John Joseph O’Leary – 50th Reunion Essay

John Joseph O’Leary

Date of Death: 2-Apr-2005

College: Davenport

(A longer version of this memorial appeared in the September/October 2005 issue of Class Notes. It was written in part by Reed Hundt.)

John J. O’Leary, of Portland, Maine, and Washington DC, died of complications from ALS on April 2, 2005 at his home in Washington, surrounded by his family. John graduated from Cheverus High School in 1965. At Yale, John was president of the Yale Political Union and spoke at our graduation. He received his BS in political science, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, and won a Mellon Fellowship to Clare College, Cambridge University, where he received an MA in English literature in 1971. John then returned to Yale, receiving his law degree in 1974.

While in law school, John met his wife-to-be, Patricia Cepeda, a 1977 graduate of Yale College and a native of Baranquilla, Colombia, who has long served as a professional interpreter and also personal interpreter to her godfather, author Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Returning to Maine, John was a leading trial attorney at the firm now known as Pierce Atwood LLP in Portland. In 1975 he was elected to Portland’s city council, and later became mayor. He was instrumental in securing city and community support for the construction of the Portland Museum of Art and the public library, later joining its board of trustees.

During his legal career he also served in leadership positions in the American Bar Association, the Inter-American Bar Association, and the Inter-American Commercial Arbitration Commission.

From 1998 to 2001, John was US ambassador to Chile, and took the initiative in opening to public scrutiny the US archives of documents on the era of the Pinochet dictatorship. After his service, he moved to Washington DC, and founded the advisory firm of O’Leary and Barclay. He played a key role in negotiating the US-Chile Free Trade Agreement. Last year, he helped create an extraordinary conservation area, the size of Rhode Island, in Tierra del Fuego, near the southern tip of South America.

John served numerous civic, charitable, educational, and professional organizations, including as president of the Chile-American Chamber of Commerce, and as a director of the Council of American Ambassadors and the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training.

Surviving John, in addition to Patricia and Alejandra, is his daughter Gabriela, a student at Brown University.

A private memorial service was held at the Chilean Embassy in Washington on April 14, where the Chilean ambassador presented Patricia with the Bernardo O’Higgins Medal. Previously awarded to John but not delivered prior to his death, this is the highest honor that the Chilean government bestows on a foreign citizen. More than 300, including US Senator Olympia Snowe, Maine’s governor, and both congressmen, attended a public ceremony in Portland on April 22. The American embassy in Santiago held a memorial service in Washington on May 19, at which the speakers included classmates Reed Hundt and Doug Woodlock, and President Bill Clinton, who reported that he and President Bush had shared warm memories on Air Force One while returning from the Pope’s funeral.

Other classmates in attendance were Michael Buas, Michael Keeling, and Mac Thompson. Portland attendees included classmates Henry Fuller, David Livingston, Brian Dowling, and Pat Madden.