About Michael
Biography
With a career spanning 35 years as administrator of the Indiana Gazette and 40 years of management at Gazette Printers and Indiana Printing & Publishing, Michael Donnelly is a member of the Class of 2023 of the Indiana County Business Hall of Fame.
Mike Donnelly graduated from Indiana Area Senior High School and University of Notre Dame, worked at Johnson & Johnson in southern California, and returned in 1984 to Indiana to join his parents Joe and Lucy Donnelly at The Indiana Gazette.
The immediate Donnelly family became sole owners of the newspaper and grew the web and sheet-fed divisions of Gazette Printing Company in 1986, as Michael Donnelly served as newspaper advertising manager and director of web printing.
Mike advanced a year later to serve as chief operating officer of the parent company, Indiana Printing & Publishing and oversaw its growth from 65 to 250 employees by 2000.
Gazette Printers grew in a new home on Indian Springs Road in 1990 with a new web press, relocation of the sheet-fed division and a major expansion in 1997. The company's presses print Washington D.C. Recreation News, Center County Gazette and Town & Gown of State College among many other regional publications. Today, Gazette Printers' client list stretches from Maine to South Carolina to Missouri.
Kerr Promotions joined the Indiana Printing & Publishing fold in 2009. Under the Donnellys' guidance, the Gazette began publishing in color. During the Pittsburgh newspaper strike of 1992, the Gazette added a Sunday edition and became a 7-days-a-week newspaper.
But along with his parents -- Lucy Donnelly until her death in 1993 and Joe Donnelly until his death in 2000 -- Mike Donnelly built on the Indiana Gazette's tradition of strong commitments to journalism and community. While the company literally was a Donnelly family organization, its scores of employees enjoyed a culture of a family workplace.
Under Donnelly leadership, the Gazette annually was honored by its statewide professional organization, the Pennsylvania Newspaper Association and later Pa. NewsMedia Association, for writing, photography, design and advertising, and it was named the Newspaper of the Year in the later years of Donnelly family ownership.
Mike Donnelly followed his parents in service to Indiana as a director or board member of Indiana County Chamber of Commerce, Indiana Hospital and Indiana Regional Medical Center, S&T Bank, Indiana County Development Corporation, The United Way, Indiana County Community Action Program, Head Start, IUP Research Institute, Downtown Indiana Incorporated. By way of the newspaper, he gave important and prominent voices to these and many other organizations. Mike Donnelly dedicated the newspaper's resources in the organization of the Angels Wings, Lucy Donnelly Light-Up Night and the It's a Wonderful Life Festival projects.
Mike Donnelly also is remembered for leading Indiana County's economic development team in the 1993 rescue of the Season-All window and door-making plant. Under his leadership, Gorrell Enterprises obtained needed financing to revive the company and its 400-person workforce for 20 more years.
The Indiana County Chamber of Commerce congratulates Michael Donnelly, an inductee to the Business Hall of Fame.