Neil Port plays the piano at his Hollidaysburg home. After a successful career as a businessman and entrepreneur, Port co-founded P&J Productions, which recently celebrated its 50th show in 18 years. Mirror photo by Patrick Waksmunski

Neil Port vividly recollects the first time he stepped onto the Mishler Theatre stage — as a 5-year-old tap dancer with the Ruth Barnes School of Dance.

The appearance ignited a lifelong love of music that continues to this day for the 84-year-old Hollidaysburg resident.

“As I was dancing, it seemed to me this piano player was off her rhythm and it just annoyed me so much that I gave up dancing — big loss for the world of dance,” he quipped dryly. “My mother then took me to a piano teacher at age 6. Music has been a very important part of my life ever since.”

After a long, successful career as an entrepreneur in business, Port continues to mentor others through his work as a community entertainment producer with P&J Productions, which recently celebrated its 50th show in 18 years.

It’s a continuation of Port’s legacy in business, which started in 1965 as chief financial officer at Sky Bros., a family-owned food distribution company.

Port, his brother and his two cousins, grew the company and attained a national reputation prior to its sale in 1986 to Sarah Lee.

During his tenure, Port created several other businesses, which initially fulfilled a need at Sky Bros. and then expanded and became their own entities as Canaan Station Print Shop, Delta Computers Inc. and Lo-Temp Express, a refrigerated transportation business.

“We had to be innovative,” Port said, citing the company’s location in Blair County. “We saw a need and then offered services to others.”

Delta Computers became Delta Health System, the largest software provider to the home health care industry. It’s where Kevin Crownover of Hollidaysburg met Port 40 years ago, when he was hired as a computer operator at Delta.

“He created a culture with opportunities where people could prove themselves,” Crownover said, including a mentoring program.

“He’s a person who is open and inclusive,” and “there is no one he wouldn’t say hello to,” he said, noting Port has an extensive “coach’s tree” of people who later went on to be business leaders themselves.

“It’s an outgrowth of his personality and his character. He gives people a chance, and he doesn’t prejudge people,” said Crownover, who rose to become CEO at Delta and spent a lot of time with Port as they traveled together to grow the company.

Port created teams of experts and allowed them to flourish. Even with his success, Port remains humble and humorous, with self-deprecating and corny jokes, Crownover said.

If interactions at a gathering stalled, Port would sit down at a piano and lead sing-alongs that would totally change the mood for the better, Crownover said.

For Port, that’s the underlying purpose of P&J Productions, to lift people out of the day-to-day and provide a respite from problems and concerns.

While his wife was undergoing treatment for breast cancer in 2007, Crownover experienced such an uplift through Port’s quiet generosity.

Port gifted them tickets to a P&J show.

“We weren’t really in the mood to go to a show, but it was exactly what we needed,” Crownover said. “It was a chance to focus on something else. He did something very simple … it’s about using drama to bring it into people’s lives.”

Port’s musical knowledge and talents as a musician are lesser known but extensive, said Will Jones, his partner in P&J Productions.

The actors involved in the amateur theater group tend to be in their 20s and 30s and look to express their creative side through P&J. The actors know Port through P&J, through his acting roles and from opening each show.

They aren’t familiar, Jones said, of Port’s prodigious entrepreneurial and business successes, yet Port connects with young people.

“They absolutely adore that guy,” Jones said. “He is like everyone’s father and grandfather. He’s funny and smart, and he knows music. I’m not sure many understand how great a musician he is.”

Jones added that Port is a “very competent piano player and his ear is so good it’s annoying. In a group of 30 people, he can hear the one person who is off key. I don’t think people realize how musically gifted he is. He’s a musician who knows music, but we laugh about how he can’t sing a lick.”

Port took up the trombone at the suggestion of Altoona High School band leader and music teacher John Monti. He played in marching bands throughout junior high and high school and later at Penn State.

He also joined and played in high school dance bands put together by classmate Paul Winter. Winter, a band leader, composer and saxophonist, is a seven-time Grammy winner.

“We’re in pretty close contact,” Port said. “Music has always been this serendipitous part of my life.”

Music brought him back to the Mishler Theatre stage when his daughter Susan auditioned for a role in an Altoona Community Theatre production.

“I decided to go to the auditions with her. After she had her audition, I jumped up on the stage and I auditioned. We both got parts. It was totally spontaneous and unplanned on my part,” he said.

It’s one of many examples of serendipitous situations that Port recognized and used to full advantage.

Another was his meeting of Jones, when both were in a Cresson Lake Playhouse production of “The Music Man.”

It was the start of a deep friendship and the creation of P&J Productions, as a vehicle to bring Jones’ musicals to audiences, and developed into a production company that brings live theater and other entertainment to the area.

P&J donates proceeds from shows to benefit area nonprofit organizations. During their 18 years, donations total more than $130,000.

“P&J has been a magnificent addition to the arts community,” said Kate Shaffer, executive director of the Blair County Arts Foundation, which owns and maintains the Mishler Theatre.

P&J rents the theater four times a year, she said.

Port previously served as president of the BCAF and has been “very, very supportive of all restoration efforts,” Shaffer said. “They are very terrific people and very arts driven and their efforts are extremely impactful.”

Giving back to the community was instilled by Port’s parents, Sam and Rose, said Mickey Port, his wife of nearly 62 years.

A retired private pilot, Neil Port likens the planning and rehearsals that go into a P&J Production to preparing for a flight.

“I like how you have to practice for it. I like the execution,” Port said. “I like that we’ve given away a lot of money. … I like how the audiences react to our shows. To me, if I can put on a quality show and people come and share two hours of respite from the real world then that’s a Jewish mitzvah — that’s a good deed.”

The Port file

Name: Neil Port

Age: 84

Residence: Hollidaysburg

Family: Wife, Mickey; children: Lisa Port White of Massachusetts, Susan Port of State College and Larry Port of Florida; and six grandchildren

Career: Former president of Sky Bros. and Delta Computers Inc./Delta Health System; co-founder of P&J Productions

Education: Altoona High School Class of 1957; bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, Penn State University, 1961

Awards and honors: Penn State Alumni Fellow, AAHS Distinguished Alumni

Community involvement: Member of numerous boards, including Blair County Arts Foundation; chairman of Agudith Achim Synogogue’s B’Nai B’rith Scholarship Foundation for 56 years