Bill grew up in Rockingham County, VA. He attended James Madison University earning a BS degree following two years in the Army. He worked four years as an elementary school librarian and twenty-six years as the technical librarian for Aeronautical Radio, Inc., ARINC. He earned a graduate certificate in Technical Information Systems from American University and a masters degree in Library and Information Science from the Catholic University of America. He and his wife, Nancy worked several times at the Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China. Later they worked in Prague, Czech Republic and Moscos, Russia creating OPACs for seminary libraries.