User:Ironass/sandbox
William S. Porter | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 19, 1963 |
| Nationality | United States of America |
| Occupation(s) | Electrical Drafter and Designer |
| Years active | 1980-2022 |
| Known for | Jack Shit |
William Stuart Porter is a retired Electrical Designer. He was employed by Eversource Energy Substation Design and Millstone Nuclear Power Plant in Connecticut from 1980 to 2022.
Early Life
Bill was born in Wesson Woman's Hospital in Springfield, Massachusetts on January 19, 1963 to William Alfred Porter Jr. (August 4, 1914 - January 22, 1968) and Amy Gertrude Morse (March 6, 1918 - November 29, 1988). He grew up in Agawam Massachusetts with his Sisters Beverly Ann (October 30, 1952) and Shirley Lois Porter (November 3, 1952). His father died in January 1968 and as his sisters graduated from high school in 1968 and 1970, respectively, and left home, he was raised from then on by his mother, ostensibly as an "only child." He graduated from Agawam High School in 1980, working before and after school at the local Dunkin Donuts franchise. He began working his first job as a draftsman the day after his graduation at Professional Design Co in Agawam.
Eversource Energy
Bill's uncle, Charlie Morse was a retired Northeast Utilities power plant operator at the West Springfield station. His next door neighbor, Charles "Buzz" Bailey was the supervisor of the Civil Engineering group also at Northeast Utilities. Through Charlie and Buzz, Bill put his application to the Substation Electrical Design group in Berlin, Connecticut who were looking for drafters. Bill was accepted at a pay rate of $180 a week to start. Still living at home, he commuted by vanpool to the Berlin office every day.
Soon after starting work, it was determined that the offices would be moving to the former International Silver Company headquarters in Meriden, Connecticut. After 2 years of driving the vanpool from West Springfield station to the South Broad Street office, Bill bought a condominium on Crown Street in Meriden where he could walk to work. He was first introduced to Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) that was initially begun in the department with the Bruning EZDraft II system. He learned DOS on the DEC] Rainbow 100 computers and, with the help of a co-worker, began dabbling in BASIC programming.
In 1992, a new office building was built in the Berlin Campus and the workforce was returned there. Bill rose through the ranks of Drafters and, because he was pursuing an Associates Degree at night, he was promoted to a Designer position, responsible for the physical design of electrical substations and creation of wiring diagrams from schematic diagrams.
In 1993, the Substation Design and Engineering groups had a workforce reduction. Local management arranged to offer jobs in the company to those affected. Bill was selected to work at the Millstone Nuclear Power Plant Unit 3 Electrical Engineering Department in Waterford, Connecticut for the next 7 years. While at Millstone, he became familiar with the Bentley MicroStation drafting program.
Tiring of the greater than one hour commute, the ponderous nature of the work, and the impending sale of the plant to Dominion Energy Bill applied for, and accepted a position at the Connecticut Valley Electric Exchange in 2000, working as a database technician upkeeping the electric grid model used to anticipate changes in the electric transmission system.
In 2002, positions opened up back in the Substation Design group and Bill returned to the department he had originally begun in. Bill worked with the AutoCAD drafting program and was a driving force for drawing control and drafting automation. He lead a team of 5 people who processed all the uncontrolled drawing files to make one master file per drawing and categorize them for inclusion into a drawing control catalog designed by the internal IT department. This catalog information was later integrated into a commercial drawing control system with more features than the original catalog and was also implemented across all of the other Engineering Departments in Eversource.
Bill was also instrumental in the use of automation in the drafting process. Bill worked with at contract programmer to develop tools to automate drawing setup, titleblock conversions and other repetitive functions that saved time and energy.
Bill retired from the Eversouce in September, 2022 with 42 years of service.
Personal Life
Bill met Theresa Marie LaBarre (June 28, 1963) between his junior and senior years of high school during an Extra Sensory Perception summer class. They began dating and when Bill decided to move to Meriden, he proposed. They were married in the Agawam Baptist Church, December 4, 1982.
Theresa began going to college while Bill continued working. She graduated from Middlesex Community College in Middletown, Connecticut with her associates Degree, Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, Connecticut in 1988 and Wright State University School of Professional Psychology in 1993. She worked at the Federal Correctional Institution, Danbury, Connecticut and Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown. She retired in June, 2022.
Bill got his Scuba Diving certificate in 1988 and his Private Pilots license in 2000.