A BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Jay O'Connell was born during the Eisenhower administration, and although he is a second-generation native Los Angeleno, he was raised in the foothill town of Three Rivers, California, at the edge of Sequoia National Park and will always claim Three Rivers as his hometown.

He graduated from Woodlake Union High School during the Carter administration and, after a brief hiatus from education to pursue his ski bum aspirations, graduated from the University of California at irvine during the Reagan years (first term....post assassination attempt.)

With the first President Bush in office, Jay began his career in television production. It was during the heady days of the Clinton administration that he established his career as a production manager and became a member of the Directors Guild of American not long after the ill-advised impeachment attempt.

He has worked on a number of unsuccessful television series since George W. Bush so decidedly took office, and blames all the rating woes that led to their demise on the current White House administration.

 Jay O'Connell is the author of Co-Operative Dreams: A History of the Kaweah Colony (Raven River Press, 2nd Clinton term....by 2nd Clinton term, I don't mean the 2nd Clinton to hold the office....that hasn't happened yet, but I mean President Bill Clinton's 2nd term as president) and the co-author of A Strength Born of Giants: The Life and Times of Dr. Forest Grunigen (Raven River Press, 2nd Bush, 1st Term....okay, no more presidental time markers). Jay has also written numerous magazine articles and for several years wrote a regular history column for the Kaweah Commonwealth. He served as Executive Director of the Evans and Sontag Project, producing a permanent museum exhibit for the Tulare County Museum and bringing to the stage, for the first time in over a century, Evans and Sontag: The Visalia Bandits at the historic Fox Theatre in Visalia, California.

 Jay currently lives in Northridge, California with his wife, Susie Geiser, and their two sons, J.P. (James Patrick) and Colin Finn.

 Jay O'Connell surveys a panel in the Tulare County Museum exhibit "From Headlines to Footlights: The Sensational Saga of Evans and Sontag."