Page 7 - 1994 Plymouth Rotary Annual Report

Bill has been a Plymouth Rotarian for fourteen years with perfect
attendance for all of those years. He has served as President of the
Plymouth Rotary Foundation, is a Paul Harris Fellow and
Benefactor, and has now served as President.
This year he will celebrate the twenty first anniversary of his
marriage to Barbara. Between them they have three children and
one grandchild.
Bill was born in Detroit at Grace Hospital in 1941. The fact that
Harry Houdini died in the same hospital a few years earlier may
help explain Bill's love of magic. He has been a member of the
International Brotherhood of Magicians for almost thirty years.
The night before his wedding, he floated Barbara on stage for the
annual Detroit area magicians show. He still is amazed that she
went through with the wedding (so is she).
Bill attended Albion College, Eastern Michigan University, and
Detroit Institute ofTechnology ( where his father taught accounting
many years earlier). His first eight years were spent in banking
where he worked up to assistant branch manager before joining the
team that started the Michigan Bankcard credit card (now VISA).
It was that job that brought him to Plymouth where he worked
with the late James Houk (then mayor of Plymouth) and late
Rotarians Carl Caplin and Ralph Lorenz, converting their accounts
receivable to bank credit cards.
In 1968 Bill joined his father who had recently started a public
accounting practice in Plymouth. He rates the years spent working
for his father as the most valuable learning in his life. In 1971 they
installed a computer in the business and soon found that they were
doing more work for their clients than for themselves. In 1974 the
computer portion of the business was split off as a separate
corporation, "Accountants' Computer Services." Two years ago,
the name was shortened to "Employer Solutions" to reflect their
growing emphasis on Payroll and Human Resources. Bill has been
certified by the American Payroll Association as a Certified Payroll
Practitioner (CPP).
Bill dedicated his Presidential year to his father (Bill, Jr.) who has
been a dedicated Rotarian for twenty-seven years. Bill, Jr. spent
more than twelve years serving on both the Club board and the
Foundation Board. He also handled all of the tickets and prepared
the financial statements for the Chicken Barbecue for over twenty
years. By the time he became a Rotarian, Bill, III had worked the
barbecue for ten years and had planned the annual Christmas
party several times because of his father's involvement in Rotary.