Influences on my Life

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The Swedish Diplomat saved more than 100,000 Jewish residents of Budapest, Hungary during the Holocaust. He is the antithesis to indifference and the person I admired and wished to emulate the most.

The German businessman saved 1200 of his workers lives during the Holocaust. At first he was indifferent to their plight, but over time he learned to care deeply and risked his life to save all of his  employees.

This couple convinced their congregation, then their village and some Vichy Officials to hide the Jewish orphans and families who came to hide in Le Chambon. Arrested, he did not relent and is an example of how to turn the tide of opinion to save lives.

During the 1994 Tutsi genocide, Paul Rusesabagina checked in Tutsi's fleeing the killing as guests of the Hotel  des Mille Collines, fed and protected them, and eventually secured their safe passage.

Ambassador John McDonald founded the Institute for Multi-Track Diplomacy, expanding State-to-State diplomacy to include - citizens, businesses, religious groups, professionals, activism, and others added women's groups, sports, and arts. He was a friend and mentor.

Professor Abdul Aziz Said, longtime pillar of the American University's School for International Service, founded  the Center for Global Peace and worked, taught and practiced strategies of peace and conflict resolution to generations of eager minds. He was a friend and a mentor.

Sergio Vieira de Mello was a modern day human rights and humanitarian hero, flying to lead missions around the world no matter the danger. The dashing Brazilian died in a terrorist attack shortly after overseeing over the creation of the Iraqi Constitution. his body was found in the rubble laying across the UN flag. Our brief meeting was impactful.

The Patriarch of the O'Brien clan was a brilliant, tough as nails, labor leader who was unafraid to put his life on the line for his workers. He sired three powerful sons and two lines of the O'Brien lineage. One look at the photo of Cornelius in an alley in the 1920's with fight is his eyes always strengthens my resolve.

My father was an ecclesiastic muralist and veteran of the grueling 45th Infantry World War Two campaigns. A prolific and talented writer, he was the President of the Canadian Writer's Guild, even though he was American. He could cook anything he tasted, paint anything he saw and write anything he imagined. Warm-blooded, brash, very funny and always noticed was my father.

 Equal soulmate to John O'Brien, my mother left home at 16 to study art and became a fashion illustrator to Anne Klein and other notable designers in New York and Canada where her art was featured in magazines throughout the 1940s - 1960s. She taught me love, strength and above all to believe in myself. She is the primary reason I believed I could open the Center when I had no business doing so.

I attended Culver from 1980 - 1984 where I made lifelong friends and had integrity, honor and service trained into me. Culver creates leaders who are moral, strong and well-balanced. 

I learned about diversity at American University and was first exposed to International Relations and Peace building at the School of International Service.

Georgetown University had the best classes I have ever experienced.  Even the teachers who I differed on political grounds had outstanding minds. Without Georgetown and Bill Douglas, my thesis mentor, the concept for the Center for the Prevention of Genocide would never have taken shape.