Ep. 10: Brotherly Bonds, Career Choices, and Healing Old Wounds with Bill

In this wide-ranging episode, Marbree sits down with Bill, whose reflections span snow-filled childhoods in upstate New York, profound personal loss, an unexpected career path, and decades of devoted fatherhood. Bill opens up about losing his father and brother at a young age, the years he spent “sleepwalking” through early adulthood, and how falling in love with his wife and daughter brought him back to life. Along the way, he shares insights about leadership, dyslexia, mentorship, and the importance of being honest about what you truly want.

🎧 Key Moments in the Episode

• [[00:00:00] – A Snowy Childhood in Upstate New York
  
  
  
• [00:05:00] – Losing His Father at 16 and Becoming the Oldest Brother
  
  
  
• [00:16:43] – The Vietnam Draft Lottery and a Life-Changing Number
  
  
  
• [00:20:22] – An Unexpected Opportunity Launches a Career in IT
  
  
  
• [00:24:00] – Falling in Love and Becoming a Father Overnight
  
  
  
• [00:30:11] – Bonding and the Power of a Found Family
  
  
  
• [00:36:35] – Why Finding the Right Work Matters More Than Any Promotion
  
  
  
• [00:40:58] – The Small Gestures That Make a Mother’s Love Last

• [00:48:04] – Final Reflections
  
  

💬 If this episode resonated with you:

• Share it with someone who might also find resonance
  
  
  
• Leave a review or rating wherever you listen
  
  
  
• Follow the show for more life stories

Transcript

[00:00:00] Marbree: Welcome to the words we've heard. This is Marbree Sullivan, and each week I sit down with a baby boomer to capture their stories, ask for a bit of advice, and hold on to the memories of the post World War II generation. Join me as we journey through everyday lives and extraordinary stories.

[00:00:24] If you've listened to other episodes of this podcast. Well, first of all, thank you. Secondly, if you listened to episode eight with Kris Montgomery, then some of the story you're about to hear will sound familiar. Bill is Kris's husband. He also happens to be a college fraternity brother of my father. So someone I've not known much about beyond the occasional story of late 1960s, early seventies shenanigans.

[00:00:53] Bill and I spoke for a long time and I hope he'll forgive me for trimming our discussion. You may hear some [00:01:00] of his other words in a future episode, but I'll tell you more about that in a few weeks. Like Kris, Bill's life was shaped by events that he could not have foreseen, and he's been dealt more tragedy and seems fair.

[00:01:14] He's also the beneficiary of good timing, entering the workforce at a moment when his skillset and interests lined up with the new world of computing.

[00:01:30] Hi, bill. Thank you for sitting down with me. I really appreciate it. 

[00:01:33] Bill: You're welcome. 

[00:01:34] Marbree: All right, we're gonna dive right in. Knowing that you grew up in upstate New York, how would you describe your childhood? 

[00:01:42] Bill: Outside of the weather, probably a typical upbringing of probably many places in the country. It was rural ish, but a small city of 25, 30,000.

[00:01:51] What was unique was the weather. The amount of snow and cold was just incredible. Getting a four foot snow storm was not out of the [00:02:00] question multiple times during the year. Being in a car and coming to a stop sign and not being able to see if there's any cars on the oncoming road because the snowbank is so high.

[00:02:10] You can't see anything. Winters going out to shovel. It was, it was fun. Uh, as a kid, actually as an adult, I liked it. Driving in the snow was fun, uh, because it wasn't, you know, you get the dirty winter where it turns brown and it rarely was dirty. It was just fluffy, all like, 

[00:02:28] Marbree: how did you get to school? 

[00:02:29] Bill: Um.

[00:02:30] Grade school walk. My brothers might drive me to junior high school, so eighth grade. But after that drive 

[00:02:37] Marbree: in those heavy snowstorms, was school canceled or did you still have to walk through the snow? 

[00:02:41] Bill: School would be canceled on a heavy snowstorm, but the next day it's all shoveled and the snow piles are, I mean, we'd have mountains of snow in parking lots and things like that, and the side of the road, but they're almost all shoveled.

[00:02:52] So you'd make your way down, made it fun. It was, uh, kind of a wind or wonderland. 

[00:02:56] Marbree: So what did you do in the summers as a child, you know, for fun? [00:03:00] 

[00:03:00] Bill: For fun. We were only 15 miles from Lake Ontario and, um, we sailed and swam. So starting at eight years old or whatever, you would go and learn how to swim and sail and, and play games and do stuff like that from then until you were probably 13 or so.

[00:03:16] So that was, we had a sailboat. My dad used to race the sailboat, so our whole lives I lived on the water sailing and stuff like that. 

[00:03:23] Marbree: How did your family end up in Watertown? 

[00:03:25] Bill: My dad was born there. Uh, and my mother was American, but her family was Canadian and they met each other in a little town called Sagas Harbor, right near Watertown and near our cottage right now at a camp.

[00:03:40] My dad was a counselor and he was two years older than my mom, and uh, he became a surgeon. So he, he went to med school and his father was a doctor. And, uh, after residency he went back to Watertown and that's how they stayed there. Okay. It was a great place for growing up. I had, uh, one uncle and one aunt in that area, joke in the family.[00:04:00] 

[00:04:00] So my father was six, two and a half, and, uh, a big band. My uncle was six two, tall and thin. He was an architect and my aunt was under five feet. And, uh. Everybody in our town that my parents knew were aunt and uncle. I was 13 years old when I realized they were our real aunt and uncle. That's old. They had five kids younger than us and we would be with Christmas every year.

[00:04:26] And I remember telling my mo, my mother was very strong, very. Right. And I said, mom, do you really? Aunt Kiki's, our real aunt and uncle? And she goes, are you an idiot? Why do you think? And I said, she's not even five feet tall when I look at them. I don't see brothers and sisters. And we had so many aunts and uncles.

[00:04:46] My brothers laugh at me at that. 

[00:04:49] Marbree: How many brothers do you have? 

[00:04:50] Bill: Four. Well had four, two have passed away. 

[00:04:53] Marbree: Where are you in that lineup? 

[00:04:55] Bill: I'm right in the middle, but I also, I became almost the older brother. [00:05:00] Okay. In, in high school. So, uh, my dad died when I was 16 and he died at 45 years old. Massive heart attack.

[00:05:08] And my brothers were away at college and. Through that time. So I became the oldest brother. And so that really dramatically changed my life, uh, in that sense of, of kind of who I was and, and what I did things. And then two years, three years later, my next older brother died in a car accident. He was at the University of Virginia, my oldest brother who is still alive, um, he was a consci objector and so he.

[00:05:35] Doing Peace Corps type stuff. So being middle and then not being middle kind kind of changed me. 

[00:05:40] Marbree: How do you feel it changed you? 

[00:05:42] Bill: Um, I felt I had a lot more responsibility. You know, I, I think middle, you can hide. Uh, your older brothers are dominant. My wife would say it. Our family, were like the Kennedys in Watertown.

[00:05:55] Okay, so here's my dad lived that, raised there. Everybody knew my dad. He [00:06:00] was very bigger than life. Yeah. And, uh, we all were athletes. Uh, my brother Jay was star football, star track player. Uh, loved by everybody. My brother Scotty was even bigger. He went to Summer Virginia on a scholarship as a quarterback.

[00:06:16] Uh, I was a good athlete, but I wasn't that good. Okay. So I could kind of hide. And my, uh, youngest brother was, you know, he just had no worries in life. He was just full of life. So to be my a Montgomery and Watertown had to be somebody, you know, you had to make sure you were on. But as a middle I could hide a little where some of the others couldn't hide.

[00:06:37] I don't ever remember getting in a real fight with any of my brothers and I don't re remember a brother getting in a fight. That was laughter. Okay. I remember one time, six in my brain, my next younger brother must have been eight years old, maybe 10 at the, we're playing the house. We lived in a house that was.

[00:06:55] This kind of goes to the the aura. Okay? We lived in the biggest house you could [00:07:00] imagine, and it had a living room that was so big that half of it had no furniture in it. So we played in that house and we played hard. And I remember chasing my brother and he's running away. It wasn't an anger, but I hit him and I hit him really hard in the back.

[00:07:15] And soon as I hit him, I go, oh, and he turned around and the flare in his eyes. And I remember saying, oh, Charlie, I'm sorry. You know, but that's the kind of time to be. But never would there be angry words. And to this day, I've never had an argument with the brother. I think that the common sadness we have, so, excuse me, over losing two of them, my dad, my brother has bonded us so tight that, uh, nothing could have hurt us.

[00:07:40] Marbree: Can I ask about how old you were when your father died? 

[00:07:43] Bill: 16. Yeah. My youngest was 11, oldest was 21. Brothers. Yeah, it was very Sutton. He, uh, I guess he had some chest pains. I went to school. We didn't know anything. He had chest pains and he knew something was wrong and they went through all the tests, [00:08:00] nothing.

[00:08:00] He goes home at noon, go back to the hospital, and they do it all over again. He knows something's wrong. And, uh, nothing shows up. They go back home and he is at home at four o'clock he dies, has a massive heart attack that, that was just, uh, so I remember my, one of my uncles that wasn't an uncle came to the school and I was in practice and I remember looking up and seeing the coach and my uncle coming over.

[00:08:22] It's kind of strange. And then you find out, 

[00:08:25] Marbree: oh, I'm so sorry. 

[00:08:26] Bill: Yeah. 

[00:08:27] Marbree: How did life change thereafter? 

[00:08:29] Bill: Yeah, it was, uh. Dulling, you know, when I was in college, I look back on it, I was sleepwalking. That's, uh, started two years after that. I had no idea, but I look back on it and, um, I was there, but I really wasn't there.

[00:08:44] It kind of, it dulled all of us. Uh, my mother who was in Incredi, she's Irish, Scottish, incredibly strong woman. She was like, uh, head of Planned Parenthood in the county. She won the, the award for the Woman of the year kind of thing. Uh, she, she was. [00:09:00] You know, and my dad was working all the time, so we really didn't see him.

[00:09:04] And he, he loved to play, you know, sailing, we had horses, 

[00:09:08] um, 

[00:09:08] skiing. We were off and going, doing something all the time, and that's the only way time we really saw him was either at dinner. Sometimes when they have a cocktail in the living room or playing. Other than that, he just, he wasn't around my, my mom kind of ran the roost, so when he passed away, she was in shock, but she had to be strong for all of us.

[00:09:28] So she put on a big face and she ended up getting married to another uncle, not a real uncle, who was one of my dad's best friends who had divorced with his wife years before and lost his daughter. He asked her within three months after my dad died to Miriam. He was a very needy guy, you know, from the losses of the life that he had.

[00:09:48] And, uh, they got married less than a year next summer. And looking back on it, that wasn't good for my mother. He never really appropriately grieved my dad. She just stuffed it. And I think from [00:10:00] that moment on, he was all bravada. 

[00:10:02] Marbree: Bill relayed stories of how his mother ultimately struggled in her relationships with her adult children and her grandchildren.

[00:10:09] Things like driving 15 hours to meet a new grandchild, only to stay for lunch. And then turn around and leave. 

[00:10:18] Bill: So those things, you go, ugh, what the hell's going on? And you realize she just couldn't have a relationship. And she got Alzheimer's. She was diagnosed 17 years and we took her to a place, uh, a mile from me in Gainesville for the next 10 years.

[00:10:31] And, and so I would see her all the time. 

[00:10:34] Marbree: Oh, I'm so sorry. 

[00:10:35] Bill: But it was tough on her. 

[00:10:37] Marbree: It sounds like it. 

[00:10:38] Bill: Yeah. 

[00:10:39] Marbree: I mean, it'd be tough on anyone and to still have, you know, young boys in the house. And then on top of that, to move so quickly into that relationship, 

[00:10:47] Bill: it was tough. And I mean, it had incredible effects on me and all my brothers, but the bonding of the brothers, I never felt afraid.

[00:10:57] I never felt scared. I never felt [00:11:00] worried, you know? And to go through that and not have those feelings was just because of my brothers and my mother, but my brothers. Yeah. And they kinda helped me. 

[00:11:09] Marbree: That's incredibly fortunate that you had such a positive relationship with them. You'd mentioned that your mother was ahead of a Planned Parenthood.

[00:11:14] Was she working or volunteering? 

[00:11:16] Bill: Volunteering. She never worked since getting married. She had kids, five of them, so it was a lot typical at that time. 

[00:11:22] Marbree: And then your, your brother passed, were you already in college at that point or was that your final year of high school? 

[00:11:27] Bill: That was in college. It was summer happened in June.

[00:11:29] So we were all home. He was a fast driver and uh, he really hadn't been drinking, but he was at a party up on the river and the road had been newly paved. And on his way back it was, uh, the fog on the road and the road dipped and took a sharp Right. And he went straight into the trees. He had to be gone immediately.

[00:11:47] 'cause knowing Scotty he was going pretty fast. 

[00:11:49] Marbree: Too much tragedy, especially Yeah. So close together. 

[00:11:52] Bill: Mm-hmm. I don't know. Some of your questions are gonna be, and, but I think when I think of our generation, not just my situation, but [00:12:00] I think your father and I, your mother. We went through very interesting time in this country's life, and I think it had all, all gave us a very profound feeling about life and understanding affected everybody a little bit differently, but it was all really incredible while my family situation, the whole country is having at that same time, an incredible time that everybody had tough time dealing with.

[00:12:24] Marbree: Well, your generation went through an awful lot. I've got a few more questions I wanna ask about teenage years, and then we'll move in into college and career and all of that. How many sports did you play in high school? 

[00:12:34] Bill: Three. Oh, actually four. Football, then, uh, soccer, basketball, and track. 

[00:12:39] Marbree: Which one was your favorite 

[00:12:40] Bill: between football and basketball?

[00:12:43] Were by better sports. Basketball. I enjoyed the whole part of the game. Practice and playing were a lot of fun and I was good at it. Uh, football. Was my favorite sport. I like teams. I like people together trying to work together. Uh, basketball had a [00:13:00] team, but you could actually do well and score and do stuff like that without the whole team doing everything perfect at the same time.

[00:13:07] Football, you couldn't, everybody has to be doing the right thing, all 11 people and the bonding and the feeling of playing a sport when that many people are all trying to do. Against their foe. Doing the right thing was just wonderful. Uh, practice was the worst. Five days of practicing was just no fun at all.

[00:13:28] It was monotonous, it was hard, and I remember that. So I did not enjoy football except playing the game at game time was wonderful. Everything else was a pain in the ass. Basketball was fun all the time. Practices were great and it was fun. Laughter and fooling around and you know, everything was fun. 

[00:13:46] Marbree: What was dating like in Watertown when you were in high school?

[00:13:49] Bill: You know, I was a little shy, that middle child, you know, in between, so I don't remember dating other than taking a friend, a girl to a, a dance or something like that. [00:14:00] That was more of a social thing. I didn't really have an ongoing, uh, date, and that went right through my sophomore year and that's when my dad died.

[00:14:07] And so I had dated a few people and it wasn't until my junior year. But I, I met a gal that, she was a senior, I was a junior and we dated for about three years. Very serious, uh, kind of stuff. And, uh, she was interesting, intelligent, fun. But then she went to college and it only lasted like a, a year or so after I got to college.

[00:14:28] And then that ended, and then the college. This part of the sleepwalking. I never really had any serious dates in college. Never really attached myself. I was kind of, uh, sleepwalking, I don't know. Didn't realize that I, I was dull in college. I graduated with a 2.008, I think. Um, that actually 

[00:14:47] Marbree: takes me back to something so that I wanted to get to.

[00:14:49] How was school itself for you in terms of the actual. Educational component. 

[00:14:54] Bill: Interesting. I mean, going to college when we went to college couldn't be more interesting. I love the information. I love [00:15:00] learning. I didn't know that I'm dyslexic. I went to college, never had to write a research paper ever. Never took a foreign language.

[00:15:07] I went to Syracuse particular because they had a program of eight tracks, of which you only needed to take four tracks all years. And the sixth one was, I took church and state religion instead of. So maybe I wasn't totally sleep, I was calculating all the time, but, uh, I was having a lot of fun being at school.

[00:15:25] I'd play basketball every day with my buddies and we'd go out. But, uh, by the time I was in engineering and it started to catch up on me and at some point I had to decide which career in engineering I wanted to, and I realized. After understanding all the different jobs, I didn't like any of those jobs, so I, I didn't have a mentor of a father.

[00:15:43] I, my brothers were away. I'm sleepwalking and so I just go into liberal arts and finish out in four years instead of my five-year program. I went there for, for a combined degree, and then I was an, I was an art history major. Fine art because I love that stuff, but the reason was not because I want, I wanted for [00:16:00] degree, it was the, if I couldn't graduate in four years, I was gonna get pulled outta college.

[00:16:04] So I had to pick a major that would be the easiest for me to get out of. So I could take all kinds of courses I wanted to, and that's why I took fine arts. I liked it, but I wasn't gonna do anything with it. So my academic, I was just poor. I came out just barely made it out. Yeah, it was a task of accomplishing the impossible with doing nothing.

[00:16:24] Marbree: I asked Bill about the December, 1969. Lottery for service in the Vietnam War. If you're not familiar with how this worked, the lottery assigned a number to each birth date and they televised the process the night of the drawing. Many of Bill's fraternity brothers were in the house watching it, but he was out.

[00:16:43] When he returned, he received the news from his fraternity brothers. His number was two. 

[00:16:50] Bill: So that day I, not only I had planned actually was I was leaving college. If I had a high number, I knew I shouldn't be at college. I was gonna be leaving college and I get two and [00:17:00] I can't leave. 

[00:17:00] Yeah. 

[00:17:01] But more than that instance, uh, and it kind of goes back to this day, there's a real sorrow in my heart about that time in our country, because they should have had a lottery when I was in high school.

[00:17:13] Not a draft, a lottery. Because it prompted the advantaged people in this country to get outta the war and the disadvantaged people to get in the war. And it was a very, I don't know how planned it was, but felt so, uh. Entitled, and I think of kids I knew who went there. Like there was one guy, a friend of my brother's, was an incredible athlete, an incredible kid.

[00:17:37] He was a black kid and we had very few in Watertown and just, just a stalwart guy. He got drafted, he goes there, and within a year he is dead. And so many of people I know that went there and came back and they're, they weren't the same anymore. They, they struggled. Yeah. And I, I can't even imagine being there and realizing.

[00:17:56] If our legislators all had sons that were going [00:18:00] in the military, we wouldn't be there. Yeah. You know, but when they, when the entitled can do things and say, rah rah America, and the people that are disadvantaged get hurt, people have money, they don't care that that time was also. That's as much defining my college career, both civil rights and, and the war.

[00:18:19] So I, I knew I'd have to get, once I couldn't leave school, I immediately planned and I applied for Navy and Air Force Training Academy. So I was gonna go in for six years as an officer in one of those programs, and I got accepted at both. So once I graduated, I was gonna go six years in the program. So I was all set to go in the Navy and two weeks before I graduate, the first reserve unit.

[00:18:42] I have to understand, reserve units were where kids went to stay out of Vietnam. So in every town reserve units since about 1960 something, were all jammed up. I mean, everybody jumped in. They're in there for six or seven years. There's no openings. And so two weeks before I graduate in 71, the [00:19:00] first reserve slot had opened in three years in Watertown.

[00:19:03] And I got it. So I didn't have to go to military. And then it turned out when I got in the military and I'm going through my training, that's when Nixon pulled out of Vietnam. And I wouldn't have had to gone to Vietnam either way. 'cause the years I got on, just as I was becoming, even if I was active, everybody was coming out.

[00:19:20] Marbree: Which is fortunate. Yeah. 

[00:19:22] Bill: Yeah. 

[00:19:22] Marbree: So then you barely squeak by, you managed to graduate, you've got a report for reserve training. Now you probably also need to get a job. What'd you do? What 

[00:19:30] Bill: happened? Yeah, fortunate. Um, during high school I worked as a surveyor and that one of my mentors, a Lafe, he was a Renaissance man, unbelievable guy.

[00:19:40] Just brilliant. And he was a surveyor, needed somebody to do some legwork and, and do all kinds of things. And I know why he thought I do. So I got to do every job. I would go to another county like St. Lawrence. I'd go to the county clerk's office. I would deed research the properties we were gonna be working [00:20:00] on.

[00:20:00] I would go out in the field and walk the property with him and he would show me about the lines and where, why they might be. 'cause the deeds were not very good at that time. So he do the prep. I'd go back to the office and do all the mathematics stuff of, of plotting out the property that the field crew had done.

[00:20:17] I would go out and help with the crews, the days that they needed help. I did everything. So I had an unbelievable education through, through surveying. 

[00:20:24] Marbree: When Bill entered the workforce, the state of New New York had a big tax mapping project occurring in every county. The details of this project we can skip, here's what you need to know for Bill's career to make sense.

[00:20:39] While Bill wasn't exactly the greatest student in college, he's really good at math and enjoys certain kinds of puzzles. When I say good in math, I mean that in his senior year of high school, he covered two years worth of college level calculus. So he doesn't wanna live in Watertown and graduate school is not in the cards.

[00:20:59] So [00:21:00] he pulled on his surveying experience and got a job with a county near Albany on this tax mapping project we're in the early 1970s, and this job gave bill access to computing equipment. So he started learning the ins and outs going between his county office and a more advanced state one nearby.

[00:21:20] Pretty soon, he was using his nights and weekends to test state software that could benefit the county when the state could no longer justify his use of state equipment. For county purposes, he brokered a deal with the city of Troy to create a joint city county computing center. Without getting any further into the weeds than we already are.

[00:21:46] There were political challenges to making this happen, and that takes us to the point where an agreement for this computer center is reached and Bill takes it to his boss, also called Bill. 

[00:21:57] Bill: Sign the contract. I take it over to Bill, [00:22:00] sign it, we got it and just go hire someone to do that. He goes, well I thought you'd do it.

[00:22:03] I'm 25 or six years old, I don't know shit about computing. I've never been a manager. He says, I thought you'd do it. I said, bill, I don't know. You'll do fine. Don't worry about it. And I was fortunate 'cause I know all these guys who do know computers not, and know the software. They're having fun helping and teach me what I have to do to start this department.

[00:22:21] People I have to hire, I gotta buy a new computer. All that kind of stuff. And then RPI, I got to know in those years, those guys, RPI, is one of the leading computer centers in the world. They're running software that they. 12 other universities wrote in the sixties on an IBM computer before IBM wrote their own operating system.

[00:22:42] So IBM built this new computer called three sixties that were, was the joy of the world and they built this operating system for it for business. And while that was going on, these 12 universities got a computer. And faculty and students wrote operating systems for it. And by the time I learned all these guys, computer center, RPI [00:23:00] was in a chapel, they took an old chapel, put a glass all on the inside to make it air condition, everything.

[00:23:06] And it was a computer center. So they were brilliant in understanding about computers. So between their help and the state's help, I had all the help. I need to learn how to be a. A manager. And from there I, I got to a point where I knew I couldn't be in city Hall anymore because you can't go up unless you into politics.

[00:23:23] And I wasn't gonna do that. But I realized that my brain, within weeks, I looked in the paper and there was an ad for, uh, it lead of a medical school at Albany. And I went over and got the job. And from then on I worked as a IT executive in academic medicine all over the country, about four different jobs.

[00:23:38] So. And 

[00:23:40] Marbree: somewhere in the beginning of that timeframe you met Kris. How did you meet her? 

[00:23:45] Bill: Well, water town's little. Okay. Everybody goes out at night. My, my best friend, he and I we're back from college and he's teaching, I think, and I'm doing this job and when you go out, there's only two or three places to go out to, you know, and there's a band and you [00:24:00] dance.

[00:24:00] And I met her there and she was nice and fun. And, uh, we didn't start dating. I think I went over to the house one time when they were having a party and saw her there and, and I think it took months from when I first met her before we ever went on a date. And then I met her daughter. She had a 2-year-old daughter that she had outta wedlock and she was a doll.

[00:24:20] And so never talked about getting married. Never. 'cause I knew I had to leave. I had to go. She knew I had to go, I had to go some place to matriculate into college, couldn't InTown I in. And I left and I think I was there two or three weeks and I said, I can't do this anymore. So went back, asked her to marry me, and nine weeks later we were married.

[00:24:42] So, 

[00:24:43] Marbree: and then did they go with you back to, to Reser in Albany and 

[00:24:47] Bill: after the wedding? Yeah. Then so Tina came at like, uh, three and a half years old and we lived there in, uh, about 17 years, lived at Albany. She went through high school there and everything. And, and college. [00:25:00] And, uh, and we moved then, then I started getting other jobs and other academic medical centers.

[00:25:05] Marbree: And during those years, one house the whole time that Tina was growing up? 

[00:25:08] Bill: No, we, we rented, when I first got there for about three, let's see, four or five months, we rented in a, a garage apartment in North Green Bush. Just great being together and, uh, there, but. The best thing. And so then we look for a house and in a town next to us, east Green Bush, we looked at a house there and we ended up buying a condo that, uh, we were in almost half of those years.

[00:25:31] And Tina got to be about 10. Uh, and we found this other house that happened to be next door to a woman. Who was raised two houses from me in Watertown, but older than I, more my more between my parents' age and me. And we actually end up swapping houses with that couple. It was an older couple. We signed a contract and they said, well, you owned a condominium.

[00:25:50] We're con, they're looking for a place to live. So they looked at ours and they bought ours. And so the day we moved, we had a one mover, two trucks pile and passed each other on the way [00:26:00] and started our. That was probably our main home after that. Living. Living there. 

[00:26:04] Marbree: And during that time, did you change positions?

[00:26:07] Employers? Not. 

[00:26:09] Bill: Not employers. Technical. Well, technically, yes, but not Albany Medical College had been a college for 150 years and it is for 75 or 80 of the years on the same campus as the hospital. And all that time, the two boards always talked about, well, maybe we should merger. Okay. So when I'm at the medical school.

[00:26:28] Finally they did, they merged and they hired the COO of Johns Hopkins, a hematologist named Dick Gayner from there to come up to be the first CEO. Well, he came up and so now we have a medical school and a hospital. There's two personnel guys, there's two finance guys. There's two IT guys. There's two buildings and grounds guys.

[00:26:49] I say guys, mostly guys, and uh. They gotta solve that. And my counterpart was an older gentleman. I'm, how old am I? 32 maybe. He comes up and my counterpart is [00:27:00] 56 and he used to work for IBM and he, their computer center was much bigger than the medical school one. It was different kind of computing and, uh.

[00:27:07] So they had to choose and the guy who was gonna run the business side of the medical center was the CEO of the hospital and the IT guy was his guy like that. So I didn't know what job chances I'd have to get that job. I got the job and he had been my mentor. From then on, he just saw something in me that he didn't see any other guy.

[00:27:25] So here I was a kid who didn't really, you know, so I'm working with this guy who wasn't happy. I became the head of it, but we did fine. And at the after a year, he was very formal kind of guy. And we have our, our, uh, review and he says to get in his office and he says, well, bill, I only have one question.

[00:27:42] How the fuck with a fine arts degree did you learn how to do it? Okay. And it actually started also another very interesting term that happened. He said, would you be interested in working towards being a chief operating officer? I said, I could move you in, uh, to [00:28:00] that if you'd like. I was, I was very honored to be able to think that and that would be more money, you know, more prestigious and, and within the weeks after that, where I'm trying to figure out if I wanna do that and what I'd be doing in that sense, I'm in the doctor's office for God knows what.

[00:28:16] A checkup or something and I'm in there half an hour and I suddenly realized I, I've picked up in that time, in a half hour, I've picked up a book about hospital operations, nursing plant facilities. Then there's some IT books. I picked every, all those, I'll just put 'em right down, I don't care. Picked up the IT book, read it all the way through, and then half an hour I'm looking at that.

[00:28:35] I suddenly go, holy shit, I don't really care about that stuff. And that moment was so fortunate for me because I realized that we as humans don't realize we lie to ourselves or. Think through, don't think through things. And here I was thinking I was honored to be thought to go into a, a bigger position.

[00:28:53] Um, I was seriously contemplating it, not understanding who I was, what I really like to do. [00:29:00] And that moment taught me, I said, you know, that's really not where I am. And so I told 'em, I said, I'm not really not interested. And from that point on, I was doing well financially. I had gotten a lot of promotions.

[00:29:11] I was doing well. But a few years later, my mentor politics was causing real damage in the healthcare field and my CEO was fighting it, and he and the board got in an argument and so he decided he is not gonna stay and work for a board that. Doesn't understand. So he goes to Harvard to run three Harvard hospitals in Boston.

[00:29:31] And so I'm there and I end up leaving my first time and going job, and I'm looking for a job. And a job opens up in New England Medical Center, Tufts University in Boston. So. I go take that. 

[00:29:42] Marbree: When Tina was growing up, what was your work schedule like and how involved were you at home and and how much time did you get to have as a father?

[00:29:50] Uh, 

[00:29:51] Bill: not enough. So college, I did absolutely nothing. Okay. But now, now my responsibility, genes have kicked in my direction. Has [00:30:00] kicked in of what I wanna do and what I've enjoying you and I'm working hard to try to be successful. Myself and the family and everything. And Tina's in school, she wasn't a baby by the time we, she was three and a half, we were married.

[00:30:12] So it was enough. I would've liked more. We couldn't have any more kids. We tried and it never really bothered me not not to have another child. 'cause it was. And she was just the most happy, warmhearted person. Very bright. And the thing that was best is she and I bonded. There was one defining moment I, I tell everybody is when I went back up there, that three weeks, I couldn't stand anymore.

[00:30:37] I had to have my life. And so in the kitchen table, Tina's with her cousin in the table in the kitchen, I.

[00:30:46] So we laugh about it. It was not one of these romantic kind of things people do. I have no ring to give her. Okay. She never had an engagement ring. Part of my sleepwalking, it's not important. Okay. Uh, what's important is we're together. Okay? [00:31:00] And, uh, so we're laughing about that and everything. And then we tell Tina and Tina says, you mommy and me are getting married.

[00:31:07] She got it right away. So she knew I wasn't her dad. For the year. Been very close. I would play with her all the time and we, we just kind of bonded very young. So we, we moved to East Green Bush. We've been married a year, probably a year to two years driving down the road. She looked at me, you know, dad, I'm glad I didn't get your nose at that moment.

[00:31:28] I knew she got it a hundred percent. We were incredibly close. I. Then we got to spend four years with her every day that, uh, I would go pick her up. She had to be in a wheelchair after a while, and we'd go grocery shopping. There's a great picture of me. I would push her cart and she would have her feet and she'd have the grocery cart, and she would tell me every place to go.

[00:31:48] She, she owned the grocery store. 

[00:31:50] Marbree: How old was she when she got the diagnosis? 

[00:31:54] Bill: Well, let's see, 46 maybe. 46, 45, and [00:32:00] we had, it's hard to, I don't know how you could say it. We had nothing but joy all those days. She never, never complained, never didn't have a smile on her face. I don't know how she did it.

[00:32:11] Marbree: Obviously a special person. 

[00:32:12] Bill: Yeah. She changed everybody's lives. Our friends, people that knew her. 

[00:32:16] Marbree: Yeah. Oh, bill, I'm so sorry. 

[00:32:18] Bill: Yeah. Not one of those things that, uh, and I think, uh, adding my dad and my brother, I didn't really grieve them very well when I was a kid. All kind eggs in there. My heart is very warm all the time.

[00:32:31] I'm, I'm, I'm sad to miss her, but I'm not unhappy because I think of her all the time. Yeah. It's not sad thoughts. They're happy thoughts. 

[00:32:39] Yeah. 

[00:32:40] A lot of laughter. Thinking about her 

[00:32:42] Marbree: from what you've said, I take it that's what she would want. 

[00:32:45] Bill: Oh yeah. Wine. 

[00:32:48] Marbree: You mentioned earlier that you really liked being on a team and mm-hmm.

[00:32:53] That cohesiveness that comes together and, and all of that. What else do you think that, that you've gotten over the years out of [00:33:00] playing team sports? 

[00:33:00] Bill: Um. Besides the team thing, it's the relationships that are key. Uh, like playing for fun, not being angry. You know, some, some people play games and they get angry, uh, in sports.

[00:33:11] And we, we always made it fun. Uh, no matter what. I can remember playing in Boston every morning with these guys, lawyers and stuff. They'd call, we'd play at like six o'clock in the morning and then go to work. It was the way to beat the commute outta Hingham. And, uh, I can think in six years. Never a fight, never an argument or something.

[00:33:29] It was, you know, just the right mentality, uh, of that. But winning is, is fun and doing the, making your body and your mind do something and do it well. So I, I, I think other things on sports, um, it is the pride of accomplishing. I mean, even I could remember in Boston, see I could, I could do things, I could come down on a fast break, dribble behind my back and then go around and, and start doing a pass to a guy here and with my right hand and.

[00:33:56] Put the ball all the way around my back and pass to a guy on the other [00:34:00] side. 

[00:34:00] Hmm. 

[00:34:00] So it's more like a, a dance than a, you know, it's a, um, and when you look at athletes in football, some of the artistic moves they make are just so incredible. And so I guess in sports, it's okay to play, but there's a joy in doing something physically well.

[00:34:17] Marbree: Mm-hmm. Definitely 

[00:34:18] Bill: As minimal as it is. 

[00:34:20] Marbree: Do you have any other hobbies that you've enjoyed throughout your life, other interests? 

[00:34:23] Bill: Well, when I got here, uh, at the cottage. By a need I had to do, um, repairs and wood stuff. So, uh, Steve and I, it was a very unique relationship. We, we live together, uh, across the street, everything.

[00:34:37] It's a compound. We have lunch or dinner with 'em every day. Every day. And I'm an uncle, basically now to their kids and grand and uncle to their, it's just, we're so close. It's, it makes other people, it's like scary. How did this happen? Okay. Since he and I, since like seventh grade, I was his best band. He was my best man.

[00:34:56] And, uh, he and I work on stuff all over the cottage, on both [00:35:00] sides, fixing and repairing stuff. When I got the villages, they have a wood shop here, uh, and you join. Pay $150 for life to join a wood shop, and I pay $75 a year to maintain all the equipment and everything. I know nothing of woodworking. Okay.

[00:35:15] And now I've made bulls, uh, from a tree at the cottage. Uh, I've made all kinds of things and I take a class, like a thousand members now. We're close to 1500 members, and they're made up of talented woodworkers and they volunteer their time and they put on classes. That's, that's been really a fun hobby.

[00:35:36] Marbree: During your working years, how did you handle stress? Did you have anything that you did to let off steam? 

[00:35:41] Bill: Yeah. No, I never was very stressful. Um, I, I was fortunate enough probably because of relationships with people that I'd always looked to people to help make things happen, and so I never felt like I.

[00:35:55] I'm the guy, I'm gonna come in and save the horse. Uh, you don't get a work done [00:36:00] that way. You have to do it through people and grow them. Stress. If something's stressful, it goes back to dyslexic. I think, uh, as Toby Cosgrove said, we problem solve better than other people do. Somehow we're able to take things are going around and try to figure out how you're gonna nail down that problem.

[00:36:18] What's causing the problem, whether it's physical, intellectual, or emotional. What's, what is the thing? And I guess I could break it down quickly and relieve that stress from, from whatever situation was in. And if I relieved it, I did it. Then that relieved my stress. Solving the problem took the stress away.

[00:36:35] Marbree: How else do you think that being dyslexic has helped you? 

[00:36:39] Bill: I don't know if this is an actual feeling or more just intellectual, but I think more understanding that people's, uh, disadvantages. Are not always a disadvantage and that people can work through that. And if you treat or a disability or a problem as a problem, they take it in as a problem instead of [00:37:00] thinking as an opportunity.

[00:37:01] I think if you, if you dwell on the badness, I think people take in the the badness. So if I dwelled on dyslexia as a blame of why I can't read a speech to a thousand people, and I have to make it up as I go, if I dwell on that, that's not gonna help you at all. So I think about the people. Probably what I learned from it is other people can be overcome, all kinds of things.

[00:37:22] Marbree: Everyone can. If you were talking to somebody who is starting their adult life, is there any advice you would give them? 

[00:37:28] Bill: You know, and it goes back to that story I told you about the COO thing and, and what I really like to do. 'cause I know it seems kind of poly edge. I'd never, ever woke up and didn't wanna go to work ever.

[00:37:40] Um, the last time I didn't wanna go to work, I was 16. I was unloading, unloading my first job, Coca-Cola trucks last time, every other time. And. It could be a day I had to go fire five people or whatever it, it could be a terrible day. But I was excited 

[00:37:55] and happy. 

[00:37:56] So, and I looked at why, why is that? And I think, I think [00:38:00] I do it because what I was doing, I loved and I knew I almost tricked myself into picking something else.

[00:38:07] And I realized how you can lie to yourself. You can, or it's, it's either lies or denial. I don't know what it is, but you can cloud the truth to yourself or not see it. And so I encourage people to find the truth about yourself. 

[00:38:21] Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:22] Um, and I said, with jobs or with college or the career that you wanna do, I said, don't try to make it up.

[00:38:29] Try to figure out what is it you like and don't like. 

[00:38:33] Marbree: Who would you say over the course of your life have been the handful of people who have been the most influential or the most important? 

[00:38:42] Bill: Well, that first guy, afe, was an, was one of the first. Um, and it was, you know, my dad and my mother and they, you know, they were all very important, but they were in a, a family mode.

[00:38:57] That was the first person that I. [00:39:00] He was more than just an owner of a survey company. He was, he was so intricate and dynamic that he had, he had a brain for all kinds of things. And when I see people that I feel are just so superior to me that they can do all these things. And think of all these things.

[00:39:20] Um, I just strived to do the best I could and have no boundaries. My boss at the University of Vermont was the orthopedic surgeon, and then he became the dean, and he was an older guy. Um, he slept about three hours a night. He read everything. He refinished old cars, like old 1930 cars, 40 cars. He built furniture.

[00:39:44] For his kids beds and tables. He ran one of the most complex academic medical centers in the country. There was no end to what this guy could do, and he all, he did it with like a smile on his face all the time. Like it just made you feel like, holy spokes. [00:40:00] So those are two. I know I'm missing somebody. I think I, I think I looked up to my brothers so much that they were, I was just so proud of all of them that I, and what they taught me and what, what I learned from them.

[00:40:11] My mother, um, was huge key, I think. I think she's the one that kind of bonded all of us brothers, but she was tough. You know, she, everyone says she's no nonsense, but people that know her realize that she's not just tough, but she's also very empathetic in all those times growing up, what I remember the most is with all those brothers.

[00:40:31] I never, never did have my mother come in at night, sit with me for a minute, chat, give me a kiss, and told me she loved me every night, and it was so little, but. There was nothing wrong with the world at that point. Yeah. Yeah. And she did that every night. And it wasn't like a, a routine like, hi, goodnight, whatever.

[00:40:50] She, she spent time with you just to, she got four other kids to do. I love that. I've been able to give it back to her though. In the, [00:41:00] in the 10 years she was in Gainesville. When I was there, I got to spend lots of times with her, even in the times when she was still there, but not there. She'd talk about what she was doing.

[00:41:09] She was doing nothing, and she would, um, and she had a smile on her face and for the first time she really loved it. When I gave her a hug, she was much softer than she was, and I, I had a joy just being with her when she was 80 years old. 

[00:41:24] Marbree: If you could say anything to your mother now. Is there anything you would say?

[00:41:27] Bill: Thanks. Thanks and I love you. Yeah. And a big hug. Yeah. 

[00:41:32] Marbree: As you look back over the course of your life, are there decisions that you made that at the time felt mundane, not particularly, um, difficult to make, but that when you look back at them, they really changed the course of your life? 

[00:41:51] Bill: Actually quite a few of them, but they're mostly in, in the career that I was in, uh, probably the real Monday, it was going to Albany Medical College.

[00:41:59] That was probably [00:42:00] the huge one. In other words, if I'm looking to get out of government and get another job in it, think of all the places it could have been. I mean, I, I was looking for anything. I happened to see an ad, that ad for medical college. My dad's a doctor. Okay. I didn't wanna be a doctor. Uh, I didn't like blood and all that kinda stuff.

[00:42:19] I had no interest but working for a medical school kind of sound interesting, and it was probably my relationship with my dad and medical school that maybe even follow up on that particular ad instead of a. I actually would've been probably more success. I don't know if I would've been more successful, I would've made more money in a different industry.

[00:42:37] But, uh, that was huge because that job was more than just technical job. It was, uh, a culture and a career. I, I loved academic medicine. It's the only academic career that I can think of that the academician is a, uh, caregiver or worker. Does the work, [00:43:00] an educator does the education and does the research.

[00:43:04] They do all three. It's a very dynamic academic institution. And, and at the same time, the whole purpose is to make people well. So what better industry to be in than one that is so academically interesting and in a, in a, in a challenge that is so purposeful. So I'd love, I could have been in manufacturing or something else, but thank God I ended up in medicine.

[00:43:28] That was a big decision, but I didn't think of it at the time at 

[00:43:30] Marbree: all. Yeah. Were there decisions that you made that at the time felt huge, monumental, and then when you look back at them, they really weren't. 

[00:43:40] Bill: I can think of one. I went to the University of Vermont at the time in the nineties when Hillary Clinton was doing managed care, and I got hired to go to Vermont to lead that IT project, and it turned out that all the decisions we made on it.

[00:43:57] Seemed huge. Like this was gonna be a, an [00:44:00] incredible thing 'cause caregivers could actually work more on prevention and still get paid and not just wait to get paid by every day. Everything. And uh, and I put in telemedicine in the nineties. Vermont and it was huge. Like, so we put in 35 telemedicine sites of our hospitals in the Adirondacks.

[00:44:22] That means a patient in the Northeast Kingdom could be seen by a specialist in Vermont without traveling and without worrying about the money for it and doing it the most efficient way possible. Well, it never happened because the government Hillary thing never went through and it never got created.

[00:44:37] Um, so it was a huge thing that turned into be nothing. It didn't. It wasn't totally nothing. There were vignettes every month from people using that system that would bring tears to your eyes. It was, at that moment, I knew that healthcare was gonna be radically changed, and it hasn't really changed yet by, uh, video conferencing.

[00:44:58] Uh, that the technology will be there, [00:45:00] such you will not be going to doctor's offices and you will not be doing that stuff. You'll be getting to see who you need to get see in the country in a way that'll radically improve. But it was just, it was something that was actually very significant, but it just happened at the wrong time.

[00:45:14] Didn't really get to get used the way it needed to be. 

[00:45:16] Marbree: If you were talking to somebody who's in the thick of their working and parenting potentially years when they're juggling career, family, sometimes. Family in both directions. You know, whether that's, you know, aging parents and children, you know, when they're, when they're in that real thick of, of those, those busy lives, those busy years.

[00:45:38] Any advice you would give someone in that stage of life? 

[00:45:41] Bill: It goes back to me. If you don't love what you're doing, you really have to love it. If you don't love it, it's, it's a drain. So I don't know how, if you're doing a job that you don't absolutely love and if you don't love your family, you know, if you don't enjoy your family, you know, as difficult as as it is, um, [00:46:00] pretty scary.

[00:46:00] And I've, I've never experienced that, so I. I don't have any advice. I don't, you know, 

[00:46:06] Marbree: you've talked about your, your years at Syracuse and that time of your life feeling like you were sleepwalking. When do you feel like you came out of that? 

[00:46:13] Bill: Partially when I got married, the desire, the, um, the excitement or whatever.

[00:46:20] It kind of, it was like electrodes jumping in. You, you know, I can remember coming back at that, that three weeks. I mean, I was, as, for me, I was frantic. For me, I'm. Fairly calm and whatever, but, uh, enough. So I, I didn't think about what rings or anything. I didn't think about anything. I just could not be without them.

[00:46:39] So that was a jolt out of it. When I was probably married 10 years maybe. I knew something was wrong. And so I went through, we went through therapy and, but the therapy we did, it only took, I think one session, maybe two, with, he basically said, Chris, you know, we talk about short term therapy. 

[00:46:57] No, 

[00:46:57] that's not gonna work for him.

[00:46:58] So it was [00:47:00] me who had, she didn't have to do anything. I, so from then on I did therapy and we moved to Boston and I did there for a few years and she was wonderful to hang in there with me and, uh, not shoot me in the head. I had never grieved my dad or my brother. I never cried at my dad dad's funeral, ever.

[00:47:16] Not through the whole process and. My brother, I did a little, but that's where I really shut down. And I didn't stop sleepwalking until after those two or three years of therapy. And then I went, and part of that, I went and talked to all my brothers and a whole bunch of friends and told 'em what happened.

[00:47:34] And, and that was very helpful. So I, it's like I got all this shit out of me and I didn't have to have it hiding inside my body. And I could say at that moment I was not sleeping, walking anymore. From then on, I look back in college and, you know, I had fun or whatever, but uh, I didn't have the same experience that all my buddies did.

[00:47:54] It was just, just different. 

[00:47:56] Marbree: If you had all the world's attention for up to [00:48:00] one minute, what would you like to say that you would want people to take to heart? 

[00:48:04] Bill: You know, some people like John Lennon, they had those minutes and nobody really listened. Um, the world has made up of so many bad and good thing and how to, how to generate the good.

[00:48:16] I guess I would, I would focus, ask people to focus on the children, I guess, 'cause that they're the future. 

[00:48:22] Marbree: Bill, thank you. You've given me so much of your time and I am really grateful. Thank you.

[00:48:32] Not only am I grateful for the time. I appreciate the openness of sharing a journey that has had its challenges along with its gifts. Bill, I hope your summers at the cottage and your winters in the Villages continue to be filled with friendship and fun.

[00:48:54] To those of you listening, thank you for joining us. If you enjoyed this, please leave a review in [00:49:00] Spotify or Apple Podcasts and hit that follow button. These things help others find the podcast and they mean the world to me. Share this with anyone you think would love it or learn something from it and keep coming back for more of the words we've heard.

[00:49:15] This podcast would not be possible without the editing and production brilliance of Cori Orak, the inspiration of my parents, and a 2001 conversation with my grandmother. My thanks to you all.

[00:49:29] So what are the words we've heard? You don't get work done by being the guy who comes in to save things. What it first appears to be a disadvantage may be an opportunity. If you dwell on the badness, you'll take it in that way. Knowing what you truly want to do can make all the difference in your career and your life.

[00:49:55] So don't lie to yourself. Figure out what and who you love.