Sean O’Brien has a B.A. in history from Castleton University in Vermont and a certificate in Sustainable Food and Farming from UMass Amherst. He has worked at several diverse farm operations including a dairy farm with a 500-bird egg-laying flock, a five-acre CSA and market farm and his own market garden that he ran in rural Maryland.
O’Brien has worked on a garden build crew in Washington, DC creating gardens in spaces from rooftops to alleyways to large backyards. While living in Connecticut he and his wife raised dairy goats, alpacas, ducks and chickens. Most recently, Sean worked as the farm and project manager at FRESH New London, a food justice organization, where he managed eight community gardens, two urban vegetable production plots, a CSA, two plant sales per year and directed 6-25 youth staff along with varying numbers of volunteers in all operations of the urban farms and gardens.
O’Brien was also the go-to person for community gardeners when they had questions about what to grow and how to grow it. In this role, O’Brien and FRESH partnered with Connecticut College and their Sustainability program to greatly increase the amount of food grown within the city and eaten by its residents, especially the economically disadvantaged.
In his role at UNH Extension, O’Brien will focus on providing and developing educational resources for home gardeners relating to horticulture topics and will support the Home Horticulture and Master Gardener programs.
