Tom O’Brien and his wife, Nancy, are the proud parents of 4 adult children: Alexis, who holds a Master of Arts degree and is a Professional Photographer specializing in portraits of Families and Children lives with her husband, Dave, a Packaging Engineer and their two children, Juliana age 15 and Cooper, age 13 in Perkasie, Pennsylvania; Jeff, a Real Estate Developer, his wife Laura and three Children; Ella, Dylan, and Myles live in Wilmington, North Carolina; and our twins- our son, Chris, an Attorney and his wife Lisa along with their two daughters Cassidy and Kennedy live in Orlando, and finally our youngest by just 19 minutes, Chris’ twin sister, Erin, an Electrical Engineer and MBA, who is a Field Clinical Engineer for St. Jude Abbot Laboratories. Erin, and her 5 dogs, live in Wilmington, N. C.
Tom and Nancy both grew up and raised their family in New Jersey. Tom, who holds a Master of Arts degree was teaching while a PhD candidate in Linguistics at New York University when he withdrew from Academic Life to begin a sales career with Pfizer in Manhattan and subsequently, Medtronic. In 1980 Tom founded a Medical Device Distribution Company. Twenty years later, Arrhythmia Control Systems, LLC had become the largest independent distributor of Cardiac Devices in the United States and was purchased by St. Jude Medical, Inc., a “Fortune 500 Company”. Shortly thereafter, St. Jude offered Tom the opportunity to become the Vice President of Sales for the ten states of the Midwest. Now “empty nesters”, Nancy who holds a BS in Business but now “retired” from raising their four children (if one can ever “retire” from raising children!), and Tom viewed this opportunity as a new page in their lives and an “adventure”, and moved to the picturesque and charismatic village of Lake Forest, Illinois on the north shore of Lake Michigan.
In 2004, having acquired the reputation within St. Jude of being an Executive excelling as an agent of change and “turn-around” specialist, the Company again asked Tom to relocate to assume the position of Vice President of Sales for Florida, Southern Georgia, and Alabama; a market where for years St. Jude sales had languished. During Tom’s tenure as the Vice President for this geography, which included 140 employees now generating $200 MM in annual sales, Tom’s Area was twice recognized as the Number #1 sales area in the United States Division of St. Jude!
Since 2004 Tom and Nancy have lived in the Heathrow Golf Community of “Redtail”, a place they chose for its country style living, yet which is conveniently located just 20 minutes in either direction to the sophisticated dining and shopping of either Lake Mary or Mt. Dora. Tom has long since retired from St. Jude and is now pursuing his second “passionate” career, Real Estate. Since becoming a Florida licensed Realtor®, Tom has spent considerable time earning the coveted designations “Accredited Luxury Home Specialist” and “Certified International Property Specialist”.
Tom believes the unique skill set he has developed through years of dealing on a daily basis with CEOs, COOs, and CFOs, both internal and external, while serving as an executive for St. Jude Medical, along with the twenty years of running a successful small business, provides a significant advantage to the people for whom he does Real Estate work. Rarely among traditional real estate agents do you find the substantial experience of a very successful small business owner who has honed his negotiating skills as a top Corporate Executive combined with expansive knowledge of select sectors of the Real Estate market.
As Tom succinctly suggests, “you and your home are special; shouldn’t your real estate agent be as well?”
