civil engineer, businessman, b. Milwaukee. He graduated from the Univ. of Wisconsin (B.S., 1907) and worked for an engineering firm in Birmingham, Ala. (1907-1910). Returning to Wisconsin in 1910, he settled at Sheboygan where he worked as a consulting engineer until 1921, when he incorporated the Jerry Donohue Engineering Co. As president and active chief engineer of this firm (1921-1929), he was instrumental in making it the first Mid-Western engineering company to recognize the value of sludge gas (a by-product of sewage treatment) as a source of power and heat. His company built separate sludge disposal plants at Hartford (1924), Antigo (1927), and many other Wisconsin cities. Donohue was chairman of the state highway commission (1929-1931), and after 1931 returned to the engineering firm as consulting engineer. He was president of the Wisconsin Engineering Society (1922), director of the National Drainage Congress (1926), and a member of the board of the Univ. of Wisconsin Alumni Association. Natl. Cyclopaedia Amer. Biog., 34 (1948); F. L. Holmes, et al., eds., Wis. (5 vols., Chicago, 1946); Sheboygan Press, Apr. 14, 1943.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]