Volunteer Spotlight: Bill MacLean

WP-ORG is proud of its volunteers, they do the heavy lifting and without them we wouldn’t exist. Here WP-ORG CFO, Jack Price, ‘64, introduces Bill MacLean.

~ Dempsey

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There is a reason we start honoring the work of our volunteers with Bill MacLean, who has been working with us now, for almost a decade. He has served us in many different functions, primarily because he just can’t say “NO!”, has prodigious skill sets, the tenacity of a dam-building beaver, and the interpersonal strengths to herd cats on our backbone moderator net, populated with a cohort of contentious grads.

Unless you have been spun up to full duty status as a newly minted moderator, you’ve probably never heard of/from Bill. If he’s helped you navigate these shoals, he’s probably in the same mental compartment as your first drill sergeant, or beast barracks squad leader.

Bill is also the Chief Engineer on the WP-ORG fund drive steam engine. He measures performance in excruciating detail and reports real time data in colorful charts that show present and historical performance. That data allows us to continue improvement in what is already a world class non-profit funding operation.

But, as important as the things that Bill has done, are the things he has yet to do. Somewhere ahead is a crisis which will require a volunteer. Bill is the guy in the little glass box you break with the red hammer when trouble comes.

Bill is ‘67 graduate MIT (EECS). He worked many years in software and hardware development, marketing, and business development in the CAD/CAM/CAE turn-key systems business. Bill and his wife of 31 years, Pat, reside at Lexington, Mass. Bill is retired from business, devotes ~800-1,000 volunteer hours per year to WP-ORG. Pat is director of a pre-school at Lexington.

Their older son, Daniel (Colgate ‘99), is legislative director for a Calif. congressman at the Capitol; on staff since 1999. Their younger son, Bob (USMA ‘02), is commander, B Co 1/507th PIR (Airborne School) at Ft. Benning. In prior assignments he was Platoon Leader and staff officer in four deployments, Afghanistan and Iraq, with 173rd Airborne and 3/75th Rangers. Their daughter, Alexandra (Mary Washington ‘05) is office manager for a commercial real estate development company at McLean, Va.

At Bob’s graduation, West Point, June 1, 2002 (L-R: Bill, Bob, Dan, Alex, Pat…)