William Everett Potter, Joe. Soldier, engineer, executive, father. What a fun man to have known and to have worked with. Always that gracious twinkle in his eye, he knew what you were trying to say before you said it. Recognized for extreme competence on the job, he used that talent in his support of the better things in life for others. Dedicated to his family, to his friends and associates, to his Walt Disney organization, to his beloved Army, and to his country, he justified the unique esteem in which he was held by so many.
He started life on 17 July 1905 in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, the son of William Bradford and Arlie Johnson Potter. The family moved to Beloit, Wisconsin during the first World War, then to Toledo, Ohio, where he completed Scott High School and was appointed to the Military Academy. Entering in July 1923, his first trip away from home, he was assigned to the 7th division of barracks where the BP or janitor was Joe Potter. The Beast Detail immediately dubbed WE Potter “Joe,” as he was known from then on. Two-thirds of his Howitzer bio extols his record as the fastest plebe to ever run the stairs—three flights, 26 seconds round-trip. Three years after entering, he was a cadet captain in charge of the Beast Detail. A plebe that resigned implicated five in hazing, and Joe was one, ostensibly for attempting to find a plebe that could break his record. So Joe dropped back to the Class of ‘28, retained warm friends in both ‘27 and ‘28, and graduated into the Corps of Engineers, with a love for the Academy and its purpose.
As a junior lieutenant in the 1st Engineers in Delaware, Joe was introduced to Army administration and peacetime drill. Within the year he was off to Nicaragua for three years, to serve under Leslie Groves, to study the alternate route for a new canal, and, incidentally, to receive his first campaign decoration. He returned to the United States and a much-desired year at MIT for his degree in civil engineering; then to the Pittsburgh Engineer District where he was engineer in charge of Tygart Dam in West Virginia and then Emsworth Dam in Pennsylvania. Three years of heavy engineering with field experience in the flood emergency of 1936 followed.
In Grafton, West Virginia, he courted and wed Ruth Turner, his beloved Ruthie, now living in Orlando, Florida. His two daughters, Jo Ann Heine, also of Orlando, and Susan Schull of Honolulu, who is daughter-in-law of classmate Hermie Schull, are the parents of Joe’s four grandsons and two granddaughters. No prouder grandfather existed.
Joe Potter went to Belvoir and the Advanced Course in 1936; was pulled out for flood duty in 1937; then spent three years as assistant PMS&T at Ohio State, an assignment he loved; then a year in the 16th and 24th Armored Engineer Battalions as World War II mobilization started; followed by a short C&GSS at Leavenworth; back to armored engineer battalions, first to the 23rd as exec, then as CO of the 1138th Engineer Group of the new II Armored Corps—a total of five armored engineer units in three years.
Ordered to London and Headquarters ETO in November 1943, Joe Potter initially was chief of Troops Section G-3; then executive officer of the Psychological Warfare Division which he put together, his first brush with motion-picture people whom he came to admire; and then was named chief of the Planning Branch G-4 ETO. He was deeply involved in, and responsible for, the planning of vast portions of supplying the invasion of Europe and the subsequent march to Germany. Preparation of units, over-the-beach logistics, ports, pipelines, rail and truck transport, depots, a myriad of other logistical areas as well as related organization and command were all in Joe Potter’s planning domain. He was particularly pleased with his part in creating the Red Ball Express when the railroads of France proved unequal to the demand.
In July 1945, the war in Europe over, Joe Potter was assigned as District Engineer, Kansas City—three years of flood control, civil works and military construction. Pulled out to trouble-shoot as Alaska District Engineer, Joe was ordered to Fort Richardson to take on a crash construction program, then out of control. A year later, with that situation successfully restored, General Pick, the Chief of Engineers, named Joe the Corps’ Chief of Civil Works in Washington, followed by Assistant Chief of Engineers for planning the St. Lawrence Seaway and the interrelation with Canada. Then came the National War College, where he was promoted to brigadier general while a student. Next, he was named Missouri River Division Engineer for four years of huge dam construction, Korean War military construction, and massive SAC Air Force projects—all involving political, public relations, and financial, as well as technical ramifications.
The President appointed Joe Potter, by then a major general, governor of the Canal Zone and president of the Panama Canal Company in 1956. He was personally responsible for administering a zone of fifty thousand residents, for operation of this critical waterway, its widening and modernization to take care of spiraling ship traffic, and the improvement of facilities for its employees, both US and Panamanian. He became a most respected and revered governor, in spite of an anti-Potter campaign generated in the local press as a result of the nationalistic riots in 1959 in Panama.
Retiring from the Army he loved in 1960 after 37 years in uniform, with the Distinguished Service Medal, the Legion of Merit, the Bronze Star and the French Croix de Guerre, Joe Potter joined Robert Moses as executive vice-president for the New York World’s Fair of 1964-65 and served as a board member for the fair. Joe was responsible for participation of the states and assisted with other nations and private companies. Walt Disney had four exhibits at the fair and through this association, Walt and he became close friends. When the fair closed in 1965, Joe joined the Disney organization in California as vice-president for Florida planning. He traveled widely, seeking out what was new in US industry, what was envisioned for the future, to be used not only in the Magic Kingdom phase of the Walt Disney World concept but also in the future EPCOT, Walt’s Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow. In 1968, Joe and Ruthie moved to Orlando, the first senior Disney official resident in Florida. Joe worked closely with the state, counties, and local governments in establishing the special legislation necessary to build Walt Disney World as Walt had envisioned. The Reedy Creek Improvement District was established by the state and Joe became its first president and general manager. The district holds all governmental authority on the Disney World 28,000 acres to the exclusion of normal county authority. Joe had designed, built and operated the water control systems, the utility systems, the public roads, and administered the district’s own building code. In 1973, with Walt Disney World a runaway success, Joe, then senior vice-president, retired from the Disney organization. For the next 12 years he ran a corporate consulting firm with his friend (and Naval Academy graduate) Admiral Joe Fowler, who incidentally had built the original Disneyland in California. Joe Potter served on numerous commissions and boards; among many: the Carlisle Corporation, the Florida Gas Company, the American Bankers’ Insurance Company, the Florida Council of 100, the Loch Haven Art Museum, the Orlando Regional Medical Center, and the Greater Orlando Aviation Authority (vice-chairman). He was an Honorary Doctor of Philosophy of Drexel Institute.
Joe Potter watched the 1988 Army-Navy game from his hospital bed. Two days later, on 5 December 1988, with family and dear friends with him, Joe quietly passed away as his heart failed. Headline in the Orlando Sentinel the next morning read: “Joe Potter, Disney’s Behind-the-Scenes Man, Dies at 83.” Quotes from distinguished citizens: “Joe Potter was Mr. Disney to the natives of Orlando. He was the bridge between the community and Disney.” “He was a man Walt Disney was very fond of. Without a Joe Potter there would be no Walt Disney World today.” Six hundred people paid their respects at his memorial service at the First Presbyterian Church of Orlando.
And so we have lost a husband, a father, a dear friend, a doer, a great guy. We are better for having known him; the world is a better place because he was here.
HCJ ‘45