José A. Fuentes Agostini
Chairman, Operation Sail, Inc.
Fuentes is currently the chairman of Eastport Strategies LLC, a government consulting, business development, and public affairs firm. Fuentes served as Attorney General of Puerto Rico. During his tenure he was the chairman of the Puerto Rico-US Virgin Islands High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Executive Committee.
He was president of the Puerto Rico Sailing Federation for six years, Commodore of the Puerto Rico Yacht Club, and principal director of one of the premier Caribbean sailing events for 11 years. Fuentes was president of the Puerto Rico Optimist Dingy Association. He was a Silver Medalist for the J/24 sailing class in the Central-American Games in Mexico and organizer of the Pan-American/Central-American Games sailing events in Puerto Rico. In addition, Fuentes sailed from Spain to Puerto Rico as Captain of his crew during the 1992 Transatlantic Christopher Columbus Regatta and helped coordinate the regatta events in Puerto Rico. Fuentes served as director of OpSail 2000 in Puerto Rico. Recently he has served as Fleet Captain for the Annapolis Yacht Club Etchells Fleet 28.
He holds a degree in business from the University of Tampa and a law degree from the Inter American University of Puerto Rico School of Law.
Fuentes has been an OpSail board member since 1993 and its chairman since 2005. He is very active in the sailboat racing scene and currently lives in Annapolis, Maryland.
Christopher O’Brien
Christopher O’Brien, a native of Cape Cod Massachusetts, developed his life-long passion for sailing and the ocean as a Sea Scout while in High School. After graduating from Fitchburg State University, Mr. O’Brien attended the US Coast Guard Officer Candidate School in Yorktown VA. He was commissioned in the summer of 1991 and was assigned to Governors Island New York as an electrical engineer. While in the Coast Guard, and after serving as Admiral’s Aide to the Commander, he settled into the Marine Prevention and Compliance Command where as a Marine Inspector, he regulated the maritime industry focusing on environmental protection and safe vessel operations within New York Harbor.
Throughout his career, Mr. O’Brien has taken on a number of challenging roles in the realm of large-scale events production and logistics, serving as Director of Fleet Week NYC for the US Navy, Director, “The Gates NYC” artistic installation removal, and Events Producer for Operation Sail during OpSail 2000. In 2004 Mr. O’Brien became Executive Director of Operation Sail where he developed and executed plans for OpSail 2012; a six-port series of major international Tall Ship events, produced in partnership with the USN. Most Recently, he served as Maritime Director of the United Nation’s World Ocean Festival NYC, where he designed, planned and executed myriad aspects of the ocean science festival supporting UN Sustainable Development Goal 14, for ocean conservation and sustainable use.
Alongside his maritime related career, Mr. O’Brien also served as Director, Programs and Finance for Boeing’s Information and Intelligence Systems Division, where he was responsible for financial control, programs management, and contracting for more than $200,000,000 in annual contract obligations. Mr. O’Brien is married to Diana Schmidt-O’Brien and is the father of two teenage children, Jake and Laura.
