Donald R. Irving, founder and president of Data Guide Cable Corp. in Gardner, was recently sworn in as a member of the Fitchburg State University Board of Trustees.

Irving has run the business, a specialty cable manufacturer with 60 full-time employees, since 1984. Prior to starting Data Guide Cable Corp., he was an engineering manager with Mohawk/Conductron Corp. in Leominster and also worked as an electronics instructor and industrial technology instructor at schools in Ashburnham and Northborough.

He is also president of Nichols Square LLC, a real estate development firm, and in 1993 he was honored by former President George H.W. Bush as the Massachusetts Business Person of the year. He is an avid horologist, building, restoring and collecting clocks (with a specialty in 18th-century brass English clocks), and also holds a patent for a fiber optic connector.

Irving served on the board of trustees for the Applewild School in Fitchburg for 10 years and was also a member of the Ashburnham-Westminster Regional School Committee, where he served as chairman. He is the treasurer of the board at Cushing Academy in Ashburnham, where he has been a member for 17 years including 12 as its vice president.

Irving is a two-time alumnus of Fitchburg State, earning a bachelor’s degree in industrial science and a master’s degree in industrial technology from the institution.

Irving and his wife, Karen Lindroth (herself a Fitchburg State alumna) live in Westminster.

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