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The Pleasanton community will be honoring two residents outside of the Museum on Main next week who have contributed to the city in several different ways as part of this year’s 2025 Ed Kinney Community Patriot awards.
Joe Callahan, who played a major role in the creation of the Hacienda Business Park, and Patrick O’Brien, treasurer of the Three Valleys Community Foundation, will receive the annual award that, for the past 20 years, has been named in memory of former Pleasanton mayor Ed Kinney.
“This year’s recipients have worked to make our part of the world a better place,” W. Ron Sutton, founder of the award and president of the Make A Difference, Today & Always nonprofit, which sponsors the award, said in an April 15 press release.
The annual award is given to residents who “exemplify through their actions love, pride, faith, belief, and devotion to our community”, according to the press release. The awardees are chosen by a Fourth of July planning team along with past recipients of the Community Patriot award.
Callahan has long been seen as someone who helped transform the city after he partnered with Prudential Insurance Co. in the late 1970s to purchase and develop land in North Pleasanton, which ultimately grew into the Hacienda Business Park. That move not only grew the city’s economic health, it also improved transportation, flood mitigation and housing conditions in that area.
“By knocking out a rock structure in the Arroyo De Laguna near Niles Canyon, in 1980, they opened up storm water flows, mitigating the north Pleasanton flooding problem,” according to the press release. “That lowered, by 4.5 feet, the 100-year storm flood plain elevation for the entire city of Pleasanton. This particularly helped homes in Val Vista and Valley Trails, as well as the Hacienda property.”
Other improvements to the area that came out of that partnership with Prudential included, the creation of the North Pleasanton Improvement District which provided funding for upgraded roadways and the construction of a couple of interstate freeway interchanges.
According to the press release, other projects that were born from the Callahan and the Hacienda team included improvements to the Ken Mercer Sports Park and the preservation and relocation of mature trees at the park.
“Looking back I’d say the success of the tree relocation effort has had a far greater impact on the sports park than I expected,” Callahan in the press release. “It took a large area that tended to feel forlorn and gave it a sense of place.”
Other noteworthy contributions from Callahan and the Hacienda team include repair and replacement of the Amador Valley High School theater roof and air conditioning, and the restoration and conversion of the old Pleasanton Police Department building into the current Museum on Main.
O’Brien, the other recipient of this year’s Community Patriot award, will also be recognized for his years of service as a board member of various nonprofit organizations.
Apart from serving as the treasurer for the recently formed Three Valleys Community Foundation, which supports other local nonprofits, he has served on the Alameda County Fair Board and is now on the County Fair Foundation Board, which is currently developing an educational farm program on the fairgrounds.
He was also on the California Exposition and State Fair Board, served as a committee member for the AXIS health facility capital campaign and is on the board of directors of the 100 Club of Alameda County, according to the press release.
“O’Brien particularly loves helping youth and is currently on the Tri-Valley REACH Board, which provides housing for disabled youth,” according to the press release. “He also is on the board for the George A. Spiliotopoulos Scholarship Fund.”
Callahan and O’Brien will be honored at a reception for family and friends outside the Museum on Main in downtown Pleasanton on Monday (April 28).
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