Since coming to AAIS in 1986, Bill has overseen the transformation and expansion of AAIS’s electronic services. Among other things, Bill has been instrumental in three major initiatives:

• The development of rating software for AAIS programs;

• The creation of a networked environment that allowed electronic transmission and sharing of files among AAIS staff members and customers; and

• The creation of the AAISdirect web-based platform for providing desktop access to forms, manuals, and bulletins.

AAIS was Bill’s fourth employer in a 37-year career in data processing, but it stands out in his mind as the organization “where you really got to know your customers.”

“At AAIS, I’ve had the most contact with customers of any place I’ve worked,” he says.

Apart from his day-to-day interactions with customers, Bill and his wife, June, have been integral participants in the AAIS Annual Conference, where Bill has coordinated golf events and June has volunteered to coordinate spouse events.

In the mid-1990s, Bill also participated in numerous meetings of the statistical committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. At the time, consumer activists and their political allies were challenging the propriety of advisory organization activities.

Bill recalls that the direct threat to advisory organizations passed with the November 1994 elections that brought about a Republican takeover of Congress and the election of numerous Republican governors and insurance commissioners.

Yet, the scrutiny given to statistical collection and ratemaking functions had a long-term impact.

“Before all that, the level of review given statistical data was not even close to what it is now,” he says.

Early years

Bill grew up in Naperville, Ill., not far from AAIS’s current building, at a time when that community was still a small factory town of 7,000 people about 20 miles west of downtown Chicago. Since his childhood, Naperville has grown rapidly into a city of 130,000 on Chicago’s suburban periphery.

Bill earned a bachelor’s degree in management from Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, in January 1966 and immediately enlisted in the U.S. Army. He spent his two years in the service as a clerk for an armored unit in southern Germany.

“It’s where I refined my love of beer,” says Bill, who now brews his own as a hobby.

Upon returning to the U.S. in 1968, Bill took a position at an electronics manufacturer in Crystal Lake, Ill., where he and June have lived for 37 years, and where they raised their two children: Bill, Jr. (35) and Laura (29).

His first job after the army introduced Bill to data processing, and he later worked for North American Philips, a conglomerate based in Skokie, Ill, and the Wurlitzer Co., DeKalb, the once well-known maker of pianos, organs, and jukeboxes.

None of those organizations gave Bill the satisfaction he’s experienced at AAIS, however.

“Working with our customers has always been a joy,” he says.