{"id":4414,"date":"2018-08-27T16:36:40","date_gmt":"2018-08-27T20:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/?page_id=4414"},"modified":"2018-10-29T14:48:56","modified_gmt":"2018-10-29T18:48:56","slug":"kevin-oconnor-this-old-house-pbs","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/fall-2018\/kevin-oconnor-this-old-house-pbs\/","title":{"rendered":"Crafting a Covetable Career"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kevin O\u2019Connor<\/a>, host of the venerable PBS television series This Old House<\/em><\/a>, stands on a roof in Newton, Mass., helping fireplace installer Jonathan Hawkins attach the final sections of a new chimney pipe. \u201cSo, how far above the roofline are you shooting for here?\u201d asks O\u2019Connor (MBA\u201999), prompting Hawkins to explain how he calculated the height of the chimney cap based on the pitch of the home\u2019s roof.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor has been honing this skill of asking informed questions that elicit useful answers from professional craftspeople for 15 years, making him the longest-running host of a show that\u2019s drawn home-improvement viewers for four decades. In addition to fronting\u00a0This Old House<\/em> and its sister series, Ask This Old House<\/em><\/a>, O\u2019Connor serves on the editorial board of This Old House<\/em> magazine and authored the 2011 book The Best Homes from This Old House<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor says his role as host has always been to act as proxy for the show\u2019s fans, asking the questions they would ask if these pros were working on their homes. But his own knowledge of the building trades has grown since he joined This Old House<\/em> with little construction experience back in 2003.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s been the single biggest change for me,\u201d he says, \u201cgoing from the unknowing novice to the seasoned novice.\u201d The added know-how has changed O\u2019Connor\u2019s on-air questioning style. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to fake anything. We don\u2019t want to pretend that I don\u2019t know stuff,\u201d he says. So instead of simply asking what<\/em> his professional colleagues are doing, O\u2019Connor now focuses on the hows<\/em> and whys<\/em>, and he thinks that\u2019s made him a better host. \u201cA well-prepared, smart interviewer is generally better than someone who knows nothing,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

This evolution in O\u2019Connor\u2019s approach is one of many changes he and This Old House<\/em> have undergone since O\u2019Connor left his job as a senior vice president at Bank of America\u00a0to accept a surprise offer to host his favorite television show.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor was 34 then, and he and his wife were fixing up their first house\u2014an 1894 Queen Anne Victorian\u2014when they ran into problems removing layers of old wallpaper. They emailed This Old House<\/em> for advice, and soon the show\u2019s painting experts arrived at their home north of Boston to film a segment for their new spin-off, Ask This Old House.<\/em> O\u2019Connor hit it off with the crew, and weeks later the show\u2019s producers called him again: they\u2019d been quietly looking for a new host, and they wanted to offer him the job.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Kevin, we found the perfect mixture of optimism and energy, two ingredients an old house owner must have to survive,\u201d This Old House <\/em>creator Russell Morash<\/a> (CFA\u201957) said at the time. \u201cHis curiosity was refreshing. Who better to host the show than a first-time homeowner and a loyal viewer who grew up watching the show?\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of O\u2019Connor\u2019s lucky break has become television legend, \u201cbut what I tell my kids about that,\u201d says O\u2019Connor, \u201cis that it wasn\u2019t pure coincidence.\u201d He\u2019d worked hard to put himself in a position, he says, to take that break when it came.<\/p>\n

Years earlier, O\u2019Connor had been working in state government when he became interested in finance and began taking night classes at Questrom to earn his MBA. He then landed a job at BankBoston, which was acquired by Bank of America. Making that career change helped him feel empowered, he says. \u201cAll of those nights that I was leaving the job and going to school, and then leaving school and coming home and studying\u2014all of those things paid off,\u201d he says. Knowing he had the credentials and experience to return to finance if he needed to \u201cmade stepping off the cliff easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"

Kevin O\u2019Connor on set\u2014and on site\u2014at a midcentury modern home in Brookline, Mass.; it\u2019s being renovated as part of This Old House<\/em>\u2019s 40th season.<\/p><\/div>\n

He never needed the backup plan. Despite having no television or theater experience, O\u2019Connor was a natural on-screen and earned an Emmy nomination in his first season on\u00a0This Old House<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Fifteen years later, the show\u2014like the homes it features\u2014has adapted to the modern era while remaining true to its roots. It still focuses on renovating \u201creal houses for real customers who are spending their own real money,\u201d says O\u2019Connor. And while some of today\u2019s home-improvement shows unveil two finished projects per episode, This Old House<\/em> has stuck to its formula of painstakingly completing just two renovations per season.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there have been significant changes,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cThe show is now shot and edited in the contemporary style\u201d\u2014with short clips tightly edited together to tell a compelling story. \u201cThere was a day, when Bob Vila was host, that he could have walked around for 12 minutes with a camera following him, delivering a single-take scene,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cAnd there were times early in my career when I was doing those things for four or six minutes.\u201d Now, the camera shots are measured in seconds, not minutes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, the media landscape has changed dramatically,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cThe show is still distributed first to PBS, to broadcast on television in a primetime slot in a 26-minute format, just like it was in 1979, but now it\u2019s also distributed on YouTube and our dot-com site and Hulu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Editors cut Ask This Old House <\/em>into short bites for online viewers; O\u2019Connor, an avid photographer, has thousands of Instagram followers<\/a>; and This Old House<\/em> recently began streaming sneak-peeks of its projects using Facebook Live<\/a>.<\/p>\n

During his years on the show, O\u2019Connor has witnessed many changes in construction materials and techniques, and he\u2019s learned to separate the true trends from the passing fads. The \u201ctiny houses\u201d we see on magazine covers may be cute, he says, but they\u2019ll never catch on. \u201cPeople almost always want more space than less space,\u201d he says. \u201cThe vilification of big space, I think, is also foolish. We can build you a 5,000-square-foot house that uses less energy than a 1,000-square-foot house based on standards from just a few years ago.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want to be comfortable in their homes, and that drives most decisions, after cost. I think it\u2019s important that people realize that, especially the folks who are trying to change the world.\u201d<\/em> \u2013Kevin O\u2019Connor<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

He\u2019s also skeptical of the phrase \u201cgreen building.\u201d He argues that, while many ecofriendly construction ideas and technologies\u2014he cites green roofs covered in plants and dirt for insulation as a particularly egregious example\u2014may have been conceived with good intentions, they haven\u2019t been widely adopted because they\u2019re too expensive or impractical.<\/p>\n

\u201cComfort is always king,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cPeople want to be comfortable in their homes, and that drives most decisions, after cost. I think it\u2019s important that people realize that, especially the folks who are trying to change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

What does excite O\u2019Connor are technologies that can be used to retrofit existing homes, making them more comfortable and efficient while saving homeowners money. Recent improvements have made heat pumps, for example, an affordable option for both heating and cooling houses in a wide range of climates, O\u2019Connor says. The technology has been used in several This Old House<\/em> makeovers, and O\u2019Connor believes it will soon catch on in a way that solar power, which isn\u2019t yet affordable without government subsidies, hasn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Another example is Aeroseal, a product made of tiny polymer particles that can be sprayed into a home\u2019s ductwork, sealing off leaks. \u201cSeventy percent of American homes use forced hot air or air conditioning through ductwork, and those things are, on average, 20 to 40 percent leaky,\u201d he says. \u201cHere\u2019s a technology that\u2014in a retrofit situation\u2014can solve that. That\u2019s a game changer.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s clear that O\u2019Connor cares deeply about the building trades and about the people who practice them\u2014past and present. He refers to the construction experts who appear on-screen with him as his brothers, and he gets protective when he hears criticism of the techniques\u2014foregoing insulation, for instance, when coal for heat was cheap and plentiful\u2014used to build older homes. Craftspeople a century ago or more didn\u2019t have power tools and fiberglass insulation and were making sound decisions based on their realities, he says in their defense.<\/p>\n

Today, such tradespeople are in short supply. A 2015 survey<\/a> by the Associated General Contractors of America showed 86 percent of responding firms were having difficulty finding qualified workers, and 78 percent predicted hiring conditions to remain the same or worsen.\u00a0The labor shortages are the result, in part, of US high schools shifting away from vocational training programs to college preparation courses, according to the association. To raise awareness about this skills gap in the trades, O\u2019Connor has headlined fundraisers and met with legislators, and This Old House <\/em>has welcomed young apprentices to its job sites and spotlighted job-training programs around the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut individual programs, I don\u2019t think, are going to move the needle,\u201d O\u2019Connor says. \u201cI heard a great quote that there are two types of jobs in the world: the ones where you take a shower before you go to work, and the ones where you take a shower after you come home from work. I think there\u2019s a stigma against the latter.\u201d Removing the stigma, he says, is the only way to bring enough young people into the building trades.<\/p>\n

He adds that the trades provide excellent paths to owning a business. General contractor Tom Silva, plumber Richard Trethewey, and other members of the This Old House<\/em> team are all tradespeople and successful business owners.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a finance guy,\u201d O\u2019Connor says, \u201cI never had dreams of running my own bank.\u201d He\u2019s often had the itch to be his own boss. \u201cAt this stage in my life, maybe I\u2019ll never do it,\u201d he says. But if he decides to step off another professional cliff and start a company, \u201cit\u2019s going to be in the trades,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kevin O\u2019Connor, host of the venerable PBS television series This Old House, stands on a roof in Newton, Mass., helping fireplace installer Jonathan Hawkins attach the final sections of a new chimney pipe. \u201cSo, how far above the roofline are you shooting for here?\u201d asks O\u2019Connor (MBA\u201999), prompting Hawkins to explain how he calculated the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14430,"featured_media":0,"parent":4426,"menu_order":11,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"story.php","meta":[],"yoast_head":"\nCrafting a Covetable Career - Questrom Magazine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/questrom-magazine\/fall-2018\/kevin-oconnor-this-old-house-pbs\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Crafting a Covetable Career - 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