POWERGRAMS

7 The Porter's first child, Laila, was born premature at 1 pound, 6 ounces, and doctors told the Porters she would not survive her first night in intensive care. On the third day, she suffered a stroke and brain bleeding. Doctors said if she survived, she would be a "vegetable" or severely mentally challenged. Seventeen years later, Porter recalled how those events dramatically changed his family. "From the first moment, my wife and I committed that no matter what, we were going to trust in the Lord," he said of late December 2003 when Laila was hooked up to a breathing machine, her kidneys shutting down. "Every time we would get a negative notification from doctors, we'd replace it with a positive word from the Lord." Doctors had no medical understanding of the turnaround that let the Porters' baby girl go home on May 3, 2004. A year later in the summer of 2005, she underwent surgery on a heart valve. Due to the stroke she initially suffered, she has damage on the left side of her brain, which controls the right side of her body, as well as analytical and logical thinking. She has partial paralysis on her right side but Laila is an A-B high school student who aspires to be a physical therapist. In 2010, the Porters' daughter Kailyn was born without complications. Porter said his career took off from the time he and Kima brought Laila home from the NICU. During the past 20 years, he has brought influence on organizations statewide, including the United Way, March of Dimes, A.G. Gaston Boys & Girls Club, American Association of Blacks in Energy and Jefferson County Schools, leading them and being frequently honored for his leadership. He was inducted into the Tuskegee University Athletics Hall of Fame in 2019. Perhaps the greatest honor yet for Porter is his selection as chairman of the board of the World Games 2022. The event will be the largest and most prestigious in Alabama history, perhaps ranking second only in the Southeast to the 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games. The significance of a Black man leading these World Games in a state recognized internationally for a racist past is not lost on Porter. "My grandmother would always say that when someone gives you an opportunity, the least you can do is make them proud," Porter said. "I'm part of a group of people brought over here in chains, in bondage, treated less than human. But I'm sitting here as a senior vice president of Alabama Power Company, so it's hard to deny there has been progress. We have to continue to live out the ideals of the forefathers of our country, that all men are created equal." Porter is chairman of the board of the World Games 2022.

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