A capacity to analyse large sets of information and produce valuable insights is a skill Lucan native Conor O’Driscoll has developed over the years. It has produced a significant financial windfall for the Dubliner.
O’Driscoll’s long-time personal interest in American Football – he coached a team in Ireland for six years before moving to the US – led to him winning a $100,000 Fantasy Football competition in his adopted home of Ohio in 2022.
“The competition is based on the NFL. You draft a team, you pick players at the start of the season and you have a bench, but you can’t change your selections. The competition automatically benches the players who have not played well. I drafted 80 teams.
“Basically, what you are trying to draft is younger, cheaper players who are untested and may not play especially well in their opening games but are stars in the making,” he says.
The prize money he won helped O’Driscoll and his American-born wife, Lauren, buy a home in Columbus, a feat he doubts would have been possible had he stayed in Dublin. Their first child was born earlier this year.
The couple met in 2014 when Lauren was doing an oversees semester in NUI Maynooth, where O’Driscoll was studying finance and accounting. They continued a long-distance relationship, helped by O’Driscoll undertaking a J1 programme for a period, until he moved to the States permanently in 2019.
After college O’Driscoll secured a position in Ulster Bank as an economic research assistant and worked in a number of finance-related positions in Ireland and the US, before moving to his current position in the property management sector with a company called Washington Prime Group, an investment trust that holds a portfolio of shopping centres in various US states.
Columbus is an easy city to live in. The cost of living is a lot cheaper than Dublin
O’Driscoll says his role is to work as a go-between between various functions and to gather information that can generate insights and opportunities for the business.
“We have a leasing team, a property management team and a tenant services team and I’ll talk to them and put together a business plan based on that, summarising where we are at, how we could improve things, what our risk factors are, and this is what we are doing about it - and that will be presented to senior management.
“A lot of our malls are in more rural areas where it might be the only major shopping destination in a wide radius. People don’t have other options and nobody is building alternatives in the area. That’s the bread and butter of what I’m involved with now.”
O’Driscoll says it took him time to adjust to different attitudes in Ohio to what he was used to back home.
“The first time I came here, it was a bit of a culture shock. Ireland has an easy friendliness with strangers but they can be wary here if they don’t know you. People take some time to warm to you if you are a stranger but they are also kind. It’s a different type of kindness. If they know you and you need help, people do go above and beyond to be helpful. My extended family here have been very good to me.”
Columbus, named after the explorer Christopher Columbus, is the 14th most populous city in the United States, with a rapidly expanding population of more than 900,000.
It earned the nickname of the Arch City because of the dozens of wooden arches that spanned part of its centre, and which became the means by which electric power was provided to its street cars.
The city houses Ohio State University, one of the largest universities in the United States and has a diverse economy. It proved to be a magnet for US immigrants, and its German village is a 233-acre historic residential district.
“Columbus is an easy city to live in. The cost of living is a lot cheaper than Dublin. The wages are at least comparable, and the commute is short – it’s just 20 minutes to drive anywhere in Columbus. The only thing is that you don’t have the same variety as you would have in Dublin where you can go to the coast or the mountains, which are things I miss.”
The hospitality scene is good and getting better. “There has been major improvement even in the relatively short time I’ve been here. It’s seen as a very chain-focused city. It’s a huge test market for the United States as the view is that if it works in Columbus, that’s a good sign.”
While he is settled and has no intention of returning to Ireland, O’Driscoll does miss the connections with friends and family.
“When you come from somewhere you had built up close connections with, it takes a while to do the same again. That would be the main thing I miss.”
