An infamous video once indicated that the best job in the business was that of the golf course dog. If that's true, then Mike O'Keeffe at Ohio State University easily is the industry's runner-up.
For more than 30 years, O'Keeffe has been director of the The Ohio Program, OSU's international exchange module that brings students from other countries to the United States and sends American students abroad for real-world internship opportunities in agriculture, horticulture and turf.
O'Keeffe (fittingly pictured at right in front of a world map) is always smiling, and for good reason. To the casual observer, O'Keeffe's job includes jet-setting around the globe, selling the program to turf managers and wining-and-dining prospective trainees.
While his job does include much of the above, what is not always so obvious are the countless hours of work that go into running a program that matches hundreds of trainees each year with the right opportunities on the opposite side of the globe from their respective homes and the responsibility that comes with such tasks.
"These opportunities don't just happen," O'Keeffe said. "They happen because we build relationships."
A native of Ireland, O'Keeffe, 59, came to the United States in 1986 through the very program he now leads to grow tomatoes for a Heinz processing plant in Ohio. Since taking over the program 35 years ago from former director Mike Chrisman, O'Keeffe says he has helped put upwards of 10,000 students from the U.S. and abroad on their career paths in golf and sports turf and agriculture.
Alan FitzGerald, CGCS, at Rehoboth Beach Country Club in Delaware, also is a native of Ireland. And like O'Keeffe, he also is a product of The Ohio Program.
"The amount of people he has helped, they're dotted all over the world," said Alan FitzGerald, CGCS at Rehoboth Beach Country Club in Delaware. "It's amazing the number of people's lives he has touched."
O'Keeffe was raised on a dairy farm in his native County Cork, and went on to study vegetable production at Warrenstown Agricultural College in County Meath.
Through The Ohio Program he learned of an opportunity to grow tomatoes in Wilmington, Ohio, a rural area between Columbus and Cincinnati. The farm needed an experienced hand as the tomatoes grown there were to be shipped almost 200 miles north to Fremont for processing in a Heinz ketchup plant.
O'Keeffe immediately displayed a knack for identifying qualified help and team building.
"It was hard work," O'Keeffe said. "We worked 10-hour days. It was windy, really hot, or really cold. The locals they hired quit like crazy. They were dropping like flies."
The best worker, he recalled, was a migrant worker from Latin America. He convinced farm management to hire more experienced and qualified help from south of the border, and just like that O'Keeffe's place in helping people find a path to employment was born.
When O'Keeffe came to the U.S., The Ohio Program was strictly for agricultural internships. It was not until after he became involved in running it that the program created opportunities for aspiring turf managers, too.
Today, Ohio Program trainees are working in jobs at all levels worldwide, including Lara Arias, superintendent at Marco Simone Golf and Country Club near Rome, site of last year's Ryder Cup Matches.
Arias spent a year-and-a-half in the states, interning at Robert Trent Jones Golf Club in Virginia, TPC Scottsdale and Quail Hollow Club in Charlotte, North Carolina for the 2017 PGA Championship.
"Kids from other countries jump start their careers by coming here," he said. "Or kids from here going there."
When he's not in his office in Columbus, O'Keeffe can be found at some of the world's best golf courses here in the U.S. and elsewhere looking for intern candidates, checking up on those already in the program or selling its benefits to students, assistants and superintendents alike.
The amount of people he has helped, they're dotted all over the world. It's amazing the number of people's lives he has touched.
An upcoming trip to Australia and elsewhere will have him visiting 10 southern hemisphere cities in two weeks.
"People know me, and they know about the program, but you can't ride a reputation forever," O'Keeffe said. "Eventually, you have to show up."
O'Keeffe says his office walls, which are adorned with golf course flags signed by Ohio Program interns from around the world, speak louder than words to the success of the program.
"Every name is a past trainee from somewhere around the world," O'Keeffe said.
"It's not an ego trip. It's a tool for recruitment. And it's humbling to look at that and see the difference you make in people's lives."
When Covid all but shut down the program, including international travel, O'Keeffe spent his waking hours planning for when the pandemic was over.
"We couldn't just sit on our hands. I was on more Zoom calls to colleges and speaking to classes in other countries than I can remember," he said.
He would speak to classes on the other side of the world by Zoom that would be in the middle of the night in Ohio then go back to bed.
"I was planting the seeds for when Covid was over," O'Keeffe said. "You didn't know when it would be over, but if I got one kid out of that by Zoom, then that was a success for me."
FitzGerald is one of those success stories.
A 1998 graduate of the Penn State turfgrass program, FitzGerald was an assistant at Pine Valley when his visa was set to expire. He was able to stay in the U.S. and at Pine Valley by securing a J-level visa as an Ohio Program intern. FitzGerald, who later spent 19 years as superintendent at LedgeRock Golf Club in Pennsylvania before moving on to Rehoboth Beach last July, eventually became an American citizen in 2019.
"I had heard of The Ohio Program at Mount Juliet (where he was a greenkeeper in the early '90s). Everybody there knew about it," FitzGerald said.
"When I was at Pine Valley I called Mike to get help extending my visa. To this day, I joke with him that I got him into Pine Valley. He already had a great relationship there. What he's done for the industry over the years is amazing."
Today, O'Keeffe remains driven by the impact the experiences The Ohio Program provides to people in countless countries worldwide.
"The reason why I still do this is when you help someone and see the impact it has on their careers," he said.
"These kids jump start their careers by getting internships either by coming here or going over there. What other job can you have when you get to make a difference in so many people's lives?"
