Meet Vicki

Born and raised in the DFW area of Texas, Vicki is a native Texan through and through. Although she has an educational background in medicine, she is best known for her 16+ years of professional leadership in companies such as Toyota Motor Sales North America, her more than 28 years experience as a SAGe Television and Film actress, as well as her highly sought-after expertise and guidance as a professional coach in the world of public speaking.

She met and married her best friend/late husband, David O'Brien, while they were both attending Texas Tech University. After she finished her studies, they moved back to the DFW area, and began their life together.

Her lifelong passion for mentoring others began while she was still in high school. In college, she spent 3 summers working as a Senior Camp Counselor and Assistant Camp Director at Sky Ranch; a very special child/teen camp in East Texas. A place she still calls home today. Upon moving back to DFW after getting married, Vicki immediately got involved with the youth group at their church. She spent more than 7 years working with high school aged girls as a small group leader there.

As travel for work and time constraints necessitated stepping away from the small group at church, Vicki found other outlets for her love of mentoring and helping others. This passion combined with her unique skillset is what drove her into the world of coaching for public speaking. As a Master Coach with The Moxie Institute, Vicki is able to work closely with individuals from all ages and spectrums of life to help them understand how to effectively communicate with an audience in a way that is transformative vs just merely informative. She does this by emphasizing building a relationship with your audience as the foundation.

Her passion for mentoring others is followed closely by her love for conveying powerful stories through the written word. Even though she never had a desire to write stories for a living, her in-depth knowledge and intense love for the English language is why she ended up with a double minor in college (Chemistry and English)! Most would call her crazy, but she saw the English courses as a welcome break to the science heavy load! It is this love for deep communication through the power of language that allowed her to write this memoir as a way to deal with her grief, as well as help create a space for others to enter in with understanding and warmth.

Vicki is an avid outdoor girl who loves various sports and activities. Having grown up playing competitive fast pitch softball and later on volleyball, you could say she likes to challenge herself and compete! When she is not working, you can find her hiking with her dog(s), working around her property, corralling her hot mess express of a chicken clan, enjoying nature in some other way, or spending quality time with those she loves.

More than all these loves, her passion for knowing the Lord supersedes anything else. She desires to intimately and fully know the Lord on a level that changes you from the inside out, which in her mind, can't be separated from what she writes. Therefore, her faith plays a key role in all she does.

Vicki still calls the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex home, where she lives on her 2 acre homestead.