After serving as CEO of the Selma-Dallas County YMCA for nearly three years, Bill Porter is turning in his membership.

Born and raised in Selma, Porter said the YMCA has always played an active role in his life.

“The Y has meant a lot to me,” Porter said. “I was a camp director there before I went into the banking business, so I had that Y background before I even took the job.”

After retiring in 2010, Porter said he was contacted by the YMCA board and asked if he would take on the role of CEO. As someone who has always been a strong supporter of the Y, Porter said he was happy to take the position.

“The Y had been having some issues at that point and needed someone who knew Selma,” Porter said. “I wanted to give back to the Y and give back to my hometown, so I thought I’d give it a try.”

Knowing he had a large undertaking, Porter said the first thing he did as CEO was streamline the Y’s finances. He said making sure he could do everything to help the Y and see it out of debt was paramount.

“We knew that at the end of 2011 if we didn’t do something, we would be back in bad debt,” Porter said. “As a staff we had to go in and look at all the Y’s strong points in order to best utilize them. We got our staff reorganized, all of our equipment repaired and we started to move forward.”

Now retiring — for the second time — in Auburn, Porter said he is looking forward to spending more time with family.

“I’ll always be a strong supporter of the YMCA and my hometown os Selma,” he said. “And I feel like I’m leaving the Y as a very functional organization with a very strong future.”