Carole Morse
Manager Community Investments
Portland General Electric

Carole Morse grew up in a working class neighborhood in Philadelphia, one of four children, one of whom was born with a disability.  At an early age, she saw racism and witnessed cruel taunting of her disabled sister. Those experiences deeply affected her childhood and ignited a desire to be an advocate for those less fortunate.

Morse had a strong relationship with her grandmother who understood about suffering and the hard choices that can make a life better: She’d fled Poland years before leaving an abusive husband and, painfully, a son behind.

“I was very close to my grandmother … she was a great influence in my life,” says Morse, manager of community investments for Portland General Electric, and president of the PGE Foundation. “She did not know how to read, but that didn’t matter to me as a child.”

“I knew her kindness.” If kindness and support are the seedlings of growth, Morse took off. “As a child and teen-ager, I lost myself in books,” she says, celebrating the role-setting “Nancy Drew” series. “Books gave me a fantasy world, a place I could go to.”

College, however, was not a place to go to from her family. “Girls just get married,” is what Morse recalls her father insisting to her. But Carole had other ideas, and she prevailed, graduating Penn State with a bachelor’s in journalism – the first woman in her family to attend college. Her pioneering spirit and desire to help others would travel with her.

In the early 1970’s she successfully fought with women colleagues at Fortune magazine, to have their bylines appear on stories they’d researched for male writers. In 1977, she founded Kentucky’s first shelter for battered women and their children – a shelter that thrives today.

Moving to Oregon, Morse worked for Governor Barbara Roberts advising her on appointments to state boards and commissions, and spent many hours with the governor witnessing her uncommon touch with the disabled. “Governor Roberts had an uncanny ability to connect with disabled people, even when it was difficult to communicate with them,” Morse recalls. “She taught me a lot about kindness and justice.”

Morse’s expanding sense of justice resulted in her appointment, in 1999, as the first non-lesbian/non-gay trustee of the Equity Foundation, an organization dedicated to equal protections and rights for Oregon gay and lesbian people. In 2005, the Equity Foundation honored Morse with their annual Investments in Dignity Award.

At Portland General Electric, Morse manages charitable contributions and community involvement, and she is president of the company’s corporate foundation, the PGE Foundation.  In these positions, she seeks to bring company resources, ranging from grants to volunteerism, into various nonprofit programs in the community with a focus on education, arts and healthy families.
“I have long had a desire to level the playing field for people,” says Morse. “I love what I do, because I help connect the resources of the company to the needs of different groups in the community.”

Carole serves as co-chair of the board of directors of E3 and is proud of the work they do helping students succeed in school and life. “E3 programs are at the forefront of improving education in Oregon.  They’re reinventing high schools, and connecting students with adult mentors to help improve their chances for success,” says Morse. “My goal is to help E3 sustain what they have started in the years to come.”

Education is very important to Morse. After all, it delivered her from humble beginnings and allows her now, through the PGE Foundation, to give back to the community. “Kids today are not as prepared to enter the workforce as they should be,” she says. “More than ever, my generation – whether we are business people, artists, or members of the community at large – has a responsibility to offer young people a quality education. That’s the best way to level the playing field.  And that’s what inspires my work every day.