Peter W. Stott

Peter Stott and his twin sister were born in 1944 in Spokane, Washington, and are the oldest of five children. Not long after their births, the family moved to Oregon, where Stott's father taught at the University of Portland. Despite his father's high level of education, "he didn't earn enough money in those early days to support a large family, and he had to work two and three jobs for a while. In 1954, he got a better paying job with a chemical company, and he never returned to teaching."

Stott's mother was a bookkeeper before she married, but later she stayed home to take care of the family. "There were seven of us in a small home with one bathroom," he says. "In the summertime, we had a half-bath on the back porch, but it would freeze in the winter and couldn't be used then. Money was always tight for us, but we seemed to have all our necessities taken care of."

At some point during Stott's childhood, his mother became sick. "I can't remember the specifics," he says. "We lived near my grandparents, and my sister and I were sent to live with them when my mother was ill. I'm not sure how long we were there, maybe a year, but it was long enough for me to really get to know my grandmother. She was a wonderful lady. She was a taskmaster, but she was also an encourager. She always told us to hitch our sleigh to the tallest star and go as far as we could in life. She was very inspirational to me."

Stott was a Boy Scout, and he loved hiking and camping. At 14, he joined a local climbing club and ascended 11,245 feet to the summit of Mt. Hood. He went to climbing school and eventually became a guide, and then spent his summers climbing the Cascades for 10 years. "Climbing teaches you the importance of teamwork," he says. "When you are roped together with four or five climbers, they are as dependent upon you as you are on them. It's about self- reliance. Just as important, it's about responsibility."

Stott soon discovered that he liked work more than school. At age nine, he accompanied his father on a side job to paint the inside of the university's science building. Stott was up on scaffolding three stories high to reach the ceiling. "It was a job no child would be allowed to do today, but I enjoyed it," he says. "When he was 10, Stott got a paper route. In the summers, he also mowed lawns and picked berries, and he was already involved in several endeavors at the same time.

In high school, Stott played football for two years and ran track all four years; he also worked two summers at a meatpacking plant and was a janitor during the school year. But he was eager to graduate and to get on with his life. He attended Portland State University off and on for six years, between 1962 and 1968, while working as a truck driver and dockworker just long enough to pay for one term at a time. One of those jobs led to his hauling cucumbers to a processing plant on the weekends.

Stott originally planned to become a high school football coach, and he actually served as an assistant coach at his old high school for his first two years of college, but he soon realized that he wanted something more challenging. Because he enjoyed the outdoors, he considered forestry as a career; eventually, that major changed again to business and finance. Meanwhile, Stott got the chance to purchase a long-haul truck from the immigrant farmer he had been working for, and one of his college professors loaned him part of the money he needed to buy it.

"My plan was to drive that truck during the summer of 1969, and then I would park it and go back and finish school," says Stott. "But I ended up buying two other trucks that summer, so I put off going back to school. Moe, who owned the local truck stop, cleaned out a broom closet to make an office for me. By the fall of 1970, I had six trucks. I sort of tiptoed into my business. By the time I had six trucks, I knew that's what I wanted to pursue."

Stott worked as a driver for about four years, then he began running his business full time. He made his first $1 million in 1976 at the age of 32. In 1989, he hired a president to take over the daily operation of Market Transport Ltd., which had by then become one of Oregon's largest trucking and logistics providers, and Stott stayed on as chairman. When he sold the company in 2006, it had a 1,000-truck fleet and about 2,500 employees.

Stott soon felt ready for a new challenge. With a partner, he co-founded Crown Pacific, a forest products company that bought and sold timberlands in Oregon. In 2004, Stott sold Crown Pacific's assets.

"I like a challenge," Stott says. "I think it is just my personality to continue to work. I guess that was instilled in me at a young age, to be self-reliant and to work hard. My advice to young people is to get a good education and develop a good work ethic. I took a few chances with my career when I was young, and I don't regret it. You don't always hit a home run, but you can afford to take a loss when you are young. I don't think you should be afraid of failure."

For Stott, the American dream is starting with nothing and making something of your life. "I grew up with little, but I was fortunate that opportunities came my way. Some I made myself; others came along at the right time. The key to it all was knowing how to make those opportunities work for me and going after them."

Stott believes those kind of opportunities still exist today although it is probably a more challenging environment for today's young people than it was when he was a young man. "Opportunity does still knock, and I am honored to become part of an organization that helps young people with their education so they can make those opportunities work for them," he says. "I am very passionate about helping our young people get a good start in life. Receiving the Horatio Alger Award and becoming a member of this Association is humbling and a real honor."

The Peter & Julie Stott Foundation has helped support dozens of organizations throughout the country. Stott has served on multiple boards that have collectively raised millions of dollars for education, medicine, women and children, the arts, and the environment. He and his wife have also endowed university scholarships, directorships, and professorships. "The primary focus of our foundation is education, because education is the greatest neutralizer in the world and holds the most promise for helping the next generation," he says.

Stott has been a member of the board of directors of Gerding/Edlen Development Company, one of the nation's leading real estate investment and development firms focused on urban, infill, office, apartment, and mixed-use properties; and Omega Morgan, one of the Northwest's leading providers of complex lifting, rigging, and moving solutions.

Stott is a former board member of River Point Farms, America's largest onion grower; Con-way, Inc., which was the nation's third-largest less-than-truckload carrier; and Liberty Northwest Insurance Company, a Liberty Mutual Company. His community leadership activities also include membership in the Portland State University Board of Trustees, the Portland Art Museum Board of Trustees, and the Founders' Circle at SOLVE; and board membership in the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans and the Kennedy Center's National Committee for the Performing Arts.

In 1997, Stott received the National Multiple Sclerosis Society Hope Award. He has also received the Oregon Entrepreneur of the Year; the SOLVE Tom McCall Leadership Award; the AFP Outstanding Philanthropists Award; Portland State University's President's Award, Simon Benson Award, and Doctor of Humane Letters, Honoris Causa; and was inducted into National Multiple Sclerosis Society's Volunteer Hall of Fame.