Over his career, Bill has served as an adviser to CEOs, governors, grantmakers and community leaders, helping them identify opportunities and clarify strategic choices for increasing their impact in the education sector. He joined Education First as a partner in 2008 to help create an organization that would consistently provide these leaders with the best advice and support and to build stronger capacities to ensure students from marginalized communities are succeeding.
In addition to helping guide Education First, he has led many of the firm’s strategy and research projects to develop and design new grantmaking approaches, facilitate and advise multi-state teams of policymakers, and help education leaders better align P16 systems, strengthen student transitions and identify actionable data on student and school success.
Growing up in Colorado but a resident of the Pacific Northwest for nearly 30 years, Bill and his wife have two children (both on the cusp on their own transitions, into high school and into college). He is the former co-chair of All Hands Raised, which is working to create a more seamless system of supports—and better outcomes—for Portland (Oregon)-area students from pre-kindergarten to high school, and he co-leads the grantmaking team for Social Venture Partners, a giving circle working to ensure all children in Portland start kindergarten ready to learn. Throughout the school year, he also meets and reads weekly with kindergartners at a neighborhood Title I school. Bill holds a B.A. in English with Distinction from The Colorado College.
