Karen Siciliano

BA 1983, Communication

President, Siciliano Landscaping Company, LLC

September 11, 2001, changed Karen Siciliano’s life. Then the vice president of JP Morgan and Chase Manhattan Bank in Mortgage Backed Securities, Siciliano was working on Wall Street that terrible morning, and evacuated through a flurry of singed paper. Her instinct was to head for the family home in New Jersey, and she watched the South Tower of the World Trade Center fall as the ferry she boarded pulled away.

She lost colleagues and friends that day, which hastened her decision to change her own course in life. Her father had asked her six months earlier if she’d like to run the family-owned landscaping business. After a brief return to Wall Street, she agreed to her father’s request. She’s now the owner and president of Siciliano Landscape Company in Red Bank, New Jersey, providing landscape design, installation, and maintenance for both commercial and residential clients.

Siciliano places great emphasis on giving back to her community—whether her time, business acumen, or landscape services. (More on that follows in her own words.) And it’s that combination of dedication to her work and the people around her that motivates her. “It’s great to live in an area I love, do exceptional work, and be of service to others through my success,” she notes. “I am becoming more of my authentic self every day and strive to elevate the awareness and circumstance of others.”