Dr. Robert W. "Bill" Porter

1926 - 2021

Dr. Robert W. "Bill" Porter 1926 - 2021 Dr. Bill Porter passed away of natural causes in his home on June 9th this year. He is survived by his wife of 52 years, Aubrey Dean Porter, and his son, Tony Porter. Bill moved to Marin in 2017 to be closer to his extended family residing in Marin. Longtime residents of Marin, his son, daughter-in-law, brother-in-law, sisters-in-law and their families all provided great fun and comfort to Bill as his years advanced. Bill and Dean had lived and worked in Long Beach, CA and its surrounding cities for some 60 years. Bill was renowned in academic medicine as a gifted neurosurgeon and teacher. He earned his medical degree at age 25 and his PhDs (medicine and neuroscience) by age 26 from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He then practiced and taught for almost 70 years. His bibliography lists 120 publications in various scientific and medical journals. He had a medical career unlike few in the profession. Bill was a founding member of the Brain Research Institute at UCLA, where he was a professor. He was then pivotal in establishing the neurosurgery program at UC Irvine, where he worked and eventually retired as emeritus professor of neurosurgery. Simultaneous with his academic work, Bill was chief of neurosurgery and residency training at the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Long Beach, and served as the chief neurosurgical consultant to its 208-bed Spinal Cord Injury Unit. Across his life, it was not unusual to hear Bill described as "the smartest person I've ever met." When Rubik's Cubes were new, he sat down with a piece of paper and solved it immediately. When computers were new, he figured how to program them in machine language to make them useful for his research. If you had a tax question, he somehow understood the subtleties and had an answer. His intelligence was layered in humility, however. All that he accomplished in his 94 years had to be pried out of him. He would never talk about what's listed above. You would hardly know he was a talented piano and pipe organ player, even doing a stint at The Juilliard School and orchestrating music for Walt Disney. He never spoke of playing a critical role in saving the Long Beach Symphony. He was a visiting professor at the University of Edinburgh. Volunteering at the American Red Cross for over 30 years, he held various senior positions. All largely unmentioned. He was the quietest person in the room and maybe the kindest. He may have answered your medical questions with indecipherable medical terminology, but you were confident it was a considered and accurate answer. If you cared to unpack his answer, he was willing to help you do so. He was gentle and caring with a delicate, yet mischievous, sense of humor. He was a man quite at peace with himself and his place in the world. And our world is better because Bill Porter was in it. He will be greatly missed by his wife and son. And just as much, he will be missed by his daughter-in-law, Carolyn Porter, and his grandchildren, Reilly and Jacklyn Porter. His extended Marin family will also miss him: Ann Welch; Terry and Stephanie Mason and their children, Rob Mason and Kristin Homes; as well as his Michigan family, that includes his niece, Susan Hartley and cousin, Betsy Valentine. Anyone desiring to make a donation in memory of Dr. Porter would be encouraged to do so by donating to the American Red Cross. Services are pending.