Hi, my name is Dick Donohue from Portage, Michigan. I am a child of God, a husband, a father, a son, a brother, a harmonica player and a professional computer programmer.

Humble beginnings

I was born a small white child. I don’t remember much about it. I was quite young at the time…. ;-) I’m told that it happened on Long Island in New York in 1961. I am the fourth of five kids. My family is now scattered across the globe. My brother, Mark, lives in Alaska. My sister, Carol, lives in New Hampshire. My brother, Paul, is in Las Vegas; and my little younger brother, Pete lives nearby in Augusta, Michigan. My father lives in California and my mother lives in Florida. Needless to say, family reunions are pretty rare. In 1969, my father, who was a marketing manager at the Upjohn Company, was transferred to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Portage (a suburb of Kalamazoo) has been my home ever since.

The Main Thing is to keep The Main Thing the Main Thing

In all that I do, I try to keep God as the first and foremost influence in my life. This is a difficult task. Over the course of the last few years, my faith has ebbed and flowed. For ten years, I was active as founding member of the band at Southridge Reformed Church. I’d love to tell you all the reasons why I and several other families have left Southridge, but I like to think that God still works there. It might be the place God wants you to be. But it is certainly not the place for me anymore. It is a shame. I miss the worship and I really miss some of the people there. Since then, I have struggled with issues of faith. But I know God loves me and I strive everyday to do His will.

All’s Fair in Love and War

I was married in 1988. The marriage ended after she left on Memorial weekend 1996. But from that marriage came two beautiful children: Brian, age 17 and Sarah, age 14. They are the light of my life and I love every minute I get to spend with them. Brian stays with his mom all the time. I see him for a couple days every other weekend (don’t even get me going on that one!) Sarah spends equal time between parents (6 months on, 6 months off).

Life goes on and just keeps getting better. God has put an angel in my life. Sherry – what can I say – She is fun, pretty, sensitive, caring and loving. I am sure that this is who God had intended me to be with all along. So I had no choice: I asked her to marry me. And she said “Yes!” Can you believe it? We got married on August 18th, 1999. This year we celebrated our 9th anniversary. We’ve been through a lot and we are more committed to each other than ever.

Am I Working or Am I just Having Fun? (yes!)

Ever since college, I’ve been one of those lucky people whose career is the same as his obsession ..er..hobby! I’m a computer programmer (an application developer). I’ve worked at several different companies. I’ve spent a great deal of time working on IBM iSeries computers. (formerly known as AS/400 computers, now they are calling them System i — hard to keep up!). I think that a primary reason that I’ve stayed with the iSeries so long is that, despite years of truly abysmal marketing from IBM, they have always been the finest business computers available. In 2002, I took a leap of faith and became self-employed and Donohue Computer Services was created.