Daniel Paul Dooley

Daniel Paul Dooley passed away peacefully on October 2, 2023, at the age of 74.  Dan was born in Austin, Minnesota in 1948, to John and Grace Dooley as the fourth of their eight children. Dan showed at an early age that he was mechanically inclined, a trait which served him well along his career path.

Dan grew up on a small farm in Nicolville, Minnesota just outside of Austin, Minnesota and attended Pacelli Catholic School (class of ’67) where he played center on the football team.  Dan graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor’s degree in Electro-Mechanical Engineering (1972).  While there, he met Colleen Neaton.  The two were married in 1973 and remained together for the rest of their lives.

Upon graduation, Dan worked as an engineer first with disk drives then microwaves.  While working, Dan completed his M.B.A in Finance at the University of St. Thomas (summa cum laude, 1976).  Thereafter, Dan became a plant manager in the manufacturing of rechargeable batteries, then returned to the field of disk drives first as a director of manufacturing at Magnetic Peripherals and then as Vice President of Oklahoma City Operations for Seagate Technologies.  Dan left and began work first as a consultant and later founded his own disk drive company, Pont Peripherals Corp. Dan sold his share of the company and embarked on a second career in intellectual property law, graduating first from Oklahoma City University School of Law (J.D., with honors, merit scholar, 1999) then from Franklin Pierce Law Center (L.L.M. in Intellectual Property, 2000).

Dan became a Director at the law firm of Fellers, Snider, Blankenship, Bailey & Tippens in Oklahoma City and left to become a Shareholder at the law firm of Hall Estill in Oklahoma City.  He also worked with video game controller companies Gamevice and Wikipad both as an intellectual property attorney and as an inventor (listed as an inventor on over 20 U.S. Patents), and ended his career as the Corporate Counsel and Member of the Board of Managers at game controller manufacturer T2M.

Despite his busy work schedule, Dan made time to teach and bond with his and Colleen’s two sons, Matthew and Mark.  Whether it was early Saturday morning wakeups to head to the hardware store with the boys for tools to complete the seemingly never-ending list of home and auto repairs, thinking up summer projects like rebuilding old mopeds with Matthew, building an entertainment center with Mark for his high school limousine, or just attending the various football and baseball games, wrestling matches, swim meets, Dan was a strong and stable presence in his sons lives.

Dan returned to his home state of Minnesota with Colleen for their final months of life, where they could be close to friends and family.  Sadly, Dan passed away just six weeks after his wife Colleen’s passing.  He is survived by his two sons (Matthew and Mark), two daughters-in-law (Susan and Michelle), four grandchildren (Caroline, Theodore, Hazel, and Laurel).

Funeral services will be held at St. Joan of Arc Catholic Community, 4537 3rd Ave S., in Minneapolis, Minnesota on Friday, October 27th with a visitation at 10:30 a.m., Mass at 11:00 a.m., with refreshments to follow.