Donovan sees responsibility to give back
Sept. 15, 2002

Photo by ELIZABETH A. MUNDSCHENK Patrick Donovan

By ALLISSA HOSTEN
Observer-Dispatch

Patrick J. Donovan works with numbers on a daily basis — managing a budget of more than $42 million and overseeing roughly 1,300 employees.

But the most valuable things in his life are neither those that can be added nor subtracted. Instead, they’re the joys that multiply when he gives himself unselfishly to his job and community.

“I think he fits the criteria (for Accent on Excellence) ... He’s a volunteer with youth and on many boards, he does things for the good of the community and he’s a family man,” nominator and City of Utica Councilwoman Teresa A. Wojnas said.

Donovan, 40, serves as the associate executive director at United Cerebral Palsy.

He’s also a devoted husband and father to his wife, Christine, and their three children.

Donovan started at UCP in 1998. “It was a nice opportunity to stay in the area. ... It was a good fit for me,” he said.

Since he started, Donovan has strived to address the needs of the children his organization serves.

For him, no request is too small.

“Many of our children who stay at our Armory campus could not go to Enchanted Forest (due to their physical impairments). So (we) had an idea to build a small park at our facility,” he said.

The “mini-amusement park” opened last June with a warm reception from the kids.

Outside of UCP, Donovan serves as the elected Utica Common Council president.

“I work with the mayor and sit on a Board of Estimate and Apportionment, which oversees all government spending within the city,” Donovan said.

Since the city’s budget is comparable to that of United Cerebral Palsy, Donovan said he’s comfortable with the responsibility.

He believes that politics were his duty as a born-and-bred Utican. Donovan served as former deputy comptroller of Utica, Oneida County comptroller and chairperson of the City of Utica Public Safety Committee.

Stepping up to the plate appears to be what Donovan does best — as North Utica Little League baseball coach, that is.

And as he often watched his son play on the same baseball field he enjoyed as a youth, he said, “My wife and I have seen (Utica) as a great place to live, work and raise a family ... it’s our social responsibility to give back.”