With a natural aptitude for math and science, he was able to attend the Merchant Marine Academy, where he obtained a bachelor’s of science in engineering, before receiving his master’s degree from Northwestern University. Bill found engineering to be a rewarding profession and his success in the engineering field led him to a variety of leadership positions at some of the world’s most prominent engineering companies, including roles as the CEO of GE Infrastructure and a Co-Founding Partner of Global Infrastructure Partners.

Throughout his career, Bill noticed that the United States did not offer nearly enough opportunities for students to consider engineering as a career—particularly female and minority students.

While he excelled at math and science classes in high school, he remembers thinking that those courses never provided the practical applications that demonstrated how engineers use science and math to design and build the innovative products and processes that touch every part of our world today. That lack of exposure to practical applications for math and science—combined with a lack of engineers in many low-income and working-class neighborhoods like the one he grew up in—leaves many students today without an understanding of what engineers do and the great potential that a career in engineering holds. 

Bill believes that the failure to expose so many high school students to the field of engineering leaves a tremendous amount of untapped potential in the United States. He founded Engineering Tomorrow to reach all students, no matter the communities that they come from, and to show them the exciting opportunities that a career in engineering affords.