Dan Whalen
Dan Whalen joined the PCA board at its inception, and together with his wife, Katharine, was among the first to fund PCA. His athletic coaching experience is limited to two years as the volunteer coach of a boys’ middle school basketball team.
Dan’s professional business career was centered in telecommunications. He founded or co-founded six telecommunication services companies, serving four as CEO, including the first --Whalen & Company -- offering turn key system implementation services to the mobile telephone industry. He was also employed by three other telecommunication companies as Division Director, Vice President and Executive Vice President respectively.
Before the business phase of his professional career, Dan worked in the public sector as a senior health planning official in New York State and West Virginia and as a management consultant to state and federal agencies. He also managed a Presidential election campaign at the congressional district level in Minnesota.
Now retired from business, Dan is an active community volunteer. Since 1999 Dan has directed a youth development program he created in Bosnia & Herzegovina. In addition to the PCA board, he is on the governing boards of Holy Names University and Saint John’s University, where he served as board chair, capital campaign chair, and interim President. He currently chairs the board of Redwood Day School in Oakland, California and is a member of the advisory board of the Humphrey School of Public Affairs of the University of Minnesota.
Dan was born in North Dakota and educated through college in Minnesota where he received a bachelor’s degree from Saint John’s University, then later earned an MBA from the Stanford University School of Business and an AM from the Food Research Institute of Stanford University.
Dan and Katharine live in Oakland, California and are the parents of Matthew, Anna and Michael.