MEET DOUG AND DORIS DUNLAP & THEIR “WHY FSU” By JERRY KUTZ, RETIRED SR. VICE PRESIDENT SEMINOLE BOOSTERS & CURRENT OWNER, PUBLISHER OF THEOSCEOLA.COM Unconquered visited Doug and Doris Dunlap to share their family’s Seminole journey and find out why they are so involved with Florida State University. The questions were the easiest they have ever been asked. “We get a lot of pleasure out of it,” Doris said. “It’s just such a part of us. “It’s fun because everyone, including grandchildren, enjoy sports and other university related activities, so it gives us a chance to get together as a family” The evidence is on display in Doug’s Syntech office, a company he has owned since 1989. “Florida State is just a part of me,” Doug said. “I grew up in a neighborhood right by Doak. I walked to every game from the time I was five or six.” The Dunlaps have a skybox with 24 seats and buy 20 more in the stadium for employees. They own baseball and basketball tickets. They are members of the University Center Club where they host their annual Holiday company party for 300. They fund multiple Golden and Silver Chief memberships and recently made a six-figure gift to baseball facilities and operations. “We were on the Booster Cruise
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with Mike Martin, Sr. and Carol and realized we had never given anything to baseball,” Doug recounts. “We’ve given money to engineering, to hospitality, the business school, plus the Boosters. So I thought giving to Mike Jr’s program would be a good thing.” Doug’s history dates back to the Danny Litwheiler era (1955-63) when he and friends served as batboys and loaded scores on the old board, taunting opponents, including Georgia and NFL Legend Fran Tarkenton. “One year we dressed for opening day as bat boys,” Dunlap recalls. “Cliff and Bobby Hinkle. I wore Litwhiler’s St. Louis Cardinal’s uniform, so I got a lot of history there.” Litwhiler’s 1958 squad, led by Dick Howser, was FSU’s first team to appear in the College World Series. That Litwhiler jersey might have been worn in the Cardinal’s 1944 World Championship season, in which Litwhiler played a pivotal role. The Power Couple Dunlap joined the United States Marine Corps to fund his education with the GI Bill. After serving in Vietnam, he asked his father for advice.
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“Maybe I should go to Georgia Tech because he went to Georgia Tech,” Doug recalls. “He said, ‘If you want to work for somebody all your life, go be an engineer. But if you want to own the company, go to business school.’ “So that’s what I did and it turned out to be okay.” Doug chose Accounting at FSU and now owns Syntech, employing 70 engineers and 200 total employees. Prior to buying the company, which began as the Wayne Colony Company, Doug served as comptroller. Doris worked in human resources. Despite the fact they attended Leon High, they had yet to meet. Their dates were frequently to FSU games. As the relationship advanced, they were living their jobs 24 hours a day, so Doris accepted an offer with the Tallahassee Democrat where her career flourished. “I was hired as personnel director and then HR director and then took over administration and then accounting, delving into finance,” Doris said. Within five years, she touched all the bases running marketing, production and circulation. “Eventually, I was over all of the business side,” said Doris, who
