The lessons I learned by making mistakes were more valuable than if he'd simply told me how to do the job. There are still people who remember Donovan's father, and remember him fondly. Donovan never sought the prized Teamster card, although he worked summers sweeping Wrigley Field as a member of the stadium's ground crew and a card-carrying member of the janitor's union. Regardless of how he entered the industry, he's glad he did. While working in personnel, I developed important wage and salary programs and wrote affirmative action plans, but it takes a long time to see these projects come to fruition and measure the results.
Meetings have immediate results and immediate feedback.
It runs well or it doesn't. The trade show lineage of the Donovan family is likely to end with Bob, he says. His daughter, who is still in high school, aspires to a career in social work. Donovan often thinks of his father, who died in 1968 when Donovan was in college. When I became Director of Personnel, I wondered if my father would know I was on the management side of business.