Theme: Labor Issues
Mike Beilstein Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
July 7, 2016
Mike Beilstein (b. 1951) is an OSU alum who was a member of the university's first
undergraduate cohort in Biochemistry & Biophysics, completing his degree in 1973.
After a two-year stint in the Peace Corps and two additional years of work and political
engagement in the Washington, D.C. area, Beilstein returned to Corvallis and spent
the next two decades researching selenium deficiency in the laboratory of Philip Whanger,
an OSU professor of Agricultural Chemistry. In the early 1990s, Beilstein also returned
to political activism, helping to lead a successful living wage campaign and ultimately
serving for six terms as a member of the Corvallis city council. Retired from OSU
in 2007, Beilstein is heavily involved with a number of environmental and social justice
groups including, for a number of years, an annual trip to Cuba in protest of the
United States trade and travel ban. His interview details his OSU student experience
in the early 1970s; the influential two years that he spent as a Peace Corps volunteer
in Lesotho; his research career at Oregon State; and his years of political activism
and public service.
Gloria O'Brien Oral History Interview
Life history interview conducted by Chris Petersen.
October 13, 2016
Gloria O'Brien (b. 1960) is a Biological Science Technician in OSU's Department of
Greenhouse Operations who has worked at Oregon State since 2008, specializing in integrated
pest management. O'Brien is also actively involved with sub-local 083 of the statewide
Service Employees International Union, serving for many years as a union steward and
also completing a four-year term as president of the sub-local from 2010-2014. In
2015, O'Brien also became an OSU alumna, after earning a degree in Horticulture that
she began pursuing, on a part-time basis, some seventeen years before. Her interview
provides insight into union activities on campus, the issues facing classified workers
across Oregon, and the roles filled by the Department of Greenhouse Services at Oregon
State University.