He was later a reporter and anchor at TV stations in Boston, Massachusetts; Tampa, Florida; Albany, New York and St. Joseph, Missouri.

After years of negotiations, NASA had signed an agreement with CNN that, if not for the disaster, would have made O'Brien the first journalist to fly on a space shuttle.

O'Brien reported the airliner crashes of US Airways Flight 427, ValuJet 592, TWA 800, EgyptAir 990, American Airlines 587, Comair 5191, John F. Kennedy Jr., Payne Stewart, Paul Wellstone, the C-150 incursion into the Washington DC Air Defense Identification Zone, and the Cory Lidle crash in Manhattan.

In the wake of the September 11 attacks, O'Brien provided viewers with radar tracks of the hijacked flights while the twin towers were still standing.

His coverage of non-aerospace topics included anchoring The Situation Room, covering the 2008 Mumbai attacks on the Oberoi Trident and Taj Mahal hotels, as well as several other locations.

One of his most notable series productions for PBS was "Blueprint America"[3] that dealt with rebuilding American mass transit infrastructure.

[7] In 2013, O'Brien produced and directed "Mind of a Rampage Killer"[8] and "Manhunt: Boston Bombers"[9] and “Megastorm Aftermath”[10] for PBS' Nova.

His other interests include running, mountain and road biking, swimming, waterskiing, scuba diving, sailing and carpentry.

He rejoined the NAC [19] in April 2014 to advise NASA's senior leadership on challenges and solutions facing the agency as it unfolds a new era of exploration.