Advisory Council
Donn Colee
Director of Research, Development and Strategic Planning
Freedom Broadcasting, Inc.
Donn Colee is Director of Research, Development and Strategic Planning for Freedom Broadcasting, Inc., with responsibilities for the continued audience and revenue growth of the company’s nine television stations and the future direction of the division.
Prior to his corporate assignment he was Station Manager of Freedom’s largest station, WPEC/CBS 12 in West Palm Beach. He was with the station for 19 years.
Prior to joining WPEC, Colee spent 17 years in the advertising and public relations business in West Palm Beach. He represented a wide variety of clients in the political, real estate, financial, industrial, medical, media, sports and civic fields.
Colee has lived in Palm Beach County since 1971. Active in the community, he served on the board that created SunFest (Florida’s largest music, art and waterfront festival) and the boards of March of Dimes and the West Palm Beach Chamber of Commerce. He was a member of the first graduating class of Leadership Palm Beach County (1985) and donated public relations and marketing services to the Raymond F. Kravis Center for the Performing Arts in its early development stages. He currently serves on the boards of the United Way of Palm Beach County and the West Palm Beach Fishing Club and is an advisor to Gulfstream Goodwill Industries. He is also a member of the Florida Association of Broadcasters and the University of Florida’s College of Journalism and Communications Telecom Advisory Council.
Colee is a seventh-generation Floridian, raised in Orlando. His ancestors emigrated from England to St. Augustine in 1820, where carriages from “Colee Stables” still carry tourists. His great-great-great grandfather was an engineer and partner with the company that dug the Intracoastal Waterway from St. Augustine to Miami in the late-1800s.
He and his wife, Martha, live in Palm Beach Gardens with their 17-year-old son, Michael, who attends The Benjamin School. His eldest daughter, Tara, is a real estate broker in Aspen, Colorado; while daughter Justine is a sales executive with WPLG TV (ABC) in Miami.
Colee is an avid fisherman and boater and a student of Florida history and the history of the state’s broadcasting industry.
The Campaign for the University of Florida