' Porter Family Vineyards - Bev Porter

Bev Porter

Owner


"Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life."

~Immanuel Kant 1724-1804


Beverly Porter was born in Evergreen Park Illinois, a quiet suburb of Chicago. Her parents were children of first and second-generation immigrants from Germany.

While her father owned his own business in Chicago, he had always wanted to own a resort in northern Minnesota. When Beverly turned 12 he followed his heart and sold the business and house and moved the family to a small town 90 miles from the Canadian border, Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Beverly and her brother finished school in Grand Rapids, and she later moved back to Chicago for a few years to work for Western Electric as a secretary. In 1967 she moved to Rochester, Minnesota, where she met Tom Porter, who was a young engineer at IBM.

Family life included three children, and for a few years, Beverly was a stay-at-home Mom. Once the children were in school, she took on a series of managerial positions at small companies and duties at various school charities. When their youngest child, Heather, started college, Beverly took advantage of the empty nest to travel with Tom while he was working for Seagate Technology.

In 2002, Beverly and Tom established the Porter Family Foundation with a focus on serving children at risk. It was something she had always wanted to do, and was a natural progression from her work in the schools when her own children were small. Beverly served as Treasurer until recently when she took on the overall responsibility for managing the foundation as President.

Tom and Beverly had always found the Napa Valley a wonderful place to visit when they needed to relax—and they had always dreamed of having some land with grapes and someday making their own wine. That dream has now come true—but it is a better dream than Beverly could ever have imagined. Their purchase Porter Family Vineyards resulted in a wonderful and unplanned consequence: son Timothy and daughter Heather and son-in-law Steven Wolfe have all joined the team, and the family now works together on a daily basis.