Rory O’Connor ’96

Yes.  Throughout high school, history was the only subject for which I had a true passion.  My original intent was to double major in history and education so I could teach high school history. However, I found myself pulled more toward history, so I focused my efforts there.

Professor Steve Rosswurm is the most influential teacher I’ve had. He was my advisor and he provided a superb guiding hand for three years. All I wanted to do was take history classes, but he ensured I received a well-rounded education. Because of him I took classes I never would have thought to take – in Religion and Philosophy, for instance. In doing so, he helped expand my mind and soften my rather rigid and close-minded outlook on academics.

Without a doubt, my senior thesis on the Civil War prison camp at Andersonville. The project, which spanned my entire senior year, demonstrates what a liberal arts education provides. Planning, research, writing, problem-solving, and communication–these interdisciplinary skills played a large role in my thesis, and the same skills I learned in that process have served me well since graduation.

I received my MA in history in 2000. My goal was to become a historian for one of the armed services but that didn’t pan out. In March 2001, I started at a defense contractor with the assignment to provide a “Cliff Notes” version of articles involving naval surface warfare. After two months, I was promoted to be the speechwriter for a two-star Admiral who oversaw the research, design, construction, and maintenance of all the Navy’s submarines and undersea weapons. I had never written a speech in my life and I knew next to nothing about submarines but thanks in large part to skills I learned writing my thesis, I picked it up quickly.

In November 2001, I became the Admiral’s public affairs officer in addition to his speechwriter. Again, what I learned at Lake Forest College served me well and I did well enough that I was hired into the government as a Navy civilian in January 2005 doing the same work. In 2008 I took over as the Command’s lead congressional and public affairs officer. In this role I oversaw all correspondence going to the public and to Congress. After 13 years in the submarine community, I received a promotion to my current position as the Director of Corporate Communications for the Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA). I now supervise a staff of 20 people. NAVSEA has a global workforce of more than 70,000 people and its mission is to oversee the research, development, acquisition/construction, maintenance, modernization, and life-cycle support of all the United States Navy’s ships, combat systems, and most weapons systems. To execute this mission, we receive approximately one-quarter of the Navy’s annual budget. Given NAVSEA’s mission, size, and budget, we rightfully receive a lot of public and Congressional information from Congress. Lake Forest College, and particularly its History Department, prepared me to handle this job.

A liberal arts education prepares students for more careers than a specialized education. From my experience, people who have a liberal arts background are more adaptable and can take on new and unexpected requirements far better than people who come from a more rigid academic background. Why? Because they’ve been exposed to a wider range of experiences which has equipped them to attack problems from different angles.

My degree in history is the foundation upon which I built my career, and I use the knowledge, skills, and abilities I learned as a history major every day. History provided me with the writing, research, analysis, objective thinking, and problem-solving required to do my job and these skills can be applied to a wide array of professional fields.