Brian Wright O’Connor, ’78, is a veteran journalist and political operative with a long career spent at the juncture of press, politics and public policy. During his undergraduate years at Harvard College, he lived in Winthrop House, played varsity soccer and gave Crimson Key Society tours.

After graduation, O’Connor taught English at St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., before leaving to study symbolist poetry under a Rotary Graduate Fellowship at the Universite de Grenoble in France. He returned to the U.S. to start a career in journalism, editing an award-winning Black weekly in Boston and writing for newspapers and magazines around the country.

He left Boston for Washington to serve as communications director for U.S. Rep. Joseph P. Kennedy II and help shape legislation and initiatives related to peace and social justice issues in Northern Ireland, Haiti and Armenia. He also worked on local, statewide and national political campaigns around the country.

More recently, he served as Vice President for Public Affairs at Citizens Energy Corporation, a Boston-based non-profit that generates revenues from successful energy ventures in the U.S. and abroad to finance assistance programs for low-income families.

His interest in public policy was sparked by the Vietnam War. His father, a battalion commander, died in combat – the victim of misguided fears and manipulation of public opinion at the highest levels of government.