North Valley Person—Scott Porter’s Passion Touches Science and Society
By THOM SENZEE

     Changing lives and saving lives is what Scott Porter is about; the Granada Hills scientist/entrepreneur/humanitarian has long been a part of the human fabric of San Fernando Valley community service and development.  And now with a new enterprise, he’s helping to revolutionize diagnostic medicine for people and animals. 

     But, it’s been a long, sometimes meandering trek to the field of advanced medical imaging from whence he came. 

     “I spent my entire career from 1955 to 1998 in military radar and missile defense,” says Porter.  With a master’s degree in electrical engineering, a bachelor’s degree in physics and doctoral coursework in electro-physics, that career took him coast-to-coast to work on some of the most significant technological fronts of the Cold War era.  In 1981, it landed him in Northridge as general manager of Automation Industries, a major force in the field of industrial quality control. 

     But, all was not ultrasonic, non-destructive testing as Scott Porter took the reigns of Automation Industries and, simultaneously, its sister company Aero Mechanisms, a manufacturer of altimeters; both companies were units of the same parent corporation.  Almost as soon as he was settling into his new professional life in the North Valley, Porter began to look for a humanitarian outlet for his energies…one that might also afford him some important San Fernando Valley business connections.

     “My father was a Presbyterian minister,” says Porter.  “So, I grew up very heavily involved in community, that background is a big part of who I am.  I got involved with United Way here in the Valley in 1981, also because, coming to a new location, you don’t know anybody; you don’t know protocols; you don’t know how to find the right local resources to solve problems.” 

     That wasn’t the first time Scott Porter found a meaningful nexus between his work as a scientist and his personal life.  In 1959, he developed a ten-megawatt “klystron” vacuum tube, which was used to build one of the earliest clinical linear accelerators, which made possible a new kind of external beam radiation treatment for cancer patients.  Years later, that same technology would treat his own cancer, as well as that of his wife Barbara and later, their daughter.  The former benefited from the treatment, but ultimately succumbed to a recurrence of the disease.  Porter’s daughter’s cancer was too far advanced to benefit from treatment. 

     “We went through some really tough times, including poor diagnoses that [had they been better] probably would not have saved my wife, but would have improved her quality of life,” laments Porter.  “When my wife passed away, I decided I would form this company—Radiographic Digital Image Systems—and devote the rest of my life to enhancing diagnostic capability with the idea of saving lives in mind.”

     Porter’s company, RDI Systems, does not design or manufacture the equipment it sells; although he did recently patent improvements to its signature product, a computed radiography device.  The cutting-edge device is built by a company called iCRco, which was founded by a friend of Porter’s son from the son’s college years.  It provides physicians, surgeons, chiropractors, and veterinarians the ability to take unprecedented radiographic imagery of patients. 

     The images the equipment produces are digitized versions of conventional x-rays, which have a depth of resolution that can’t be matched by x-rays taken with film.  Once digitized, iCRco’s software allows the images to be manipulated, augmented, and enhanced in ways that indeed revolutionize the experience of reading the images.  Porter has converted a small bus to transport the imaging equipment to clinics, allowing him to demonstrate the equipment with his second wife and business partner, Joyce Porter, onsite.     Recently, after finishing just such a demonstration at
a veterinarian clinic located on a busy street, a small dog was hit by a car. 

     “Some people from the clinic came running out and said, a little dog just got his by a car; can we use your machine to see if we can save him,” Porter said.  “I gave them a Phosphor imaging plate, told them to go ahead and take the image the way they would normally, and bring the cassette out to the van.” 

     Unfortunately, the small dog’s injuries were found to be inoperable, and he was euthanized.  However, the point was made according to Porter, and the clinic saw instantly the value of what he describes as vastly improved images. 

     “This technology is for people and animals,” he says.  “And it’s better and cheaper [than competing products and technology].” 

     Although RDI Systems is a for-profit enterprise, when Porter was asked to give a ratio of his motivations for growing the business, comparing the missed diagnostic opportunities at the time of his loved-ones’ deaths to the basic drive to make a dollar, Porter doesn’t hesitate.  He knows the answer without thinking. 

     “I have my numbers,” he says, glancing at Joyce during our interview with the couple.  “It’s ninety to ten.” 

     Almost from Day One as a Valley resident, this son of a minister has made real strides in improving lives in the region.  More than fifteen years ago, Scott Porter combined his experience
as a graduate of the first Total Quality Management (TQM) program at UCLA with his drive to give something back to the community. 

     Under the auspices of a group of TQM enthusiasts called San Fernando Valley Total Quality Council, some of whose members were fellow volunteers at United Way, Porter and his cohorts applied TQM concepts to the problem of how to employ—and maintain employment for—the unemployable.

     “With the vision of a man named Kay Inaba, and my participation very early on, we formed something called Quality Workforce Development Plus, or QWoD Plus,” explains Porter.  “It was aimed at Sylmar, Pacoima and San Fernando, trying to make a change there because it was one
of the highest poverty-level areas in the Valley.” 

     With a $750,000 grant from the federal government, QWoD set its sites on 75 individuals who, as Porter put it, “couldn’t get or keep a job flipping burgers.”

     “What we chose to do was take three sessions of twenty-five people each, to train folks to be employable in entry-level office and administrative assistant jobs at a minimum of ten dollars per hour; that’s in 1994 dollars.” 

     “My main passion now is improving diagnostics,” said Porter.  “I think RDI Systems will really make a difference.” 

     “Jorge used the administrative skills he gained in QWoD to start Urban Village,” Porter says.

     Today, Mr. Porter limits his formal civic activities to his Masonic activity.  He’s heavily involved
in a Freemasons’ program that protects kids by creating identification sheets that include their fingerprints, clear photographs, and spaces for height, weight and other information for helping
law enforcement maximize the window of opportunity during the earliest hours of a child abduction, as studies indicate are the most vital. 

     “Parents can find out more about that by visiting www.freemason.org, and clicking on child identification,” advises Porter.  But, most of his time these days is spent on another issue. 

     Through the dedication of its participants, including Scott Porter, Kay Inaba, and fifty CEOs from local corporations, QWoD had a 100-percent success rate in fulfilling its goal of gaining gainful employment for its clients, while inspiring them to improve their communities.  In fact, the frequently praised Pacoima Urban Village was founded by one of those first clients, a man named Jorge Lara.