Leadership Team

Michael Sesling
Michael Sesling is the current president of PHNN, and the vice president of the Audio Transcription Center, where since 2006, he has worked on business development, marketing, and operations work-flow management. He attended Adelphi University and the University of Massachusetts at Amherst (UMass), where he studied anthropology and East Asian studies. At the Audio Transcription Center, Michael has focused business development on the niche markets of personal history, oral history, and public history. ATC has partnered on six U.S. Presidential oral histories; transcribed hundreds of hours of oral histories for the U.S. House of Representatives, NASA, NARA, StoryCorps; and completed thousands of projects with individuals and institutions alike. 
When not working, he further develops his passions for poetry and photography and is the parent of a 20-year-old, 17-year-old, and 14-year-old.

Sarah J. Merrill
Sarah Merrill, current PHNN secretary, is a personal historian and owner of Merrill Memoirs. She earned her undergraduate degree with high honors in literature and creative writing at Middlebury College, Vermont, and she completed graduate work in oral history, interviewing, and non-fiction writing at the Salt Institute for Documentary Studies, Portland, Maine. She spent about ten years in journalism before launching her personal history business. Since 2010, Merrill Memoirs has been assisting individuals, families, and small businesses in recounting, recording, and preserving their stories. Sarah works with a talented genealogist to complete family research, and she contracts with a professional designer to present her clients’ stories and photographs in beautiful books. Sarah also teaches memoir writing workshops and serves as an editor for people writing their own memoirs. Merrill Memoirs is based in Connecticut but Sarah travels nationally to serve her clients. When she is not working, Sarah is a poet, an amateur photographer, and the parent of two wonderful adolescent boys.
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David O’Neil
David O’Neil is the current treasurer of PHNN. As the founder of Story Trust, David helps families, businesses, and organizations tell their remarkable stories in ways that create a lasting legacy. His projects have ranged from single-person oral histories to full-featured corporate histories for some of the nation’s largest firms. He specializes in broadcast-quality oral histories and custom crafted history books for families and businesses. Based in the Boston area, David has been a high-school English teacher, book editor, and publishing executive. He holds a BA in economics from American University and a master’s degree in theology from Harvard Divinity School. 
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