Page 2 - Trustee Russell Stokes
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MSM Trustee Russell Stokes
Atlanta business leader and advocate for better health
care and education — helps create scholarship fund for
s a teenager, Russell cousin was drafted, Stokes real-
Stokes lifted weights, ized it was unlikely he himself
Awore the number 29, would ever play in the pros.
and sprinted hills by himself at Still, Stokes didn’t get discour-
night in an effort to be more like aged. Instead, he took his drive
the famous Black running back and desire and set out on another
Eric Dickerson, nicknamed “Mr. career path, becoming the kind
Fourth Quarter” for his ability to of business leader who motivates
tap into a late-game reservoir of others to make a difference.
speed and stamina. He is now a 21-year veteran
Stokes had the grit, skill, and at GE, currently serving as the
competitive spirit required for a President and Chief Executive Of-
career in the National Football ficer of GE Power Portfolio and a TRUSTEE RUSSELL STOKES
League. But he was on the smaller member of the Board of Trustees
side, and when his much-larger at Morehouse School of Medicine. “I decided to accomplish the
best I could on a different playing
field,” he says.
When Stokes was a child, grow-
ing up in Shaker Heights, Oh., his
father — then an engineer with
General Motors Co. — would
drop puzzles in front of the boy,
who would then stay up for hours,
determined to find the solutions.
He loved creating complex dom-
ino designs, then toppling them.
Rube Goldberg machines were an-
other favorite, captivating Stokes
with gears and pulleys that created
chain reactions to perform simple
tasks in overly complicated ways
He also enjoyed accompany-
ing his grandfather on calls for
his washer-and-dryer business,
holding a flashlight or turning a
screwdriver while they repaired a
machine.
