John J Donovan

Academic career

Donovan attended Lynn English High School. He obtained two master's degrees - one in engineering and one in science, and a PhD - from Yale University. He subsequently was a Ford Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), In 1977, he became a tenured professor at MIT.

He authored multiple computer science textbooks, including Systems Programming (1972) and Operating Systems (1974), and his research focused on early work in operating systems, databases, and later applications of IT to business. He also wrote business textbooks such as Business Re-engineering with Information Technology (1994) and Business & Technology: A Paradigm Shift (1993). Donovan and his son, John Jr co-authored a book titled The Second Industrial Revolution (1997).

Donovan also served as an assistant clinical professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. Donovan later lectured on Strategic Computing in Government while at Harvard University. He received the first Honorary Doctorate in Economics from the University of Economics, Prague since the breakup of the Soviet Union.

Business career

Donovan started his business career by providing technical training for AT&T computer business personnel. Later courses shifted towards sales and strategy training to executives. This led to Donovan devising a method of helping companies meet their customers' needs through workshops which he ran for various companies including.

Through these workshops Donovan founded many companies including: Cambridge Technology Group, One Wave, Open Environment Corporation, Cambridge Technology Partners, and CellExchange.

Multiple individuals have had problems collecting money from loans that have been given to Donovan. Former student and associate Stuart Madnick sued for $1.4 million, then later settled. Donovan and other executives from his company have also been taken to court by 10 subcontractors who claim that he was so eager to hire them for an important workshop for Citigroup that he asked them to begin working the very day he offered them the job; in their pending case, they alleged that Donovan’s company failed to pay them a total of $181,000.

A lawsuit was filed by Donovan's son, John Jr, who claimed that his father had owed him $4.8 million for repayment of a loan. When John Jr took legal action to force repayment, Donovan claimed he owed him nothing. An arbitrator in the case, a former federal judge, ordered Donovan Sr to repay the loan. “I find that John Jr. was a truthful and credible witness”, he wrote, “and I find the testimony of Donovan, Sr to be unworthy of belief and false in all material respects”.

In court proceedings regarding the event in which Donovan shot himself, Judge Martin was quoted as saying Donovan "deliberately lied". Additionally, based upon the result of the proceedings "the grand jury not first to find Donovan challenged by the truth".

It has been found that Professor Donovan has attempted to defraud his children and state record keepers by doctoring legal documents, an arbitrator overseeing the family's litigation has stated in a scathing opinion. The arbitrator, Judge Martin states in the opinion: “[H]e conceived a fraud that had him representing that all he wanted to do was fulfill John’s dying wishes, when in fact he was doctoring videotapes, audiotapes and legal documents in a manner that was so childish that even the least intelligent of us would never believe that what he was proposing was anything that John would have wanted,” In an article published in the Salem News discussing the proceedings, Judge Martin issued detailed findings: "...the arbitrator overseeing the case, John Martin,... wrote, because of Donovan Sr’s “history of misrepresenting and ignoring all that has gone before, his unwillingness to abide by the agreements he has made and his propensity for making unfounded allegations.”

Public service

Donovan was a collaborator in the development of a birth defect information system for Tufts University School of Medicine.

In 2001, Donovan established a $50,000 scholarship (John J. Donovan Family Scholarship) at Yale University. Through his charitable organization Children’s Potential Unlimited, he donated computers to Connery Elementary School in Lynn, Massachusetts.

In 2009, Donovan was recognized by the Essex County Trail Association for his land conservation work. Donovan has also done land conservation work in Vermont.

Personal life

Donovan was born in Lynn, Massachusetts to John J. Sr and Madeline Donovan. John J. Sr was an elementary school teacher and part-time police officer. Madeline was a social worker. Donovan has mentioned that his father passed down a strong love for teaching. At Lynn High, a teacher noticed his unique ability to find patterns of mathematics and replicate them, and asked him to teach his peers. Inspired by the opportunity, Donovan credits this empowerment as life-changing. His wife is Linda Donovan.

In an article from 2004 entitled "Great Divide - A N.E. family of privilege is at war over money, property, and accusations of a father's abuse" Professor Donovan's son, John Jr. was quoted saying, "What we have learned about dad is monstrous, and we should have nothing to do with him,".

In August 2007, Donovan was fined $625 for filing a false police report, and was found guilty of staging his own shooting. Middlesex Superior Court Judge Kenneth Fishman was quoted as saying "Mr. Donovan's behavior . . . can be described as nothing short of bizarre and premeditated". It was further determined that John J. Donovan purposefully altered the viewing angles of the surveillance cameras in the areas where the crime was committed. Video footage taken a few days before the attack showed Donovan redirecting a security camera in the car park, an indication, prosecutors argued, that Donovan had staged the shooting. According to Attorney General Martha Coakley and testimony at Donovan's trial, Donovan shot himself in the abdomen, shot up his own minivan, kept a spent bullet in his mouth, rearranged a surveillance camera to prevent the recording of his hoax, and laid out the entire plan in a form of shorthand on the dinner menu of the Algonquin Club to which he belonged. Police found the "to-do" list in his pocket.

During these same proceedings the judge ordered Donovan to stay away from his four eldest children and their families. This was in part, due to the fact that one of John J. Donovan's daughters alleged she has been sexually assaulted by her father. She was joined by all but one of her siblings in seeking a separation agreement from their father. Even the son who did not join the action, John Jr, has said in court papers that he wants nothing to do with his father.

John Donovan, Sr is subject to a lifetime Stay Away Order of the Massachusetts Superior Court dated July 9, 2009 as amended November 2, 2016. He must never be within 100 yards (91 m) of his children, their spouses and children (Donovan's grandchildren), and his daughter-in-law and her children (Donovan's grandchildren).

Significant policing resources were required to investigate the allegations that someone had attacked John J. Donovan, when in reality he had shot himself. A spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department, Frank Pasquarello, was quoted as saying "There are a lot of people who worked hard that night (of the shooting,)". He went to say "Have him come over and rake their leaves".

In court proceedings that have been adjudicated, many elements of Professor Donovan's personal relationships with his children have been brought to light. Specifically, his son, John Jr.had concerns in ensuring that his widow and children would be protected from his father. Specifically, John Jr. wanted to record his issues so that they could not be left open to interpretation. "So Donovan Jr., the owner of the Manchester Athletic Club and of millions of dollars worth of other holdings, carefully documented his final wishes, in writing and on video. What he didn’t know was that his father was also, secretly, recording him — recordings that Donovan Sr admitted during a hearing last fall that he had been “cutting and pasting” together, newly filed court documents say." Professor Donovan then took the videos that he recorded and doctored them in such a way as to indicate that John Jr. desired to leave millions of dollars to his father, which was absolutely false.

As part of these recordings, John Jr. even went so far as to indicate that he did not want his father to even attend his funeral, a true indication of the relationship between Professor Donovan and his children. This is specifically outlined in this quote: “The only references to Professor Donovan in John, Jr.’s estate planning documents concern John, Jr.’s wishes that Professor Donovan have no contact whatsoever with John, Jr.’s children, and that he not attend John, Jr.’s funeral,” wrote Martin, a former federal judge.