Bio
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Mr. O'Keefe attended parochial school and joined the Redemptorist Fathers, a Catholic missionary order, after high school. While with the order, he completed a BA in Scholastic Philosophy at St. Alphonsus College in Suffield, Connecticut. He eventually chose another path, however, and joined the Air Force in 1967, completing flight school at Randolph AFB in San Antonio, Texas.
After keeping the Bad Guys away from Cape Cod and Iceland for a year, Mr. O'Keefe volunteered for Vietnam service and completed 200 combat sorties as a Forward Air Controller in Vietnam and Cambodia. Subsequently, he served as a flight school instructor pilot and Officer Training School flight commander. While stationed in San Antonio, Texas, he completed a 48-credit-hour MS in Clinical Counseling, including a community internship in Family Counseling. He later volunteered for assignment to Loring AFB in Limestone, Maine, and, after 11 years as an instructor pilot and Chief of Training in aerial refueling operations from Korea, Guam, Hawaii, the UK, Puerto Rico, and Maine, he retired in 1991.
After retirement, Mr. O'Keefe served as the Center Director for Husson College in Caribou, Maine, providing evening college education services to community adults. Three years later, he was invited to help Aroostook County farm workers with job training and education as part of Training & Development Corporation's Migrant & Seasonal Farm Worker program. In 1998, he was approached by our founder, Dr. James Patterson, to teach at the MSSM.
