Who Is Mike Donovan

Who Am I

I was born a lot of years ago in San Diego. My WWII/Korea-vet dad was a recent aerospace engineer grad and had recently been recruited to work for Convair which was headquartered there. With my mom, brother and two older sisters, the family moved from Colorado and then I showed up. The six of us survived with a single income and then my little sister and brother were added. Life was never luxurious, but we didn’t go hungry and we kids freely explored the rural and urban outdoors. When school started, even to kindergarten, I walked the half mile there and back. When I was in third grade, my dad’s accomplishments were noticed and Boeing, in Renton, Washington, recruited him. The next eight years were spent there.

Both my dad and his dad were Army officers, and our home was very conservative. I was most apt to address my dad as sir. Every few months, throughout the Beetle invasion, my dad would get out the electrical hair trimmer and straighten out the boys’ crew cuts. It was not very fashionable, but it helped develop thick skin.

Our next family destination was Vista, California. I spent the end of junior and senior high school there. That school was much easier than my high school in Renton and my B- average jumped to A’s. After graduation, I continued the family tradition and joined the Army. I told the recruiter that, due to my two years of German classes, I wanted to go to Germany. He promised the world but also noted that, because I’d apparently done well with the ASVAB test, how’d I like to join for four years and become part of a hush-hush group in military intelligence? Sure, said I, and soon thereafter I’d finished boot camp, spent most of a year In Florida and Massachusetts training as an 05H20 within the Army Security Agency, and received my top secret, special intelligence, crypto clearance. Then strangely (for the Army), they did send me to Germany and the next three years of my life were spent being a desk-jockey spook in Berlin. Within a few steps of where I worked there, a big red button in the main office was there to alert the Pentagon that WWIII had commenced. It was a tense three years. At the end of my tour, they offered to make me an E-6 and send me to Shemya, Alaska. I declined and went home.

Work, the GI Bill, and junior college got me my AA. Then I went on to National University where I received my business BA (magna cum laude) with an emphasis in computer information systems. Along the way, I met a young woman with three young kids whom we raised, and answered an ad for a temporary government job with a Department of the Navy engineering facility in Fallbrook, California. That job started as a General Services (GS)-3, about as low as you can go in the government, but it allowed me to work part-time and accrue benefits while I was getting my degree. Upon graduation, I was offered full-time employment with the Navy. That job at that location evolved continuously and I went from a gofer to the department’s computer and communications guru, to the station’s computer and communications guru, to a database expert for the Marine ammunition evaluation department, to a Marine ammunition evaluator and team lead, to a branch head and national focal point for Marine Corps’ Ammunition. Travel was regular, especially to USMC training locations throughout the world and Marine Headquarters in Quantico, VA, plus, for some special work in Norway, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait. In 2014, the government said I could retire as a GS-13/14, and I did.

In 2000, Ronnie and I met through a mutual friend. We started hiking together and she got me to go to the opera, and more and more time together led to our 2002 wedding. That was the greatest decision I ever made. In 2010 we both started thinking ahead to retirement and we pulled out a US map and wrote down the criteria we wanted for our retirement home. Eventually it was narrowed down to the Quad-Cities and that year we purchased our home in Dewey-Humboldt. Retirement meant helping the kids in the Valley, traveling, hiking, improving the house and yard, and walking the neighborhood for both exercise and to pick up the trash. Life was very good until the 2017 Goodwin wildfire when we got evacuated and finally understood that all that chaparral around us wasn’t as benign as we thought. That led to our introduction to and soon membership within Dewey-Humboldt Firewise. What resulted was my following of the Town Council meetings, along with thousands of hours of work and not a small amount of pocket change contributed to making our town safer.

I’ve been called anal, which may be true, but I prefer meticulous. I prefer to do things right the first time and dislike having to do it twice. At the start of a project, I tend to look at least one and likely two, three, four, or five steps ahead and make sure that I understand the conclusion. I like to get to the root of a problem and solve it so that it remains solved. I often explain my thoughts and reasonings so that others can understand why I’m doing it in a particular way, or suggest an even better way. Many don’t want the background, but I’d prefer that they’re made a bit wiser so that, next time, I won’t be needed. I can be lazy, but a family trait is being one of the hardest workers. Besides a working hard gene, four of us kids also received an abnormal hair and nail gene leading to funky finger and toenails and very thin hair – it’s certainly a good condition for teaching one humility. As a Boy Scout, I memorized their Law and still find that to be very good guidance. That and the Golden Rule. I’ve studied many of the religions, visited many, many churches, and find my personal cathedral to be within God’s wilderness. That’s where I can be one on one.

I’ve dealt with organization heads, generals, congressmen (federal and state), engineers, scientists, privates, administrative assistants, cooks, bottle-washers, and ditch diggers – and easily worked with them all. I’ve had plenty of experience competently leading or working with teams or getting the job done by myself. I’ll never know everything, but there are few subjects with which I cannot come up to speed. I can ask good questions and recognize bad answers. I never understood sticking with an old decision after having acquired new and better information that eclipses one’s initial reasoning. That’s why, from me, the same question asked much later may get a different answer. As the world changes and new data becomes available, it’d be ridiculous not to reconsider the question and possibly provide a better solution. Live with what you have done. Adjust assessments that deserve review.

I feel as if I’m well prepared for the council member position and promise to follow through with what I’ve said I will do. If this is what you would like from your representative, I’d appreciate your vote.

Respectfully,

Mike Donovan