Sep/Oct 2005

Unfortunately, the mailbag has been pretty empty for the past few months, and even more unfortunately, the balance of the news has been sad. At our 35th, we learned that about 60 of our classmates have passed away since graduation, but several more have been lost since, and this column will be largely devoted to two of them.

As most of you know by now, one of our most prominent classmates, both nationally and in the Yale community, John J. O’Leary, died earlier this year. With the help of Reed Hundt, John’s daughter Alejandra (Yale ’04), and others, I present this obituary for John O’Leary.

John J. O’Leary, of Portland, Maine, and Washington, D.C., died of complications from ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) on Saturday, April 2 at his home in Washington, surrounded by his family. Born to John J. O’Leary Sr. and Margaret Joyce O’Leary on January 16, 1947, 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 U.S. ambassador to Chile, and took the initiative in opening to public scrutiny the U.S. archives of documents on the era of the Pinochet dictatorship. After his service, he moved to Washington, D.C., and founded the advisory firm of O’Leary and Barclay. He played a key role in negotiating the U.S.-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, are his daughter Gabriela, a student at Brown University; brothers James, Richard, Michael, and Kevin; and sisters Deborah Homer-O’Leary and Peggy Powers.

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 U.S. 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.

In memory of John, donations may be made to Yale University, the John J. O’Leary and Patricia Cepeda Fund for the Study of Latin America. (Thanks to Reed Hundt for assembling this information.)

Also lost to us this year was Robert Wells, who died at his home in Kent, Washington, on March 18. Bob was born in Hartford, Connecticut, a graduate of Loomis School and Yale. He was a Peace Corps volunteer for three years in India. Before retiring, he was a senior planner in the Aviation Planning Department at the Port Authority of Seattle. He is survived by his parents and his sister, Nancy Wells Wood.

Fortunately, I can end on a positive note. Douglas Barzelay has been named general counsel at the investment firm W. P. Carey & Co. LLC in New York.