaving my keys, wallet and ID in the same spot so they are quickly accessible in an emergency.”