Bill received his BS and MS in Geology at Iowa under Brian Glenister (main advisor), Phil Heckel, Brian Witzke, and Greg Ludvigson working Late Ordovician stratigraphy and taphonomy in eastern Iowa and southern Minnesota.  He went on to complete his PhD in carbonate sequence stratigraphy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison on the Late Pennsylvanian of the Sacramento Mountains, New Mexico.

Since 2003 Bill has worked for Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), specializing in the Permian Basin and Middle East.  Although based in Houston, he lived in Oman for 3 years and still travels extensively. Bill served as Oxy’s Worldwide Chief Geologist for five years with responsibilities over technical assurance and career development for 300 global staff.  He is currently an Oxy Fellow representing Geosciences for the corporation. 

Bill teaches industry courses in carbonate reservoir characterization (including a public version through the Houston Geological Society), sedimentary petrography, core analysis, petrophysics, and Geology for nonGeologists as well as field courses in West Texas/New Mexico and Oman.  He is a member of AAPG with past service on the Corporate Advisory Board and editor for Search and Discovery.

He began his industry career at ARCO International Exploration in Dallas, with projects in Peru, Ecuador, West Africa and Myanmar, followed by a transfer to Alaska to develop North Slope Prudhoe Bay and Kuparuk River fields.  After four years in Alaska, Bill accepted a tenure track position at New Mexico Tech University performing research and teaching courses in Carbonate Geology and Basin Analysis & Burial History Modeling but returned to industry after missing the team collaboration and high quality datasets.

Bill is married to fellow Alumni Board member Meg Raatz and is the proud father of 3 wonderful adult children.  He enjoys music, boating, fishing, and snorkeling.