Meet Dolores Porte

When disaster strikes a community, people turn to civic “leaders” for help, guidance, or maybe just the encouragement that “everything will be ok.” Far too often, those leaders are ill-prepared for the task or, even worse, simply fail to do their job. Fortunately for the community of Sanford, Michigan, nothing was further from the case when a dam failure led to massive flooding just weeks after the COVID-19 pandemic hit.

Luckily, UM-Flint alumna Dolores Porte (2012) was serving as village president. Porte spent her professional career at Dow Chemical, where she oversaw 1,000 employees and was responsible for $50 billion in payments. Dolores retired from Dow in 2016. Years of experience solving complex problems, and a gift for working with people, prepared Dolores to lead Sanford’s response to the tragedy.

Dolores credits an “empowerment management style” as key to her career success and pivotal in dealing with the flood’s aftermath. Throughout the day leading up to the flood and the two-plus years that followed, her service to the community has lived up to the moniker of “leader.”

From being a shoulder to cry on (when a resident found her refrigerator magnet in a debris-filled street), to advocating government agencies for resources, and helping those struggling to complete difficult paperwork, Dolores was and continues to be a driving force for recovery and a source of inspiration to many. When asked to summarize the experience, Porte said, “The most moving part of the ordeal was that in the midst of tragedy, you sometimes get to see the best of what people can do for one another. You get to see what being a human being is really about.”