ALAN DONLEY

Alan McLeish Donley was born January 21, 1937 in Cleveland, Ohio, the third child of Donald McLeish Donley and Alice Reeve Gwendolyn Skidmore (Gwen) Donley. Al grew up in Cleveland Heights, Ohio and attended Fairfax elementary and Roxboro junior high school and Cleveland Heights High School before completing his secondary education at Solebury School in New Hope, PA. He was a large-scale person from his birth and reached six feet tall in the sixth grade (standing on the floor for a class picture so his head would not tower over those of the kids standing on the risers). By high school, he was six-foot-six. He attended Harvard University for one year (where he earned the ironic nickname “Stump”), took a break for a few years, then finished at Hiram College, majoring in math and physics. He demonstrated in one physics experiment that a human being could generate one horsepower by running up the stairs of Hiram’s Colton Laboratory.

He met his future wife, Carol Cram, at a church dance in the basement of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Cleveland Heights, while both were in the seventh grade. They were married in the same church in 1958. Their three children, Gregory (Greg), Karen, and Theodore (Ted), were born in 1961, 1963, and 1966, respectively. The family always ate dinner together, enjoying not only good meals but also uproarious bouts of laughter around the table.

Al worked for Donley’s construction during high school, in between class days at Hiram, and for a time after college, but left the family company in the middle 1960s to become an admissions officer for Hiram College. The family moved from Cleveland Heights to Hiram in 1966. He soon became the college’s first financial aid officer, and was president of the Ohio Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (OASFAA) in 1972–73. During this time, he developed a deep commitment to helping students take advantage of opportunities for higher education, especially for people who were first in their families to attend college. He also provided unflagging support to Carol and she earned a masters degree and PhD during the same years from Kent State University; she would eventually become a professor of English at Hiram and would co-found the college’s Center for Literature and Medicine. Through her role as an English professor, Carol and Al led a number of college-sponsored trips to Ireland, England, and in continental Europe, often forming lasting relationships with the students and other faculty who participated.

In 1975, he pursued his entrepreneurial inclinations and started the first of what would be a series of business ventures around computer hardware and software created to serve the needs of college financial aid offices. Among his pioneering and visionary products was a package of software and a simple hand-held computer that admissions officers could take with them on visits to high schools and perform financial aid estimates on the spot for prospective students—this was two decades before the advent of the smartphone. A self-taught programmer, he wrote most of the early software himself, and later enlisted the assistance of computer science students, many from Hiram College. This process provided unique opportunities to young computer programmers to work with challenging real-world projects. He merged his company Financial Analysis Service (FAS) with another education technology firm in the 1980s, and Al sold his interest in 1989, after which he returned to Hiram for another stint as its Director of Financial Aid during the 1990s. He resigned that position in order to start the firm Consolidated Student Aid Service in the mid-1990s, and dedicated his working energies to that venture until his retirement.

Invited by their longtime Hiram colleague Charles McKinley, he and Carol became active in Christ Church, Hudson, in the 1980s, returning to their Episcopal roots, and have remained members there ever since. They taught Sunday school classes and acted as confirmation sponsors for high schoolers. Each served terms on the church vestry (and Al also served as warden), and both Al and Carol participated in Education for Ministry. They traveled to Ireland to serve as Episcopal lay ministers in Sligo. In retirement, Carol and Al both became active in Rotary and Kiwanis, supporting their emphasis on service.

During their more than 50 years living in Hiram, he served on the village council for 19 years, and also served on the Portage County Planning Commission.

In the middle 1970s, the family acquired a sailboat and in subsequent years Al and the two sons enjoyed racing at Lake Pymatuning on Sunday afternoons. After the boys went off to college, he and Carol sailed together and over the years owned four different boats, only one of which sank.

Avid lovers of music, he and Carol subscribed to Cleveland Orchestra concerts for many years and attended many other classical music events, often with son Greg and his wife Elizabeth (EB), who had moved to Cleveland Heights in the late 1980s.

With striking ice blue eyes and his imposing height, Al could make an intimidating first impression, but anyone who spent more than 30 seconds with him quickly discovered a warm, gentle, and generous human being with a penchant for really bad puns and good-natured and sometimes snarky humor. After he grew his trademark silver beard, comparisons to Ernest Hemingway and Santa Claus abounded. In later years, his eyebrows also abounded spectacularly.

He is survived by his wife, Carol (Cram) Donley, of Hiram; a brother, Clifford, of Columbia SC; children Gregory of Cleveland Heights, Karen of Garrettsville, and Theodore of Worthington; and grandchildren Andrew and Gwendolyn, both of Cleveland Heights.

The family will receive visitors at Mallory-DeHaven-Carlson Funeral Homes & Cremation Services, 8382 Center Street in Garrettsville, OH 44231, from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm on Friday, January 24, 2020. A memorial service will be held at Christ Church Episcopal, 21 Aurora St. in Hudson, Ohio 44236, on Saturday, January 25, 2020 at 3:30 p.m. with Rev. Charlotte Reed officiating. In lieu of flowers, please make donations to Hiram College; https://hiram.site-ym.com/donations/donate.asp?id=1751