Back to Officials
Name: Donahoe, Patrick
Current Position: Previous Postmaster General
Patrick Donahoe assumed the office of Postmaster General of the United States Postal Service (USPS) on December 3, 2010, and was officially sworn in on January 14, 2011.. He oversees an agency that has about 580,000 employees in more than 33,000 facilities, delivering nearly half the world’s mail and with an annual revenue of $68 billion.
Donahoe grew up in Whitehall, Pennsylvania. He attended Pittsburgh’s South Hills Catholic High School and held a job at White Cross Drug Store. In 1977, he earned a B.S. degree in Economics from the University of Pittsburgh, followed by an M.S. degree as a Sloan Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Donahoe first joined the Postal Service as a clerk in Pittsburgh in 1975. He later managed its local vehicle maintenance division, and eventually became Vice-President of the Allegheny Area Operation.
During the mid-1990s he served a stint in Washington D.C. as District Manager of Customer Service and Sales for the Capital District.
After 2000, his positions at USPS in Washington, D.C. included Senior Vice-President of Human Resources, Sr. Vice-President of Operations, Chief Operating Officer (2001-2010) and Executive Vice-President (2003-2005). He was the Postal Service’s COO at the time of the September-October 2001 anthrax letter attacks that killed five people, including two postal workers in D.C.
Donahoe was appointed to the Postal Service’s number two position, Deputy Postmaster General, in April 2005, and as is a member of the Postal Service Board of Governors. He also continued to serve as Chief Operating Officer.
In FY2008, as Deputy Postmaster General, Donahoe’s total executive compensation was $600,026. He dropped to $597,129 in FY2009 and $481,088 in FY 2010.
Donahoe is married with two children.
