Thomas Donegan

Thomas Neal ("Tom") Donegan (born 1960) is a direct response/direct mail marketing expert and the Chair of the Provincetown, Massachusetts Board of Selectmen.

Career

Donegan was an advertising executive who worked on behalf of the AFL-CIO's Union Labor Life Insurance Company. Later, he worked as Vice President of Marketing at AOL where he ran direct response marketing programs including direct mail and telemarketing.^[1]

Community Service

Prior to 1990, Donegan co-founded Gay Men and Lesbians Opposing Violence (GLOV), Washington, DC‘s response to anti-gay violence.^[2] Through 2008, Donegan was board President of CrisisLink, a social service agency working to reduce suicide through prevention calls, and provided crisis counseling and developed support programs for survivors of suicide. When Donegan and his husband moved to Provincetown, he served on the town's Finance Committee, eventually rising to Chair of the body. He currently serves as Clerk of the Board of the Fine Arts Work Center.

Political career

In 2013, Donegan ran for and was elected to a seat on the Board of Selectmen. The contest featured four candidates for two seats, including two incumbents Francis Santos and Austin Knight. Donegan led the balloting with 700 votes out of 1277 cast and was elected.^[3] His election night party on May 7, 2013 at the Squealing Pig pub resulted in a fracas in which the town's Police Chief Jeff Jaran had an angry reaction to a song with anti-police lyrics by the rap group N.W.A ^[4] and eventually, it was revealed that the Chief had actively campaigned for Knight and opposed Donegan by handing out election signs from the police station and encouraged police officers to vote for Knight.

References