Noel Porter
From Palo Alto Wiki
Noel E. Porter was a former vice president and director at Hewlett-Packard and served as Palo Alto mayor from 1955-1960.
Porter fought during the fifties for an expansion of Oregon Avenue. Such a road would make access to the nearby Stanford Industrial (now Research) Park much easier. Some believed that there was a conflict of interest due to his work at HP. According to fellow Council member Enid Pearson, he had no qualms about the matter, and publicly stated he wanted an improved road to HP.
During that time, Porter, along with Jerry Keithley (Palo Alto's first city manager) and Alf Brandin (vice president for business affairs at Stanford University) basically ran the town.
The Keithley-Porter-Brandin triumvirate was "really incredible to watch," resident Enid Pearson remembered.
In the many meetings between university and city officials to deal with issues such as expansion of city utilities and other matters relating to the development of the industrial park, Keithley protected the city's interests while Brandin tried to watch out for the university's interests. And Porter, Brandin said, "showed no quarter to the university."
Considered one of the city's strongest mayors, Porter set the stage for the strong tax-base of the industrial park and a decades-long debate over the rate of community growth and city priorities.
Early in the 1960s, Noel Porter got his road to the industrial park in the form of Oregon Expressway. The city named a street after him in the park - Porter Drive.
