Alex Ciccone was a very big fan of the New York Mets. His wife, Stephanie, who he met on a blind date in the late 1980's, came from a family that loved the Yankees. 'That was a problem,' she said. 'We had a lot of fun with that.'

Mr. Ciccone, 38, was a vice president at Marsh Inc., the insurance brokerage subsidiary of Marsh & McLennan Companies. With a staff of eight, he was a rising star. 'I had a conversation with one of my bosses about a month before Sept. 11,' said Bruce Pepchinsky, who was Mr. Ciccone's boss for four years. 'The strong indication was that Alex would be promoted to senior vice president. He was a great problem solver, an executive who treated his staff as students as opposed to a big bad boss.'

When he was not putting in 12- or 13-hour days at work, Mr. Ciccone loved to hang out in his yard in New Rochelle, N.Y., with his son, Stephen, 6, and his daughter, Julia, 5.

He was also a big Bruce Springsteen fan. But Annette Casarella, his sister, associates her brother with another recording artist. 'He wore out a 45 record of `Lean on Me,' by Bill Withers,' she said. 'When we were little I can remember his playing it over and over and over. Last summer, before this happened, we talked about how much he loved that song.'