It was 1970 and Bill Williams, BS Economics ’74, was stationed at Marine Corps Base Quantico after completing a tour in Vietnam. He’d just earned an early discharge from the Marine Corps and was considering his next steps in life.
In a classic case of “it’s who you know,” a neighbor introduced him to the director of admissions at what was then George Mason College. Although the semester’s admissions window had closed, the director made an exception. “He said, ‘I’m sure we have a place for one more Marine,’” said Williams.
The admissions director’s hunch was correct: Williams didn’t just do well at George Mason– he thrived. Earning an award for scholarship and graduating with a 3.7 GPA in under four years, Williams found his calling while serving as counsel on honor code violations brought before George Mason’s Academic Standards Committee. “I discovered there was a lawyer lurking in me,” he said. He canceled his graduate school plans and enrolled in law school instead, earning a juris doctor from the University of Virginia in 1977.
Williams’s 45-year legal career included working for prestigious law firms Fulbright & Jaworski (now Norton Rose) and Sidley Austin, representing interstate natural gas, crude oil, and products pipelines, as well as other clients before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.
These days he is semi-retired and has come full circle.
Now a solo practitioner, Williams has continued his longtime support of George Mason’s Economics Department. He hosts dinners for the department, has served as a guest lecturer, and has made significant gifts to the department’s Howard R. Bloch Memorial Award, in appreciation for the eponymous George Mason professor whose teaching had been impactful in Williams’s academic career. The award recognizes the department’s top performing student each year. Williams also mentors pre-law students at George Mason.
On Mason Vision Day 2025, Williams included in his giving the Office of University Life in support of the expansion of the Patriot Pantry. The pantry serves George Mason students who are experiencing food insecurity, by providing access to non-perishable food and hygiene items.
After learning more about the pantry’s work, he was inspired to make a gift. “I didn’t know there were homeless and hungry people at George Mason,” he said, adding that “they probably won’t name a building after me but at least some hungry students can have food as a result of my contribution.”
Written by: Jamie Rogers