While St. Jerome’s University was appealing and well known, younger sister Maureen was just as happy to pursue her post-secondary studies in her hometown of Edmonton, Alberta. But her parents encouraged her to think seriously about SJU given Kelly’s and Val's positive experiences. After further consideration, Maureen came to SJU in 1979, living in residence for two years as she studied Psychology.  Maureen found than many of her peers just entering university at SJU were, like her, searching for the same thing – their place in the world.  SJU, as a Catholic liberal arts university, helped facilitate that journey.

She was very proud when her daughter Colleen (BA ’10) chose to live at St. Jerome’s in 2006. As fate would have it, Maureen’s father, Terry, played a role yet again. With Maureen and her husband, Kevin, living in Calgary, Grandpa TJ and his wife, Marg, offered to accompany Colleen on a tour of the University of Waterloo and SJU, sharing thoughts on the many advantages SJU could offer. The connection to SJU was immediate for Colleen, and she decided that's where she wanted to go for her undergraduate studies. Colleen lived at SJU for three years and was very involved in residence activities and in her leadership role as residence don. She credits SJU faculty and staff with rounding out her rewarding and positive experience at SJU. What Colleen values most about SJU was “the welcoming community and the emphasis on tradition. It was the people and the relationships I formed … and the opportunity to get involved and be a leader in the residence community that drew me back year after year. From the moment I toured SJU, it felt like home.”

One of Maureen’s favourite memories of St. Jerome’s was her daughter Colleen’s graduation in 2010. The day started with a mass that brought together the whole SJU community to celebrate and reflect on the roles that Colleen’s family, along with peers, faculty and staff, played in the success of all the graduates.  

Maureen joined the Human Resources department of Imperial Oil shortly after graduating from the University of Waterloo and SJU. She met her husband, Kevin O’Brien, at work – they have been married for over 28 years. Over the past 30 years, Maureen has held a variety of managerial positions and done a number of projects at Imperial Oil. She has witnessed the evolution of human resources, from being a personnel function focused on a transaction to being a business partner with a seat at the table, engaged in business decisions. For her, what’s interesting about HR is the connection between the business itself and the people element of the business.

Maureen and Kevin have three grown children: Michael is studying at the University of Toronto, Colleen is at the University of Alberta completing a Master’s degree in Speech and Language Pathology, and Sean is studying Geology at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. Maureen and Kevin live in Calgary, but come back to Ontario often to spend time at their cottage in Muskoka.