Jeffrey Olsen and Lynda Halligan Olsen. Photo by Han Parker
How two alums met and married decades after studying social ecology at UC Irvine
It’s common for two people to meet while attending college, fall in love and eventually marry. Sharing the same major while coupling is not unusual given proximity, common interests, similar schedules, etc. But for this Valentine’s Day season, we turn to School of Social Ecology alums Jeffrey Olsen and Lynda Halligan Olsen, whose studies overlapped for one academic year at UC Irvine, yet they did not meet, fall in love, and get married until more than two decades later.
Lynda Halligan grew up in Malibu with her mom and older brother, William Halligan. William became an Anteater first. “I remember driving him down there when I was 14 with my mom,” Lynda says. “This was back in the ’80s, and we got off the freeway at Jamboree Road and Campus Drive, and I remember driving to the campus and all you could see was wetlands. I went, ‘You’re going to college here?’ But then we went a little farther and then I was like, ‘Okay, there’s a city and a school.’ ”
While attending Santa Monica High School, Lynda came to visit William a few times on campus and found “I really liked it. He loved it. He’s one of my closest friends, so I trust him, and I wanted to go to a UC school. I applied to a few and then it just seemed like UC Irvine was the right choice.”
William earned a bachelor of arts in environmental analysis and design from the School of Social Ecology in 1988. Lynda darkened the same study halls as her brother, also attaining a bachelor of arts in social ecology but with a focus on psychology and social behavior and criminal justice in 1991. (Those majors are now known as psychological science and criminology, law and society.)
Jeffrey Olsen grew up in Newport Beach and attended Corona del Mar High School and Orange Coast College before arriving at UC Irvine in 1990.
“I partied a lot and didn’t take high school very seriously,” he confides. “Orange Coast College is where I got my academic career going, and I had an awesome experience there. I wanted to study psychology, and if UC Irvine had a clinical program like they do now, I think that’s the path I would have taken. But social ecology was the closest major to that, and I was really intrigued by the multidisciplinary nature of the major.”
He received his bachelor of arts in social ecology with a focus on psychology and social behavior in 1992.
Lynda points out that unlike Jeffrey, she was in the Greek system, so they ran in different crowds. However, she believes she may have seen him in a class back then. “I could be totally wrong, but I feel like I was at a lecture with 300 people or so, and there was a group of guys that I knew and there was this other guy who sat with them who I didn’t know,” she recalls. “I think that could have been Jeff, but this is me looking back 30 or however many years it has been.”
They did have this in common upon graduating: Both were interested in possibly becoming psychologists — and both wound up in far different careers.
“I was always very interested in psychology and criminal justice,” Lynda says. “My father was a detective for LAPD, and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do when I was 17, but I thought I might want to be a lawyer.”
She remained in Orange County for a few months after graduation before deciding she wanted to move back to Los Angeles and pursue a career in entertainment, her lifelong love. Lynda worked at a few talent agencies and in film and television casting, then made the switch to broadcasting. She gained experience at various local affiliates as a news anchor, reporter, host, writer and producer in such markets as Los Angeles, Palm Springs, Bakersfield, Fairbanks, Alaska, Sioux City, Iowa, and Fort Myers, Florida. She succeeded on the national level as well as a host/producer for the QVC shopping network in Minneapolis and REELZChannel in Albuquerque. She also hosted a music competition show similar to American Idol on Fuse.
After graduating from UC Irvine, Jeff thought about becoming a professor because he loved teaching and research. He briefly pursued social psychology at the University of Massachusetts with help from one of his favorite former professors, Roxane Cohen Silver. (“I really love Roxy,” he says.) However, while in the doctoral program, he realized it wasn’t the right path for him.
“I don’t think there is a real clear path for most graduates on what to do next,” he says. “One thing I’m passionate about and want to get involved with at the School of Social Ecology is to help graduates think through their next steps. They feel a lot of pressure to make the right decision, and I don’t believe that you must make the right decision. I think you have a ton of time in front of you, and you shouldn’t be stressed out. I also think that we alumni can do a better job, and I want to get more involved with UCI to help make that happen.”
Jeffrey can draw from his own career path to help confused grads.
“After I quit graduate school, I was sitting there going, ‘Now what am I going to do?’ So, I got some menial labor jobs and then I traveled. A buddy of mine and I went to Europe, and when I came back, I was lucky because my dad was in financial services and the company that he worked for had just opened an office in Santa Barbara.”
Jeffrey went up the coast for an interview at John Hancock Wood Logan despite no experience in the field. “Their business was booming and they were understaffed, so it was like, ‘Okay, you’re reasonably intelligent. Come on in. When can you start?’ So, I got the job,” he says.
He thought the firm specializing in wholesaling investment and insurance products through financial advisors would serve as a steppingstone to something else, but he soon realized his budding career fulfilled his desire to be mentally challenged, and provided him with the opportunity to teach and make a great living.
Jeffrey wound up staying at the company for 15 years. He only left because he believed the industry was moving away from commissions in favor of fees and he wanted to be part of that wave. He and some partners wrote a business plan for what would become The Elements Financial Group. Jeff served as the national sales manager, chief operations officer and ultimately president for the next 15 years.
“I was excited to be an entrepreneur in control of my own destiny, but we launched the business in 2008 in the midst of a global economic crisis,” he recalls. “We ran into so many challenges, and for years every time we thought we were back on the right track, we’d run into a new issue that we could have never imagined. There were a lot of times when we were thinking, ‘We’ve got to hang it up. We’re going to run out of money and all these things.’ But we persevered, merged with The Pacific Financial Group, Inc. in 2017 and never looked back. It was an awesome experience.”
He credits his UC Irvine education for helping him succeed in the financial world.
“I owe a ton to UCI because I learned how to learn better,” he says. “I learned how to really focus, and I think a lot of my entrepreneurial skills came from the experience of my professors pushing me to figure things out on my own. That’s what you have to do when you have your own business. Things have to get done and when you ask the boss for help, you’re looking in the mirror.”
A financial crisis was not the only crisis Jeffrey dealt with in his company’s early years. He had a young family, and when his son Erik turned 6, his wife, Mauri, was diagnosed with stomach cancer.
“I was very lucky because my business partner was extremely supportive,” Jeff says. “His own brother passed away from cancer shortly after we launched our business and within a year, my wife was fighting the same battle.”
For the next three years, Mauri showed incredible strength and resilience, but she ultimately lost her battle with cancer. She and Jeff had the opportunity to talk about the most important things in their life, and Mauri voiced her wishes for what would happen after she was gone. “She just continued to express to me how important it was to find love again and for my son to have a mother figure,” Jeffrey says.
They celebrated Erik’s 9th birthday at Hoag Memorial Hospital. “We tried to make it as fun as possible,” Jeffrey says. A week later, Mauri passed away.
Having to go into the office to keep the fledgling company running while at the same time making sure Erik had the best life he could under the circumstances were Jeff’s top priorities.
A few months after his wife passed away, he went to a pre-concert gathering at a friend’s house. Lynda was there with a mutual friend of Jeff’s who is married to Lynda’s UCI college friend, also a social ecology graduate.
“If you believe in love at first sight or if you believe things are meant to be, this was it. I really believe that Mauri brought Lynda into my life and my son’s life,” Jeffrey says.
“I was a bit older when I met him, and I had never been married before,” Lynda adds. “I had been moving around the country so much working in news. I had some shifts where I had to be at work until midnight or others where I had to start work at 1 a.m. or 3 a.m. every single day. So, it was not ideal for dating, and I was just very serious about my job.”
She says she resigned herself to the fact that she would never settle down and marry. Until she met Jeffrey. Well, not right when she met him! Lynda was supposed to be casually set up with another man at the concert that night, but Lynda and Jeff made their first connection when he said something at the party that she thought was funny. “Everybody was walking in as couples and then Jeff walked in by himself. I thought, ‘Well, he’s charismatic and cute and warm.’ He just seemed like a really good guy. He had a great personality and was very engaging. And I thought, ‘Maybe his wife is at home with the kids or she’s still at work.’ We chatted just a little bit at the house and then we all went to this concert at the Irvine Bowl.”
She did wind up meeting the fellow her friend had spoken about. (“He’s great,” she says, “We’re all friends.”) But a couple hours later, Jeffrey returned, and while they were talking, Lynda says they discovered they had yet another connection.
“I said, ‘Did you go to college?’ He said, ‘Yeah, I went to UC Irvine.’ I said, ‘No way, I went to UC Irvine! What did you major in?’ He goes, ‘Social ecology.’ I said, ‘I was a social ecology major. … When did you graduate?’ He said, ‘’92’ and I said, ‘I graduated in ’91.’ It truly is what connected us when we had an actual conversation and were not just joking around.”
Seven weeks later, they were engaged. If your mouth is open reading that, Jeffrey understands.
“When someone loses a spouse, you’ve got friends who just want your life to be okay,” he reasons. “And they’re concerned about you, and they want to be there for you. I knew that people would be like, ‘Wow, you’re going to get engaged pretty quickly, huh?’ But I just knew that it was the right thing. I talked to my dad and shared that I wanted to ask Lynda to marry me. My dad looked at me and he’s like, ‘What took you so long?’ That was the clincher.”
Six months to the day after their engagement, they married. The Olsens recently celebrated their 10th wedding anniversary.
Seeking a profession that offered enough stability that Lynda could abandon her “vagabond” ways, she left TV news and “repositioned” herself eight years ago as chief communications officer with the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. School of Social Ecology Dean Jon Gould and psychological science professors Jodi Quas and Ilona Yim were at the Crime Survivors Resource Center gala this past October when Lynda Halligan was presented the Above & Beyond Award.
“When I was a news anchor, I thought it was such a perfect combination between my kind of lifetime passion for entertainment and television as well as psychology and social behavior and criminal justice,” she says. “I really used so much I learned from UC Irvine doing that. And I am using it now with the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs.”
What’s the Olsens’ secret to success this Valentine’s Day season?
“I would say commitment,” says Lynda as tears well up in her eyes. “I don’t want to start crying...”
She goes on to talk about working through some very difficult years when her stepson was younger.
“There have been times that were very tough, but I was not going anywhere,” she says. “You make that commitment and it’s like this might suck, but we’re going to figure it out. We’re going to get through it. The grass will be greener. We might not be able to see it, but it’s out there. We’ll get there.”
“They say opposites attract, and I think that that can be the case,” adds Jeffrey. “But you can also find somebody that you have a ton of things in common with, who you love being with beyond being your wife. They’re your best friend and you just have a great time together. That’s what Lynda and I have. Everybody goes through tough things. We went through some really difficult times, but we both knew that we were meant to be together. The fun times have far outweighed the difficulties we’ve faced and there’s a lot more to come. We love to be around other people and do stuff and go places and do random things like wear costumes to people’s houses for no reason.”
The couple reports that Erik is doing much better emotionally these days as he now attends Saddleback College with the goal of pursuing a higher education degree and possible career as a therapist. “You never know,” says his dad, “maybe he’ll be an Anteater.”
Jeff's advice for lovers is to nourish one’s own personal interests. Lynda went back to school in 2019 and received a master of fine arts (MFA) degree in screenwriting from Cal State Fullerton two years later. Jeffrey retired from Pacific Financial Group in 2023, took a yearlong career break and since June 2024 has been a financial advisor with Integrity Wealth Management in Newport Beach.
He considers himself fortunate to have found Lynda.
“When you have that one person that you can share everything with, you love being together, and you do all these things together but at the same time, you’ve got other passions in life and you pursue those things and you each support that in each other, that’s a winning combination. I’m super lucky because I’ve got such an incredible wife and best friend.”
— Matt Coker