Soledad O'Brien - the early years

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Soledad 1966 - 1995 The Early Years
	Soledad O'Brien was born on September 19,1966 in Saint James, Long Island, New York. She was christened Maria de la Soledad O'Brien. Her first name follows a Spanish tradition of naming a child for Our Lady of Solitude. Her parents are a biracial couple. They met at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore and married in 1959 when an interracial marriage was still illegal in some places, including Maryland. "You know, my dad is Australian, but his parents are Irish, hence the surname 'O'Brien'. In fact, everyone keeps asking me "great last name - but what's with the first name?" Her father, Edward, is a mechanical engineering professor and was originally from Toowoomba, Australia. Her mother, Estella, is black of Cuban heritage. She emigrated to the U.S. in the 1950's and was a teacher in New York City. Soledad was raised in Smithtown, a small North Shore town on Long Island, New York. She attended Smithtown High School East.
	She has three sisters and two brothers being the fifth child of the six. They are a Harvard family. Maria, (born 1961), a law professor, went to Harvard as an undergrad. Cecilia, (1962), an attorney, is Harvard Law. Tony, (1963), heads a documents company, and is Harvard and Harvard Law; Estela, (1964), an eye surgeon, is Harvard. And the youngest, Orestes, (1968), is an anesthesiologist, who graduated Harvard Medical School. Soledad attended both Harvard and Radcliffe College, studying English and American Studies and taking a lot of science courses including some summer classes at the State University of NY at Stonybrook "with the crazed notion of becoming a doctor." She was 21 (a senior) when she left school for a job in news. She returned to Harvard in 2000 while on maternity leave and completed her degree. "There's not an O'Brien Library at Harvard, but with all our tuitions, there should be," she said. "It was not our parents' dream that we go to Harvard. It doesn't seem odd that we all went there. We were all excellent students in high school. We worked hard, and we were very competitive."
	Soledad began her career in radio doing a medical talk show "Second Opinion" and "Health Week in Review" at KISS-FM in Boston in 1989, and then worked as an associate producer and news writer for Eyewitness News "First Edition" at WBZ-TV in Boston. From 1991 to 1993, she worked for NBC News in New York, where she produced stories exclusively for Chief Health and Science Correspondent Robert Bazell for "NBC Nightly News" and "Today." In 1993, she joined NBC's KRON television in San Francisco covering local news. She also was given the chance to co-host the Discovery Channel's The Know Zone (along with popular SF disc jockey Don Bleu) for two seasons while she was there. That show gave her a chance to cover a number of technology issues. Her boss there became the General Manager at Ziff-Davis and she lobbied hard for the anchor spot on a new technology show to be launched on fledgling MSNBC network. She received an Emmy award as anchor for The Know Zone in 1995. It was her first national show and she hosted for two seasons on The Discovery Channel. “It wasn’t strictly a science and technology show for kids, but it kind of had a kid bent to it,” the Emmy-winner says. “We covered science in a conversational tone and tried to find unusual ways to explain things.”
Testing out baby bouncing in San Franciso	On The Know Zone
	She married Brad Raymond, an investment banker, in 1995 and they reside in New York.
	On July 15, 1996, MSNBC launched one of its initial program offerings. It was a show called *The Site.* Soledad hosted the program which was created by Leo Laporte. This hour-long program devoted to technology and the Internet brought Soledad national fame.