Roby Brock: Welcome to this edition of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report. I’m your host, Roby Brock. Veteran Porter Briggs shares his military and life experiences from his new book, South, Towards Home.
But the book also captures his life as a world traveler and entrepreneur, with startups in the shrubbery and passport businesses. Most notably, the book shares the powerful story of his reunion with his son, whom he gave up for adoption more than 70 years ago. Porter Briggs is our guest on today’s Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report.
Roby Brock: Welcome back to the program. Joining me now, Porter Briggs. He’s the author of a new book. We appreciate you being here.
Porter Briggs: Thank you.
Roby Brock: South, Towards Home is the name of it there. So it is a book that encompasses, like, the million things that you’ve done in your life, which is just—it’s fascinating how much you’ve done. I ask you, first off the bat, what else do you still want to do in your life? Have you done everything you’re supposed to do so far?
Porter Briggs: Not yet.
Roby Brock: No? What’s still on the list?
Porter Briggs: Well, I’m involved over in the Delta in Mariana and Clarendon with an organization over there I’ve been involved with for a few years. And before that, I spent six years over there on another project. And I’ve gotten to know the Delta real well. And there’s a lot of opportunity over there that’s not being developed.
Roby Brock: I agree with you on that. And maybe one of these days you and I will both figure out what we’re going to do when we grow up. How about that?
Porter Briggs: Boy, I don’t know. I’m looking forward to growing up, though.
Roby Brock: Tell me what made you write this book. What was the—and what was the experience like?
Porter Briggs: Well, I was turning 79 and I said, "One more year, I’m going to be 80. And when you’re 80, by any measure, you’re in the fourth quarter of life, right? And so people had been telling me for a long time that I should write about my variety of adventures. And so I decided I would do it because when you approach 80, you think about—you’re at the end, your death is on the horizon.
Roby Brock: Death is a long ways to go, let’s don’t write that off just yet.
Just a few things that you’ve been involved with. You’re obviously—you’re a veteran, and thank you so much for your service to our country. We’re coming up on Veterans Day, and I very much—I’m always appreciative of everybody who’s put on the uniform and served. You’ve also been involved in everything from catfish farming to hospitals to historic preservation. You worked with Governor Rockefeller at one time. You’ve started a passport business. Now you’re an author. I’m leaving off, like, a million things, but it’s just crazy how much stuff you’ve done in your life. I mean, when you look back on it, when you’re writing the book, are you even amazed at what an adventure you’ve had?
Porter Briggs: I’m not amazed, but I’m grateful that I was able to do all these things, and I got involved with good people and served them, and that helped me do a lot of things.
Roby Brock: Yeah. So one of the things that you did, and it’s in the very first part of the book, is you served in post–World War II Germany during the Cold War, right? Just what was that experience like for you? What was it like in Germany in those days where it was a divided country?
I was there for a long period of time. About a year before the wall fell, the Berlin Wall fell. So I know what it was like during the Cold War years, too, although it had thawed quite a bit by that time. But when you were there, it had to have been incredibly tense.
Porter Briggs: It was, militarily, it was tense because we thought the Russians were saying, we’re going to bury you. They said that literally. And so we were preparing to stop them from doing it, and we were confident we could. But at that time, President Kennedy was in office and he was the most popular person in the free world. And so we were extremely welcome. And so the Americans were walking on clouds in the eyes of the Europeans.
Roby Brock: He was a Berliner, wasn’t he?
Porter Briggs: Oh my gosh, they loved it. He was on the cover—he and his family and his two little children were on the cover of all the papers and the newsstands. So it was a good time to be there in that sense.
Roby Brock: So tell me, what gets you back to Arkansas after your military experience?
Porter Briggs: Well, I had a business in Little Rock. I came back here and got involved with Governor Rockefeller, and we started an organization called Arkansas Careers. And he said, I’ll put the money up if you’ll run it. And so I ran it for a couple of years. And the idea was to keep college graduates in Arkansas.
That was not long after the 1957 integration crisis in Little Rock looked really bad in America because people thought of us as racist, and so we had to combat that, and particularly with college graduates, because we were trying to keep them here. So we did that, and I did it for a couple of years. And the main thing about it of interest is that I spoke to every Rotary Club in Arkansas and most of the Lions and Kiwanis clubs, churches, and student groups. So I really got a good microscopic look at Arkansas, for sure.
Roby Brock: One of the things you write about in your book is you write about your reconnection with your son, whom you had adopted. Y’all were separated—I think you even said you abandoned him when he was younger. Tell me about that whole journey.
Porter Briggs: When I was in the Army, I had the good fortune to meet a number of Swedish and Norwegian students at the University of Heidelberg, which was about 25 kilometers, 16 or 17 miles, from where I was stationed. So I was with them every free moment. I was with all these Norwegian and Swedish students. And I went with them to a party on Midsummer’s Night in 1963. And I know how to dance. Everybody did back then. And a girl asked me to dance, and I danced with her. And she said, "Why don’t you come home with me?" And I did for one night. And a son was conceived.
And I came from an alcoholic family. My mother was an alcoholic, bless her heart. And so I had shut down my feelings to deal with the pain of that. And so I didn’t really feel anything. So I went with this woman who was then pregnant from that one night together. And so I insisted she put up the child for adoption. And during her pregnancy, she went to Zurich, Switzerland, to live with her high school roommate. And that’s where he was born. We put him up for adoption.
Roby Brock: How did you reconnect with him?
Porter Briggs: I was working on Wall Street 24 years later, traveling all over the world. I was living in New York City, working for a big national firm called Drexel Burnham Lambert. And a guy there said, I want you to go call on a client in Zurich, Switzerland, which is about 45 minutes from Zurich. And I went to Zurich, and I thought, this is where my son is. So I hired a lawyer to find him. And she worked on it, and we worked on it for 25 years without success. And then finally I called her, and my wife and I decided to go there to make one last effort to find him because nothing happened. By then, he was 49 years old. And we found him.
Roby Brock: So what is the relationship like today?
Porter Briggs: It’s very close. My wife got a text from our daughter-in-law night before last just saying how much he missed her and wanted to see her. We’re very close. I’m about to have my 85th birthday coming up. So my son is coming. His name is Tobias Diener. We call him Toby. Good name.
Roby Brock: That is a good name.
Porter Briggs: His is spelled with an “i,” yours with a “y.” So we’re very close. He’s a great guy. He looks a lot like me.
Roby Brock: That’s Porter Briggs. The book is South, Towards Home. You can find it at bookstores as well as online. You can catch more of our interview at NWABusinessJournal.com.
That’s all for this edition of the Northwest Arkansas Business Journal Report. I’m your host, Roby Brock. Until next time, take care.
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