catalyst & founder

Todd Porter

Never get a degree in the same field twice. That’s my motto, though I only discovered it in retrospect. What I’ve really been doing is following my curiosity.

I studied electrical engineering as an undergrad because I was curious about technology andhow we might use it to avoid societal collapse when all the oil runs out. I studied music because it does something to my brain that makes it work better for relating, for problem-solving, for living. I was curious about what might happen if I invested my attention in making more music. I studied Positive Organization Development because I was curious about what made people thrive and how we might enable more people to thrive more often by attending to each other. Most recently, I’ve been studying compassionate communication because I’m curious about what separates us from each other and what we might do differently to bridge that separation.

As I followed that curiosity, I’ve applied what I’ve learned in technical roles, management roles, leadership roles. In commercial ventures like Ideal Impact, Inc., in nonprofit ventures like Mosaic Fort Worth, The Charter for Compassion, Narrative 4, United States Christian Leadership Organization, Kairos Collaborative, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In these organizations and others I’ve designed experiences, designed and applied technology, mobilized people, facilitated learning, and worked to stimulate even more curiosity in myself and those around me.

I started my professional career working to save energy. In the time since, I’ve started to wonder whether our society will last long enough to run out of oil, or if we might destroy each other first. I’m curious now about how I might contribute all I’ve learned to helping people around me (and myself) see the full humanity in one another, how we might connect to that humanity, and how we might stoke the embers of life in one another.

It’s odd to write a professional bio in the first person, isn’t it? So be it. I’m hoping it gives you a better picture of who I am than the dates of what I did and in what context, though those details are in my LinkedIn profile (https://www.linkedin.com/in/todd-porter/) if you want to see them. Biographies are really just stories and I’m writing this one here because I’d like you to be part of it. Let’s follow our curiosity together and see how we might connect to one another.