Smith Club of San Francisco
and Marin
Alumnae Profiles
Susan E. Porth '70
Fall 2004
Profile By Sarah Cross Mills '66
"If you need something done, ask a busy person." This maxim must have been considered before asking Susan Porth to take on new work or volunteer roles. I probably didn't need to wait until her term ended this summer as President of the Alumnae Association (and ex-officio Trustee). A club member in this important role, Susan had been top on my list of profile subjects, but I had decided to pay her the courtesy of not obeying that truism. She'd also recently retired from a thirty-year career in finance, so now she could talk about this next chapter.
She looked surprisingly refreshed and relaxed at our interview for having just returned from her third weekend in a row (two reunions and a Trustees meeting) at Smith, with return trips home in between. My illusion about free time in retirement ended when I learned that she'd just been elected to a five-year term as a Trustee and that she'd be starting law school at Boalt Hall in August! She said she was initially just curious about taking the LSAT, but then thought she really should apply to law school. And she's not yet an empty-nester either, with one of her three children still in college, one in high school. "This is a busy person," I thought, grateful that I'd caught her in a brief lull.
Although she'd expected to major in math or chemistry at Smith, an inspiring economics class and a negative calculus experience led her to decide on Economics. Hers was one of the first classes where women could say they'd grown up believing they'd have a career in business. Susan points to her father's strong business background as influential in her choice of direction after college and in numerous business decisions throughout her career.
At Harvard Business School, she considered a focus in marketing, so after moving to San Francisco, she interviewed at Crown Zellerbach for a marketing position. The treasurer met her while she was there and offered her a job as Treasury Associate. The next year she became a manager handling long-term financing and bank relationships before spending her final year of five at CZ as Marketing Manager. Kaiser, with its not-for-profit health plans and its hospitals in 16 states, serving over nine million HMO members, recruited Susan in 1978 as Vice President and Treasurer, a title she held for ten years before becoming Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer for another ten years. During this time, Susan saw Kaiser's revenues increase from $2 billion to $15 billion.
Return to Top | Return to Profiles List
For someone who likes change and the opportunity to look for better ways to do things, her positions at Kaiser suited her well. Today's health care industry challenges are immense. Your goal of improved health is difficult to measure, and you also want to keep satisfied customers who feel they receive consistent value. Meeting these goals required looking newly at financial management practices, not doing something the same way twice. One constant seems to have been the expanding responsibilities during her years at Kaiser. She was fortunate to have help for her home and family, but this didn't prevent living through some sleep-deprived years; with characteristic energy, she says she just learned to do more while sleeping less.
In 1998 following a bout with breast cancer, Susan felt it was time to leave Kaiser. Although she wasn't looking for another job, a headhunter had given her resume to United Behavioral Health, a San Francisco subsidiary of a mid-Western behavioral health benefits provider. Initially happy to be with a smaller, for-profit company again, first as Senior VP and CFO, then Executive VP and CFO, Susan realized after four years that a subsidiary just didn't have the interest and challenge she'd enjoyed at Kaiser headquarters.
The details of Susan's accomplishments fill a page and a half of her resume. Then there are volunteer roles that occurred alongside her work. Susan was President and a Director of our Club during the late 80's, and she's done fundraising for both Smith and Harvard Business School for more than two decades. She's been a Director of the "B School" Club of Northern California for ten years and a Director of the "B School" Alumni Association during the late 90's. She's also filled positions at the Kaiser Lakeside Federal Credit Union, the Oakland Ballet and the Ross School Foundation.
As Club President, her goals were to increase membership and participation and, especially, to provide activities for younger working alumnae, scheduling events downtown during lunch time. While leading the club, Susan was also Class Fundraiser, Kaiser VP and Treasurer, then CFO, and pregnant with her third child, as well as serving on a couple of other boards.
This is just the kind of person the AASC Nominating Committee loves to find as nominee for director, officer or alumnae trustee. Any alumna can submit names to the Nominating Committee, including her own; in fact, there's a form on the AASC website, and the Committee encourages self-nominations. The Committee researches each nominee, interviewing references and the alumna herself. During this process, the Committee does not indicate what position they're considering for each nominee, so Susan was understandably surprised when she learned the Committee was putting forward her name as President. There's no automatic succession of directors and officers on the Board. The slate of one candidate for each position, representative of alumnae diversity, is published in the Spring Quarterly, and an election occurs at the annual meeting of the Association during one of the reunion weekends.
The dozen or so AASC staff performs many services for alumnae and for the hundred-plus U.S. and international clubs. The AASC trains class officers; helps produce reunions and Alumnae College; runs the travel program; publishes the award-winning Quarterly; supports local area symposia (such as the very successful one here in 2000); runs the Speakers Program, providing faculty speakers to clubs; provides services to affinity groups such as Ada's, Latinas and African-Americans. Every function is focused on revitalizing the connection between alumnae and the college and among alumnae, with many occurring at the local level.
Return to Top | Return to Profiles List
Susan contributed her well-honed business skills during her term, when the Association completed a strategic planning process, bringing measurement tools to the Association's work. They held focus groups and took surveys, looking at participation numbers, diversity of participating alumnae, and the use of technology to support communication and efficiency. Many alumnae want an intellectual connection to the college, they found, so there will be more frequent local symposia and perhaps more Quarterly articles about faculty and their work. Already, the attendance at Alumnae College has doubled in recent years, and Susan feels that, with more publicity, it would grow even larger. Another result of the board's research was the first Alumnae of Color Reunion, drawing over 100 alumnae to campus. (See the SAQ, Summer 2004.) Susan proudly reports that over 50% of all alumnae made financial contributions both this year and last, and the class of '54 had 100% participation in giving for its 50th reunion - only the third time this has happened in the history of the college, the first two times being in the 1800's!
In her "retirement", Susan is both a full-time law student and Smith Trustee. She's pleased to be serving Smith for another five years, excited by the current challenges and the positive campus changes, such as the engineering program, new buildings, and higher-than-anticipated acceptances for the class of 2008. Smith is fortunate to have Susan's continuing commitment. As one of her fellow Trustees says, "She hones in on an issue with a razor-sharp mind, musters all the facts she needs for support, and then asks the most penetrating questions...about the really complicated stuff." Susan makes it clear that with alumnae filling three-quarters of the trustee positions, decisions for change are carefully considered and in no way the result of "outsider" influence. Carol Christ is extremely supportive and interested in alumnae, says Susan. She tells how the new President even studied class yearbooks and prepared individualized remarks for each of the dozen or more class cocktail parties she attended at reunions.
Susan encourages all alumnae to learn what the AASC has available, make use of it, and to suggest new programs or offerings. Just ask one of the already very busy Association board or staff members or local club officers, and they'll probably see that it gets done. And if you're already a very busy person, you might expect to be asked to do something yourself!
Return to Top | Return to Profiles List
