O’Brien’s unconventional journey to corporate success

By Lydia Roop
English ’24

Francis Michael “Mike” O’Brien has lived many lives, jumping from a nuclear engineering student to a midshipman for the United States Merchant Marine, from a police officer to a business administration student, and finally from an accounting professor to a Hilton Hotels corporate success.

Mike graduated from Trine (formerly Tri-State College) in 1965 with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. He received his Master of Business Administration (MBA) with a focus in corporate finance from Bowling Green State University (BGSU) two years later while teaching freshman accounting there.

From nuclear engineering to Hilton Hotels

After graduating high school in 1958, Mike attended the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy from 1958-1959. He attended the United States Merchant Marine Academy in the summer of 1959 to become a midshipman, but resigned from his congressional appointment to return to the School of Mines in 1960. 

Bored with college, Mike joined a police force in New Jersey in 1960. During his two-year career as a police officer, he met his future wife.

“We decided that it made sense for me to return to college and complete my education with a change in curriculum,” Mike said. “Our research led us to Tri-State College as one of several potential schools, which we ultimately chose for scholastic and financial reasons.”

Upon graduating, Mike accepted an offer from BGSU to teach accounting and take classes to earn his MBA. Shortly thereafter, he was recruited as Director of Corporate Planning by the Sheraton Hotel Corporation in Boston.

“I wrote the annual corporate business plan for several years, which focused on renewing Sheraton’s tired image by selling and replacing obsolete Sheraton hotels nationwide. I was promoted to Vice President of the new Sheraton Realty Corporation with the responsibility to execute the plan,” Mike said. “This was the start of my primary career as a hotel real estate and development professional.”

Climbing the corporate ladder

While at Sheraton, Mike was recruited by Holiday Corporation as Vice President of Corporate Hotel Development east of the Mississippi. One of the highlights was developing “the first Holiday Inn Crowne Plaza in Manhattan and the first Holiday Inn at LaGuardia Airport, among several new Holiday Corporation properties across more than half of the U.S,” Mike shared. 

He was invited to attend the Holiday Corporation Executive Development program, which consisted of “an intense year of seminars and case studies by major university business, marketing and strategy professors.” At the conclusion of the program, Mike was awarded the coveted One Arm Economist trophy for his team’s analysis and presentation of the entire program’s principal case study.

His national reputation with banks, lenders, and developers led to his recruitment as Executive Vice President of Hotel and Casino Development at Hilton Hotels Corporation in Beverly Hills, where he was responsible for all Hilton Hotel real estate and development worldwide. 

“Development, architecture, project management, and project finance reported to me,” Mike said. “I was responsible for presenting all development opportunities to Barron Hilton and the Hilton Board of Directors for approval.”

They executed several projects in the U.S. and offshore, including three riverboat casinos that were “dramatically different and challenging construction and development projects” that differed “politically and financially from typical brick-and-mortar hotel casino projects.”

“My favorite memory from my time at Hilton was the opportunity to work directly with and for Barron Hilton,” Mike shared fondly. “I regarded him as a mentor.”

Barron Hilton was “a legendary hotel and casino visionary and the son of Hilton’s founder Conrad Hilton.” Barron’s accomplishments included “the founding of a major aircraft leasing company, ownership of the Los Angeles Chargers football team, and the founding of the Diner’s Club credit card company,” according to Mike.

“In short, my Tri-State education in business administration opened my eyes to a whole new world of business as a career which was missing from my engineering studies,” Mike concluded. “In many a meeting or convention presentation, I have always been pleased to mention that I am a proud graduate of Tri-State College. [...] The quality of the coursework allowed me to transition to a graduate business education, an MBA, with skills that smoothed the path to an advanced degree and later corporate success.”