Mike started training customer service people in 1985, taking responsibility for training over 300 tellers who handled up to $2,000,000 cash daily. In the following decades, he developed training materials and programs for many corporations, eventually leading to curriculum development, program management and teaching in the Opus College of Business (OCB) at the University of St. Thomas (UST).
Mike’s successes include creating, developing and deploying the Master of Science in Health Care Communication, and serving as Faculty Director of the program and the Master of Science in Health Care Innovation after a decade as Director of the Master of Business Communication program at UST. Mike launched the first fully online classes at OCB in 2015, based on standards set by Quality Matters, a leading online education assessment organization.
Beyond the classroom, Mike also conducts research on communication topics, mystery shopping and customer service, with scholarly work appearing in publications such as the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Service.
In addition to Doctorate in Leadership, Policy and Administration from the University of St. Thomas, Graduate School of Education, Porter holds an MBA in Marketing from the University of St. Thomas and a BS in Mass Communication from Bemidji State University. As an accredited member of the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), Mike served as the Ethics Officer for the Minnesota chapter, and was inducted into the PRSA College of Fellows in 2020.