Two neighbors who have spent their lives volunteering, organizing, and paying attention to how decisions get made in the places they live.
Julia O’Brien has lived in Bedminster since 2021, and has lived in New Jersey since 1989. Julia has been the chair of the Bedminster Democratic Committee since November 2023. She is a regular attendee of Bedminster Township Committee meetings. A resident of the Bedminster Hills, she serves on the HOA Board for Signal Point, and has been a lifetime volunteer and activist for women’s rights, environmental responsibility, and community organizations wherever she has lived. She is a mother of one son and a grandmother to 9-year-old twins.
Julia is retired from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, where she was the Region 2 Geospatial Coordinator, responsible for data analysis of both natural and manmade threats and disasters. Prior to joining FEMA, she consulted in the fields of public safety, community planning, and environmental analysis for over 25 years. Her career has given her a background in many of the areas that will prove important in Bedminster in the coming years — public safety communication systems and data, environmental issues that will affect our power and communications infrastructures, community planning, and emergency response.
As a volunteer, she is proudest of her two years as President of Business and Professional Women New Jersey. In 2025, Julia was awarded the Eleanor Roosevelt Volunteer Service Award by the Somerset County Federation of Democratic Women. She has been Chair of Deacons and several other committees over her 35-year membership at Christ Church in Summit, and currently serves as a leader of the Reproductive Rights group at that church. In the years her son was growing up, she taught Sunday school for 8 years, and coached a boys soccer team for 7 years.
Jean Johnson was raised in Scotch Plains and is a graduate of Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School. She attended Briarcliff College where she majored in English with a minor in Political Science.
After a long career as a copywriter with a background in medical devices, consumer products, and the legal field, she now teaches aquatics exercise as well as swimming to children, adult beginners, and special needs individuals at the Greater Somerset County YMCA.
Jean’s political experience includes working as the Somerset County Press Coordinator and a New Jersey State Press Aide under Emma Byrne for the Gary Hart campaign in 1984. During her 21 years living in Minnesota, she also was active in the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party (DFL), assisting in local elections.
Jean is currently a resident of the Pluckemin Park Senior Community and is very interested in affordable housing for seniors and families alike. Other interests include the environment and land use, and education. She strives to reach out to those with opposing views to try to find common ground and is a member of Braver Angels. In her spare time, she enjoys reading both fiction and non fiction, walking, and hiking.
