Kathleen O’Brien, LEED AP, CSBA, Principal of O’Brien & Co. and author of The Northwest Green Home Primer, has been named Antioch 2009 Alumni of the Year. 
O’Brien, who has always been passionate about social justice, has enjoyed a long career, through education, research and writing, in advancing sustainability of the built environment.
In 1968 she graduated from Nassau Community College with an Associates’ Degree in Political Science, and from the University of Buffalo in 1970 with a Bachelors’ in Political Science and a secondary education certificate in social studies.
She has been a seventh grade teacher, a VISTA volunteer, a CETA employee, a magazine editor for a non-profit solar energy association, and “participated in demonstrations of one sort or another, mostly for women’s rights, and against nuclear weapons.”
In her acceptance speech at the Antioch Commencement Ceremonies, held recently at the Westin Seattle, O’Brien credits a green epiphany to a 1997 visit to Shanghai, China, where her granddaughter had just been born.
“I saw how the country is using US-style development as a template for 24/7 construction,” she says. She realized “that we have to provide a better example of development to the world, and in particular to China.”
In 1999, attracted by Antioch’s Environment and Community Program, O’Brien came to Antioch University Seattle. There she met “like-minded” Yvonne Kraus, now on the leadership team at O’Brien & Company. Since 1991 the company has worked to promote informed sustainable development in the built environment and grown to become a nationally known and respected company of more than 20 employees.
For the Snohomish County PUD, O’Brien helped develop an incentive program for sustainable school construction and has helped two schools in Hawaii develop sustainable campus plans that will reduce their operation costs and provide a unique education experience for their students.
On a statewide level, she coordinated the pilot of the Washington Sustainable Schools Protocol which provides building guidelines for high performance schools. She is currently in charge of a new pilot program called Washington Green Schools that will help every school in the state engage their students in reducing the environmental impact of the building. She is also responsible for the training of thousands of design and construction professionals through various means including the sustainable building advisor certificate program which she helped develop in 1999.
O’Brien, who once upon a time aspired to “write poetry and stories and live the romantic life of an artist”, says Antioch’s program caused her to see both how nature-based design might shape innovations in green building and how the green building movement is significant as a mechanism for change, as well as social justice.
O’Brien’s first book,The Northwest Green Home Primer (Timber Press), four years in the making, debuted in March 2008. The tone of the book is targeted for lay people, to show that anyone can make “green home” decisions, even on a budget. The book provides guidance and resources for people buying, building or remodeling a green home, providing a unique perspective that includes an in-depth description of the process of getting a green home.
“Though it is practical,” she says, “it does not stint on the philosophy behind green building. In doing the book tour gig, I’ve met many people who are tremendously concerned about their future, and the future of our planet. With my book as an entree, I get to assure them they can do something, and that it is important that they do.”
Kathleen O’Brien also has been recognized by several local organizations for her work, including Sustainable Seattle in 2006 and by the Cascadia Region Green Building Council with a lifetime achievement award.
The Northwest Green Home Primer is available on Amazon, at Costco locally and in independent bookstores.
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Kathleen’s photo by photographer Susan Doar.
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