With profound regret, we announce the passing of our dear friend and lifelong colleague, John W. O'Brien.

John passed peacefully in his sleep on the morning of June 27, 2025.   We welcome reflections and photos which can be sent to inclusionpress@inclusion.com.

Connie, Sean and Kevin have asked a few of us to assist in sharing the notice of our stunning collective and individual loss.

John was working this past week.  We were booked for another meeting on Friday.  He has been (as always) the master mind in assisting us to rethink and redesign the massive website collection of inclusion.com.  The first staggering task has been to enumerate and code hundreds of his articles so they will be more accessible to all of us.  As a living tribute to John and his life work, that will be done.  

Just last week John re-edited his own biography notes for the website (see below).  His humility and generosity of spirit glow – a tribute to six decades of relentless, tireless brilliance and creativity to create better community lives for people with disabilities. He never stopped searching for one more way to help us all to honor the gifts of people he loved – so they could thrive in the world of possibilities they so richly deserved – and were denied over and over.  John never gave up, never gave in.  He was always available as wise counsel, as a treasure trove of wisdoms from the world – always ready to share and to listen and glean yet another story to add to his and our understanding.

There will be a time to acknowledge his creative brilliance cataloged in books, articles, videos and presentations.  His eloquence was shared in hundreds of trainings in dozens of countries – always humble, always wise – and always ready to try the fragrances and spices of a new dish.  Thousands of us have spent hours, days, weeks and months soaking up his insights and strengthening our own convictions and commitments.  The tributes John would appreciate are not the glories of shinny bobbles, but rather the thousands of our individual reflections on what we learned and utilized – as he deepened our understanding and our spiritual connection to this life work.  

Some of us have been privileged to be colleagues and friends – for decades as we collaborated with John’s obsession to explore new ways to engage people’s hearts and minds in the service of people whose gifts have been denied, dismissed and discarded.

There were hundreds of SRV trainings, Citizen Advocacy events, 34 years of Summer Institutes, untold courses almost everywhere – and presentations to people of power and prestige in universities, governments, agencies, organizations – but most importantly families and individuals.  John never forgot the forgotten people and was forever ready to hear a story, celebrate a success and offer elder wisdom to survive hard times.

We suspect all of us – each in our own way – have a personal experience of John listening to us.  There was a way he sat, opening his hands and heart – and then looking into your eyes.  Although words would be spoken, when John listened with his eyes it was as if your story revealed itself – with or without words.  If you choose to write your own reflections, we are suggesting we all adopt one of John’s relentless campaigns – please use HELVETICA.

Like each of you, we are going to miss John – profoundly, daily, endlessly.  We’ll miss him as a gentle font of wisdom; we’ll miss his chuckle and occasional outburst of glee.  We’ll miss him as a buddy, a colleague and friend – a gentle giant of a man who taught us all so much and asked so little.  

And now John has moved on to continue his work with a higher calling.  And our task is to honor John’s work by drawing on the collection of resources he created, to relentlessly sustain the struggle for all to be fully included in meaningful lives in our communities.  That is how to pay tribute to John’s life of service to relationships and friendship with people with disabilities – and all of us.

We invite you to share your reflections, remembrances, and photos with us at inclusionpress@inclusion.com

Jack & Lynda

John in his own words

John recently revised his and Connie’s bio for Inclusion Press. Here’s what he wrote: 

John O’Brien and his wife and partner Connie Lyle O’Brien are lifelong  learners from social innovators who create better community lives with people with disabilities. In addition to co-developing some widely used person-centered planning approaches and hosting many learning opportunities for people with disabilities, their families, and human service workers, they are insightful and sensitive writers. Inclusion Press has been privileged to publish their books.

Two quotes from recent interviews with John (with thanks to David Hasbury).

On personhood…

“When we introduce the idea of person, we introduce the notion of mystery. People are not problems to be solved. They're a mystery, to inspire wonder…if we've had a good experience with our planning, there'll be a moment of wonder, of awesomeness. If I catch a glimpse of a person, that is an awesome mystery. They're sitting with us. And we have the privilege to appreciate what that uniqueness might mean.”

On the curiosity that comes with humility, and never ending work…

"I have probably found more ways to fail at influencing people, then anybody else, or anywhere else. And I'm obsessed about this pretty consistent failure. People are sometimes complimentary about what I've got to say. But if you look at the actual impact of lots of it, it doesn't add up to very much. That doesn't bother me probably as much as it should, so much as it keeps me curious. And so I keep looking around to see who else is doing something that might help, that might reduce my next failure, or make my next failure more interesting.”

Click here to read and watch some of John and Connie’s incredible contributions to all of us on their Change Makers page.