Greg Carafello named a 2026 Daily Point of Light honoree
Greg Carafello’s 9/11 Memorial & Museum docent work earned a Daily Point of Light honor as he urges business owners to plan for succession.
By Sofia Marchetti · World Affairs Correspondent
3 min read
FCBB New York Metro announced Aug. 6 that its principal broker, Greg Carafello, had been named a 2026 Daily Point of Light honoree. The Greg Carafello Daily Point of Light recognition centers on his long-running volunteer work as a docent at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where he helps visitors understand the attacks and the objects and accounts preserved there.
Points of Light, which administers the honor, identifies Carafello as an award honoree and says he has completed more than 1,550 volunteer hours. Its profile says docents provide context for exhibits and answer questions from visitors, placing the recognition in an educational and remembrance role rather than his commercial work.
What does Greg Carafello do at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum?
Carafello guides museum visitors through material related to Sept. 11 and explains the history behind exhibits. Points of Light says he trained extensively for the position, volunteered every Friday for years and, after the COVID period, has generally served every other Friday while also filling in for special events.
His service is tied to a personal connection to the site. Carafello was on the 18th floor of the South Tower on Sept. 11, 2001, according to the Points of Light profile. He and his employees survived, but his lifelong friend James Martello, who worked in the building, did not return home.
There is a difference in accounts of when the volunteer work began. Points of Light says Carafello started in September 2012, before the museum opened to the public. FCBB’s announcement describes him as a trained docent since the museum opened in 2014. Both accounts describe more than a decade of service.
Recognition meets a business succession issue
Carafello works in business sales and exit planning from One World Trade Center. FCBB says the loss of much of his former printing business after the attacks shaped his focus on valuation, succession planning and documenting institutional knowledge before an owner needs to sell.
Exit planning is the advance work of preparing a business for a change in ownership. It can include estimating the company’s value, identifying a successor and putting key operating knowledge into records so a sale or handoff is less dependent on a single owner.
FCBB cites a 2026 McKinsey Institute for Economic Mobility report projecting that roughly 6 million U.S. small and midsize businesses could face ownership changes by 2035, involving up to $5 trillion in enterprise value. The company uses that projection to argue that owners should begin preparing well before a sale is imminent.
That message matters especially for family-owned firms, where retirement, illness or an unexpected disruption can force decisions about who takes over and whether a company can continue operating. Carafello’s New York business-sale advisory work now places those questions alongside his volunteer effort to keep the record of Sept. 11 accessible to later generations.