Month: April 2024 (Page 2 of 2)
William Looney
William (Bill) was born in late December 1953 in the North Country of Vermont – it goes without saying he is very familiar with the last light of day. An early memory was watching his father build by hand a lake cottage in the Sandwich area of New Hampshire – a place that remained in his family for more than 60 years and inspired some epic father/son bonding trips into fields, streams, bogs and mountains where the destination was not always clear.
After this early education in the woods, Bill went to school at Connecticut College, where he spent semesters at the London School of Economics but mostly traveled to wild places in Cornwall and Wales. He moved back to New York as a graduate student at the Columbia University School of International Affairs, receiving an advanced degree in 1979. His working years began shortly after that, as an analyst and writer for the Economist Intelligence Unit, where he was assigned to cover the Canadian market and spent many long winter weeks in Ottawa reporting on Quebec separatism and the country’s dalliance with economic nationalism. Later, he was among the first to uncover the rise of the global consumer movement after the Union Carbide chemical disaster in India, work that gave him the tag line “Bhopal Bill.”
That led in turn to a long stint in the pharmaceutical industry where he handled public affairs and policy issues in the UK, Japan and other non-US markets for Warner-Lambert and later Pfizer, trying as well to keep the CEOs happy at the Davos World Economic Forum and other ego-embellishing events. After that came roles as editor of two pharma trade publications, for which he received awards for excellence in editorial commentary. Currently, Bill contributes part-time to content and event management for a French company, the Galien Foundation, co-founded by the late author and holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel to promote medicines innovation as an instrument for global growth, development and peace. He also works with DMA Secretary Mike Wheeler as an English tutor for new immigrants, in a program run by Family Centers of Greenwich/Stamford.
Bill now lives in Darien with his wife Andrea, who he met early at his first job, being told by the boss to offer his seat (reluctantly) to her, as the fresh new face from the Economist’s Washington office. Forty years later, Bill still has that bentwood office chair, now at home — and continues the (now not so easy) practice of offering his spare seat to a stranger – because you never know what good can happen when you do.
