About Us: Biographies
Patrick Dorgan, founder of The Leather Institute was initially educated in fine arts at New Jersey City University, The Arts Students League of NY and The School of Visual Arts. His business studies were at Farleigh Dickenson University in NJ. His research into the materials of the artists crafts soon led him to the field of conservation while working with fine art galleries/foundries. Working with NY sculpture studios he developed products for the maintenance and care of outdoor sculpture. In 1978 he began his initial research into the care and maintenance of leather. His studies took him to the Smithsonian Institute where researchers were conducting evaluations of products for the conservation of the books of the Library of Congress. The Leather Research Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati was the next stop and offered a variety of courses on leather processing. In 1996 he founded The Leather Institute to conduct research and development of products and processes to be used in the care, maintenance and restoration of leather.
The Leather Institute focused on maintaining the aesthetics of leathers and Patrick spends most of his time educating companies on proper leather choices and placement to maximize the investment in leather.
In 2000 The Leather Institute formed a joint venture with the premier aviation leather supplier Townsend Leather Company. Together they researched technology and came to market with classes that were given to companies such as Cessna, Bombardier and Raytheon. Today Patrick has been joined by his son Sean who received his business education at Babson College and together they continue to be busy offering training programs in the care and maintenance of leathers to companies worldwide. Sean speaks Spanish and conducts the training in Spanish speaking countries. The classes are custom designed to meet the needs of the leathers used in the different industries. For example the leathers used in the home furnishings market will have different cleaning and maintenance criteria than the leathers used in aviation. Some of The Leather Institutes customers include Virgin Atlantic, Boeing, BE Aerospace, EADS, JetAviation, British Airways, Qantas, JetBlue, Citation Shares, NetJets and many more. TLI now offers products, training and services to the furniture, corporate and aviation community worldwide. On a personal note Patrick is an avid marathoner with over 25 completed and graduated to Ironman competitions in 2003, he has completed 3 Ironman competitions.