Biography

I was born and raised in Brooklyn New York. After graduating from Poly Prep, where my father was a teacher, I entered Princeton University and graduated in 1953 with a degree in Engineering. Some years later, I was awarded a Sloan Fellowship to attend MIT where I earned an MS degree in Industrial Management. My first job after college was as an engineer working for General Electric in Schenectady, NY. In 1957, I joined the Western Electric Company where I worked for thirty-seven years. My assignments involved a mix of engineering and manufacturing jobs as I progressed from Engineer to Vice President. While I enjoyed all of my assignments, the last two were special. As Director of Corporate Planning, I was introduced to futurism and had the good fortune to do some work with such notables as Al Toffler and Betty Friedan. Then for the last years of my career, I headed up the Corporate Education organization which, with the merge into AT&T, became the largest such operation in the world, with a staff of 1,200 professionals and teaching operations in over fifty countries. It was back in Princeton that I first became interested in bullfighting. Years later, a trip to Mexico reawakened that passion and sparked my interest in Spain. A friend steered me to Jim Michener's IBERIA which became my guide for many wonderful vacations visiting all the places Jim described so well. During those years I became active in a number of taurine clubs, becoming President of Club Taurino of New York and later of the Taurine Bibliophiles of America for whom I still write a column for their quarterly journal. In 1993, I wrote a letter to Jim Michener noting that virtually all of the Americans he wrote about in the bullfight chapter of IBERIA were also friends of mine and wasn't it about time that he and I become acquainted. He wrote back making special note of the fact that I live in Newtown, PA just a few miles from the George School where he had once been a teacher. Of course by this time, his health was failing, so our friendship was a long distance affair consisting of letters back and forth and sending him video tapes of encierros (the running of the bulls) which had been a special experience for him years before in Pamplona. I was instrumental in making him an Honorary Member of the Taurine Bibliophiles of America, and enjoyed being his friend right up to the end. My wife, Patti, and I still live in Newtown where we enjoy life, gardening, hiking, a variety of civic activities, and trips to interesting places as time and funds permit. Source: "Don Conover's Biographical Sketch for the James A Michener Society." Used by permission from Don Conover.

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