Dr. Wesley E. Donahue
303 Keller Building
University Park, PA 16802
Title
Professor of Education (Workforce Education and Development)Department
Learning and Performance SystemsPrograms
Workforce Education and DevelopmentBiography
Wesley E. Donahue is Professor of Workforce Education and Development Program in the College of Education at the University Park Campus of The Pennsylvania State University. Dr. Donahue also served as Executive Director of Continuing and Professional Education in Outreach. In these capacities he teaches, serves on graduate research committees, and is responsible for leading a team of fixed-term and tenured faculty that teaches and consults with organizations in business, industry, government, and nonprofit sectors. These linkages provide a mechanism for faculty and graduate students to pursue scholarly research. Dr. Donahue is also associated with Penn State’s College of Engineering where he teaches and mentors both graduate and undergraduate students.
Dr. Donahue brings over 30 years of technology management, sales and organization development experience to his position at Penn State. Formerly, he worked with the Fortune 500 company Brockway Inc., now Owens-Brockway, where he began as a project engineer and rose to manager of technology for the corporation’s international division. Subsequently, he co-founded and served as Executive Vice President of Leffler Systems of New Jersey, a manufacturer of plastic containers and specialized machinery, after which he moved on to become regional Vice President of sales for Marketing Plastics in Kansas City, MO. In addition, he served as a professional associate of MGA Inc., a worldwide provider of technical management professional services to the packaging industry. He also owned a successful retail business for over 10 years.
In these assignments, he was involved in all aspects of general management, including: operations, human resource planning, finance, engineering, sales, marketing, strategic planning, and international ventures. Additionally, he has worked as a management consultant for several major international packaging companies.