Patty Sullivan O’Brien ’65 has been retired from her career at the Phoenix Zoo for nearly 15 years now, but she hasn’t stopped chasing her passion for working with animals. Today she has become an essential volunteer for the Southwest Monarch Study, raising monarch butterflies right in her backyard.

After graduating from Viterbo College as a biology major in 1965, Sullivan O’Brien moved around with her husband and son before settling down in Minnesota. For 12 years she worked for the Minnesota Zoo. When their son began college at Arizona State University, the family decided they were tired of the cold Midwestern winters and moved to Arizona.

Sullivan O’Brien worked for 23 years at the Phoenix Zoo in education, guest services, and reservation departments, retiring as a supervisor in 2008. Three days later she was back at the zoo as a volunteer.

Through the Audubon Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats, Sullivan O’Brien learned about the Southwest Monarch Study. The Southwest Monarch Study is a citizen-science study dedicated to conserving monarch butterflies and researching their migration and breeding patterns in Arizona and in the southwestern U.S.

Sullivan O’Brien contributes to the cause by creating a suitable habitat for monarchs in her backyard. She grows milkweed, nectar, and other native Arizona plants. She collects larger caterpillars and milkweed branches and puts them in a mesh cage outside on her patio. The caterpillars eventually turn into pupas. In three to four weeks, they will emerge as monarch butterflies.

As part of her role as a volunteer scientist, Sullivan O’Brien tags these monarchs on a specific area of the wing prior to releasing them. The tag displays an email address and unique numbers. If the tagged adult is seen and reported, the scientists get a better understanding of the monarch’s migration patterns. Tagged monarchs have been found in Mexico and California, while others stay in Arizona.

When she’s not monitoring monarchs, Sullivan O’Brien spends her time volunteering with other organizations, such as the Phoenix Zoo and Aster Aging, and stays in touch with her Viterbo classmates through Zoom.