A resident of the southern West Virginia Mountains for more than 30 years. He has worked with grassroots groups dealing with irresponsible fossil fuels extraction in Central Appalachia as well as with groups working on social justice issues from health care to childhood poverty.

Bill became active in the environmental movement in 2001 after flooding heavily damaged the community of Dorothy, WV where he lived. The failure of a large sediment pond on a mountaintop removal mining operation directly above this small community contributed to the severity of the flood, which destroyed and damaged several hundred homes in the valley downstream. In 2003, Bill had the opportunity to begin working with the Sierra Club’s Environmental Justice Program.

Bill continues to work with the Sierra Club as a field organizing manager where he supports and supervises organizers working on a variety of environmental and social justice issues for the Beyond Coal to Clean Energy, Ready for 100, Healthy Communities and Dirty Fuels campaigns in Appalachia and the Southeast. He has facilitated community organizing workshops, strategy meetings and visioning sessions.

Bill has co-facilitated diversity and Dismantling Racism workshops around the country for over 12 years. He is also a trainer and coach for the WV Trainers Project which does trainings of trainers on social activism.

He lives with his wife, stepson and their cat in Charleston West Virginia.