FINANCIAL DISTRICT, Manhattan (PIX11) — You won't find many people more connected to their place of work than Michael Cartier at the 9/11 Memorial & Museum.
Cartier and his team ensure that all the latest technology and information inside runs smoothly.
Cartier has been the museum's Chief Information Officer for 18 months, putting his years of tech experience into as many parts of the sprawling facility as possible.
One of his proudest displays in the museum is in the Memorial Exhibition, where almost 3,000 pictures are displayed for the victims killed as a result of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks at the World Trade Center in Manhattan, the Pentagon and in Somerset County, Pennsylvania.
A feature inside the exhibit allows visitors to learn more about the victims through an interactive touchscreen that Cartier and his team worked hard to refine. He's always got his eye on it to make sure it's running properly.
"I have a tendency to take it personal," Cartier told PIX11 News. "When I hear there's an issue with name-finder and things like that, I'm like, 'That is somebody's family member potentially looking for their family's name.'
Sometimes I could be a little hypersensitive, but I'm always striving for the highest level of excellence in how our technology organization supports this museum," Cartier said.
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Cartier's hypersensitivity to the name-finder's functionality, or a lightbulb not shining brightly enough, comes from the fact that his brother's name and photo are up on the wall: James Marcel Cartier.
James was Michael's older brother. He was 26 years, 2 months and 20 days old on Sept. 11, 2001, the day he died inside the South Tower working as an electrician.
"We were like twins, the two of us," Michael said, staring at James' picture painted onto the side of a motorcycle in his honor that is on display. The bike was donated by Michael's older brother John Cartier, founder of the 9/11 remembrance motorcycle club American Brotherhood.
James, a proud Local 3 Union member, was just two years older than Michael. Growing up, they shared a bed for years in a Queens family of seven kids. Their sister, Michele, was actually in the North Tower on Sept. 11. She made it out alive.
"Working at the World Trade, he was a big-time ladies' man, you know?" Michael remembered. "He would always say, 'Mike, I work at the World Trade. You have to see it– the most beautiful women in the entire world are all in this place.'"
James, among so many others, never had the chance to settle down and start a family of his own. Twenty-five years later, Michael has made James part of his children's lives, but also lets visitors of the museum learn a bit about him.
"We say grace at dinner every night— and at the end of grace, since the time my kids could speak, we end by saying 'God bless our family and we love you, Uncle James,'" Cartier said.
"All three of my kids do that to this day as adults."
Cartier's oldest daughter was born three months before Sept. 11. In her infancy, Cartier and his siblings were early advocates for victims' families. "We were among what was considered civilian families and information was very scarce if you were a civilian," Cartier said.
Their organization, "Give Your Voice," started as a support network for families trying to get more information about recovery efforts, identification of remains and paperwork for financial compensation. The Cartiers worked very closely with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) to help families with identification, including for their own brother.
"We just wanted to recover something to have a grave to go to," Cartier added.
The day James' remains were put to rest, Michael and his mother were there when the hearse arrived. Michael remembered his mom asked him, "Which side is his head on?" "There was no silhouette of a human being underneath," Michael recalled.
They were also huge advocates for getting the 9/11 Memorial selected, the two reflecting pools that reside where the twin towers stood, as well as ensuring that the OCME Repository for unidentified and unclaimed remains would reside at the museum.
As the years went on, the Cartier family felt it had done its part to help everyone around them and that it was time to help themselves and lead more normal lives and grieve in a normal way.
"It gave us a means to displace our grief. I consumed myself with that work," Cartier said. "We felt that our mission for 'Give Your Voice' was completed and that it was time to go home and process what happened to our family."
Michael and his siblings stuck together, always surrounding their late parents, Carmen and Patrick, to support them through losing a son.
"We also understood that we had responsibilities for our families. We had to take care of our children and also educate them on who their uncle was and each in our own way," Cartier said.
Cartier's son, born in 2004, is named after his uncle. His three kids have only been to the museum twice since it opened in 2014. Before working for the museum, those were the only times he'd been there, too.
Each visit was incredibly difficult for him. Cartier said he couldn't even talk about his brother without getting emotional up until about five years ago, let alone stand in the memorialization of the day he died.
Every year, the Cartier family would go to James' gravesite with their parents, where Patrick would lead them all in prayer on Sept. 11. "We would always end up at our parents' house. Always," Michael said.
They did not take to the idea of being in Lower Manhattan for the anniversary. The first time Michael even attended an on-site ceremony was in 2025 as an employee.
"I used to say Sept. 11 is like any other day, but I really wasn't being truthful," Cartier said. "There is a weight that comes with this day."
Days before the 25th anniversary, Michael remembered this time last year as being "extremely hard." What made 2025 such a difficult milestone?
"It marked that I would now live longer without my brother. I have lived longer without him than I did with him," Cartier said. "Twenty-five years is a long time to live without my brother."
Just months earlier, that's when the job opportunity with the museum opened up. Michael wasn't apprehensive about the day-to-day responsibilities but about working in and around the museum itself.
"Initially, I was hesitant. I wasn't sure, emotionally, how much it would impact me," he said.
So he performed a bit of an emotional experiment on himself to see if he could do it, because, as he kept going through the interview process, he felt "more and more of a calling" to the role.
He went to panel 64 at the reflecting pool memorial, the one with James' name on it. "I said to myself that if I got emotional, I would know that it was not for me, like, this role was not something that I could do," Michael remembered.
It went better than he expected. And when he got the job, it felt right. "I'm supposed to be here, to help the memorial as much as possible to advance and modernize the technology both throughout the office area and through the museum itself," he said.
Now, being around it all the time, Michael finds peace in the Repository, which is only made available to the OCME, first responders and visiting victims' families. He's comforted by the fact that, most likely, there's more of his brother inside those walls than what's at his grave site.
"I will sometimes come here, and I sit and all the stress just goes away. I'm just focused on doing the best job that I can," Michael said.
Cartier, 49, believes the next 25 years of remembrance will be built on educating those born after Sept. 11, 2001. He emphasized the museum's president and CEO, Beth Hillman, has "captivated" him to work harder to achieve that.
"I am fixated on working as hard as I can to make sure that what she is pushing forward is what is the theme for this, a part of the theme for this museum," Cartier said.
On top of that, honoring those who have died or been sickened due to 9/11-related illness is a point of emphasis as well. Michael's brother John, who founded American Brotherhood, has 9/11-related kidney failure and is in search of a donor.
"I was very grateful to Beth and, and our leadership that we are now adding a moment of silence for everybody who has passed."
In Michael's eyes, it's all encompassed by education to all so that history doesn't repeat itself, that people never forget.
"It's covering all corners, the entire perimeter of what we can do to make sure that this, this story is always present, especially on the anniversary of what we lost this day and, and how we have to make sure this never happens again in this country."
Spencer Gustafson is a digital content producer from Long Island who has covered New York state and city news since 2023. See more of his work here.
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