Donna Hall McNeil Becomes Eastsound Postmaster

— by Margie Doyle —

Donna Hall McNeil, Orcas born and raised, exemplifies the warm and professional service that islanders cherish and visitors envy.  As of March 8, 2015, Donna is now officially the Postmaster and Officer in Charge of the the Eastsound Post Office.

Donna McNeil started cleaning the post office; now she runs it

She was recruited from her position of Postmaster at the Orcas Landing Post Office with short notice in January. Donna has become a “master of her trade,” rising from her high school days working for a private contractor cleaning the Post Office through the ranks of job promotion in the U.S Postal Service.

Now she oversees the still short-handed Eastsound Post Office. Former window clerk Mike Haugen is now working at the Olga Post Office, leaving Lan Stratton as the one regular clerk at Eastsound.  There are three regular carriers and three substitutes out of the Eastsound Post Office; and the process of hiring three part-time “flex” clerks is in a graduated process.

An Officer in Charge hasn’t been selected yet for the Orcas Post Office, where Donna was in charge since 2001. Lorraine Mikolon runs the Deer Harbor Post Office.

Though the busy Eastsound Post Office has been short-handed since before Christmas, Donna simply operates by the Golden Rule, and treats every employee and customer as she herself would want to be treated. “That’s the way I was brought up,” she says.

She graduated from Orcas High School in 1982, and attended Skagit Valley College, even while working as a weekend carrier for six years. She knew that “to stay on the island, I’d have to work for the ferry, OPALCO or the Post Office.” She tried the “two-job dance,” doing housecleaning, bartending and pumping gas. But the Postal Service gave her the opportunity to step up, and she was equal to each challenge that came her way.

While she enjoys the “good benefits and family feeling” of her position, Donna says, “People don’t understand how much work postal employees do that the public doesn’t see. There are thousands of pieces of daily mail that get mixed up and while Eastsound tries to distribute it into boxes by noon, “while we’re short-handed, that’s not happening.

“There are so many budget restraints and a lot of things we can’t do — the public doesn’t see that side of it.” The Postal Service is overseen by the government, but not operated by it, since post offices became self-supportive in the 1970s. Still, if the postal service were to privatize, “It would be one of the worst things,” Donna says. “Private carriers are not going to pay for remote areas, like Stehekin on Lake Chelan. Postage could easily be $2 for a postcard, vs the 37 cents we now pay.”

Our nearest international neighbor, Canada, with a privatized mail service, has one central postal distribution center in Toronto. Mail from the San Juans to Vancouver or Victoria has to be routed across most of Canada and then back to the Pacific Coast. One result, Donna says, is the many Canadians who rent U.S. mailboxes along the border to get better mail service.

Customers at the Post Office may not see much of Donna, because of the increase in reporting over the last couple of years. “It’s become so micro-managed, with every function scrutinized. I spend most of my time in front of the computer with electronic reporting,

How can people help maintain local post offices? “It’s all based on revenue,” Donna says. “If you have the option to use the post office, a lot of times it’s cheaper.”

Proper addressing for both incoming and outgoing mail can make the work much less problematical. Including the Post Office box along with the street address cuts down on confusion.

It’s also important to keep the street boxes locked to prevent mail identity theft. And Donna cautions against recycling mail that has personal information, such as names, on it. Unsolicited credit card applications are particularly damaging. Last week the recycling box was broken into, and she cautions, “Recycling will go away” if the boxes are continually broken into or misused.

Orcas Island mail is now trucked to and from the mainland, which is less expensive than air transport, and meets the same deadlines.

Despite all the past changes and those to come, Donna says confidently, “The Postal Service will always be here, just not like we’ve known it to be.” She agrees that to get personal mail is still a pleasure, and laments that many are no longer taught how to write a letter and to read handwriting.

She looks forward to the same warm relationships she developed at Orcas. “People at Orcas became like a family to me. I hold them very dear and it’s hard to move on.”

Mistakes will happen, because even postal workers are human, but Donna’s promotion to the Eastsound Post Office is welcomed by many. After all, she’s got that Golden Rule, Island attitude working for her.