Meet the Senior Editor

This is Mike O'Brien, WoodenBoat's senior editor for the past 18 years. He came to us from Soundings magazine, where he was technical editor; before that, he worked for the now-defunct Sailor magazine as associate editor.
    Mike's been fascinated with things marine since the age of three, when he first climbed into a skiff. He taught himself how to sail at age seven by reading instructions in the family encyclopedia. A powerful oarsman, he rowed "eights" in college, and back in his native New Jersey he went three years undefeated in surfboat competition.
    Before turning his attention to magazines, Mike was a marine scientist. He did his graduate works at Virginia Institute of Marine Science, studying nearshore physical processes—“wave action, sediment transport, that type of thing.” From the littoral to the literal. While teaching marine science in Virginia, Mike ran his own boat shop called, appropriately, Mike's Boat Shop. In his spare time, he publishes his own magazine, Boat Design Quarterly. He's taught design at the WoodenBoat School and, more recently, as a registered Maine Guide, has taught kayaking.
    Why is he dressed like this, with the headlamp and the orange cap? Because Mike lives on the land adjacent to WoodenBoat's offices, and typically walks to work through the woods. He submitted to this rare photograph while I was learning to use a new digital camera late one afternoon, just before quitting time.

Comments

[Lance F. Gunderson]

Mike also commissioned the first Bolger Black Skimmer leeboard sharpie cat yawl, a boat some consider a classic. That alone should get him through the pearly gates.