Ellis Island Timeline Stories

1967

Michael & Linda Donovan

Michael & Linda Donovan

In 1963, having just graduated from Cambridge University in England, I came to the United States to attend the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). I intended to get a master’s degree (SM), get some work experience, and then return and build a life in the United Kingdom.

Instead, I stayed in New York, started a business, grew my family, and eventually became a US citizen.

Portrait of a white woman and man smiling together outdoors, likely at a wedding event. She wears an off-white dress, and he wears a blue suit jacket, white shirt, and red tie. Both wear boutonnieres. Color photo taken on a sunny day outdoors of Michael and Linda Donovan with four members of their family, all light-skinned. Linda, centered, holds a toddler in a red outfit. A group of men and women with varying skin tones stand in an open room with columns. Each person has their right hand raised, participating in a naturalization ceremony to become U.S. citizens.

Looking back, I recognize myself as one of the countless immigrants who have been part of this country’s unique business landscape.

Close up photo of a white man with red hair, wearing Aviator-style sunglasses with red-tinted lenses and a shirt with a blue collar. There are dense green plants behind him. Image of Michael Donovan, a middle-aged white man, wearing a suit jacket and light blue shirt, leaned against a white wall with Donovan Data Systems logo on it.

Immigrants have long played a defining role in American entrepreneurship, from opening shops that serve a local community to launching companies known around the world. In a sense, they have pre-selected themselves for the start-up environment—as people who have already taken the bold step of leaving home, they are ready to bring energy and creativity to the challenge of starting something new.

Black and white early 20th century photo of a white man in a short-sleeved white shirt using a large, ornate espresso machine with a decorative figure on top. Jars filled with various items line wooden shelves behind him. Black and white early 20th century photo of a man in a suit standing in front of the "Ballin & Nordstrom" shoe store. Various shoes are displayed through large glass windows. Sepia-toned photograph of a white, bearded man standing beside a wooden cart piled with clothes, in front of a shop with the sign "P. Rudnick & Son Poultry Market" printed below Hebrew letters.

Immigrants have also left behind the familiar, and my own experience has taught me how valuable that process is. The schools I attended in England valued excellence above all else, but they wanted you to pursue it their way, and make it seem effortless. I did not fit that mold! As a classmate once told me, “The trouble with you, Donovan, is that you try too hard!”

A young, light-skinned Michael Donovan smiling in a black-and-white photograph. He wears a school uniform and holds a dark notebook or booklet. Cars are parked behind him. Mid-20th century color photo of Michael Donovan smiling seated on a sunny day outdoors between his mother on the right and his father on the left, all light-skinned. His hands are outstretched on their shoulders. There are trees behind them and two silver trophies in front of them on a small table. Aerial view of Winchester College’s building complex on a sunny day with stone and red brick structures. Green trees are both around and throughout the campus.

In the United States, and especially in New York, I felt no such constraints. In 1965, after a brief stint at IBM, I took the leap that so many immigrants have taken and struck out on my own, drawing inspiration from my father’s own entrepreneurial path.

Black and white photo of a mid-20th-century computing facility. In the distance of a dull, gray room, two people stand near a computer printer, with other large machines in the background. Black and white photo, of a young, light-skinned boy and adult man outdoors. The boy stands wearing a dark sweater. The man, in a suit, crouches and hugs the boy with one arm, holding a cigarette in the other.

I first wrote a program that automated the analysis of market research surveys, a process that had previously been largely manual. The program sold well, but the business really took off once I started licensing the technology. Then in 1967, with $32 worth of business cards, I launched Donovan Data Systems (DDS), a company that automated the buy-side of the advertising industry and laid the foundations for Ad Tech as we know it today. Today, it has grown to 1,800 employees worldwide and operates as Mediaocean, with $200 billion in advertising running through the platform.

The mediaocean company name in white lowercase font and the company logo on a dark blue patterned background. Digital image featuring the mediaocean company logo, travel related items such as a compass, and flags of several countries. Blue text on a white background congratulates Michael Donovan on making the U.S. his home. A headshot of Michael Donovan, a white middle-aged man, is framed in a circle against a dark blue background. His name is printed in white letters below the photo and above the mediaocean company logo.

I immigrated to the United States through Logan Airport (Linda and I would later have a daughter whom we named Logan). It was a journey that you can’t begin to compare with making the long voyage in steerage on a ship in the 1890s–1920s and then being processed through Ellis Island. But there are more similarities than differences among immigrants to this country, whether they arrived this morning or centuries ago. Their experiences are complex and varied but connected by the common goals of pursuing opportunity and building a better life for themselves and their families.

Early 20th century black and white photo of three women in head coverings gathered around a baby. Two look at the baby while a third stands behind them with a large textile sack on her head and a card printed with the number 5 pinned to her chest. A smiling woman in a red sweatshirt carrying a baby in a green onesie. Both are being assisted down an airplane stairway by a uniformed serviceman. A smiling, light-tan-skinned man in a dark suit and a person whose face is obscured hug a third person in a black suit jacket whose back is facing the camera. The smiling man holds a small United States flag.

Linda and I are proud to support the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, which brings to life so many of these important stories.

Ellis Island photographed from a distance, featuring red brick architecture with green domes and spires. Trees surround the building, a U.S. flag is in the foreground, with the waterfront in the bottom of the image.

We honor the immigrants who have come from all over the world, eager to innovate and take risks, and not afraid to “try too hard.”

A woman with medium-brown skin in a brown long-sleeved shirt smiling while using tongs to turn sausages in a foil-lined pan. Black and white early 20th century photo of two men in white vests and black pants standing in the doorway of a storefront. Barbershop poles are at left and above them a sign reads “Laundry Office”. A close-up photo of a woman and child both with medium-brown skin. She wears a pink hijab, and the child holds a small American flag. Both are smiling.