Don Gallagher
“I miss the teaching and the people, but not so much correcting papers,” confessed Don Gallagher, who retired from the communication department in 1994 after 21 years at Rowan.

A public relations specialist, Gallagher’s experience in communications stretches far beyond the classroom. He spent 39 years in the Navy and Naval Reserve, including duty in the Korean War. As a commander, he worked as a public information officer and, back in Philadelphia, showed a knack for inventive recruiting. “I had a good crew,” he recalls. “We did some creative things, including an all-Navy Ed Sullivan program. Our job was to keep the Navy in front of the public.”

A prolific author and an expert in public opinion polling and survey research, he still provides PR counsel. Phil Tumminia M’69 calls Gallagher’s work for Rowan “the cornerstone of our marketing and admissions plan since the mid-80s and the basis for our success in recruiting competitive students.”

Gallagher, with Rowan colleagues Don Bagin and Ed Moore, is preparing the eighth edition of their textbook, The School and Community Relations, a standard in more than 150 colleges and universities. Combining his PR expertise with community service, he does volunteer work for a charity golf outing and Men of Malvern Retreat House, a Catholic retreat and conference center. “It’s an oasis from the fast pace of life,” he says.

Always a communicator, Gallagher has another writing project underway—one that’s a labor of love. “I’m writing a book about things that are disappearing from the scene—like phone booths—and how people have lived in the last half of the 20th Century,” he says. He reflects on 18 everyday topics like transportation, food, clothes and the military. “I’m doing it mainly for my grandchildren because so many things have changed.”

A devoted grandfather, Gallagher says he could be busy with his grandchildren as much as with a full-time job. “I pick up this one and run that one somewhere else. Six of the 13 are nearby,” he explains. What has taken him far from home? Travel with his wife, Liz, to Italy, the Caribbean and to see his three sons’ families in Arizona. And golf on courses abroad, including St. Andrews.

With such a full life, Gallagher keeps his perspective by living with three rules he learned from a priest running an orphanage in Mexico: don’t pity yourself, keep busy and think about others more than yourself. “The greatest thrill in life,” Gallagher says, “is to do something for someone else and expect nothing in return.”

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Alumni can honor retired faculty by donating to a scholarship fund and other investment. Call Anne Hagan at 856-256-5402 or visit the Rowan University Foundation.