Growing Up
Bill grew up in a blue-collar family in Bloomfield, New Jersey. His father was a printer by trade and his mother was a telephone operator for the Public Service Electric & Gas company. The atmosphere was full of Italian food and Irish laughter. Sunday church and family dinners were the touchstones of life, along with saints’ festivals and sports on the streets, playgrounds, and teams of his home town. Inspired by Bobby Fischer’s famous match against Boris Spassky, Bill excelled at chess, and played First Board on the High School chess team (he still plays chess online against opponents from all over the world).
Bill went to college on the Newark, New Jersey campus of Rutgers University, where he received The Dean's Award for “the best academic performance of the class of 1982”.
A Life of Ideas
Bill came to Massachusetts in 1983 to study philosophy at Boston University. He never looked back. Bill was a student of some of the preeminent thinkers of the 20th century, including Jürgen Habermas and Hans Gadamer. He took classes also at MIT, Boston College, and Harvard.
Bill received the PhD for a doctoral dissertation on the revival of Roman republican ideals in the Italian Renaissance. His research was about theories of liberty, and the ideals of active citizenship and public service as noble pursuits and moral imperatives.
After finishing post-doctoral studies in Vienna, Austria, at The Institute for Human Sciences, Bill taught ethics, logic, rhetoric, and critical thinking skills at a number of local North Shore colleges through the 1990s and 2000s, including Merrimack College in North Andover, Endicott College in Beverly, and Bradford College in Haverhill.
While he greatly enjoyed teaching, Bill also saw the serious damage being done by Left-wing intellectuals who legitimized Marxism and socialism, and covered up, ignored or rationalized the scandalous history of terrorism, mass murder, and tyranny inflicted on mankind by communist ideology in the 20th century. His efforts to combat Leftist ascendancy in academia met with limited success.
Managing Property
Bill also worked as a property manager of a small real estate portfolio. As a landlord, he met people from all over the world and all walks of life, while dealing with a great variety of problems that required courteous, responsible and professional management. Everything from fires to floods, insect eradication and rodent control, non-payment of rent, renovations and repairs were dealt with in a manner that brought praise from tenants and neighbors.
At Home in Gloucester
Bill lives in Gloucester and enjoys boating and live music jams with an eclectic circle of friends who run the gamut from fishermen and metal fabricators to artists and musicians. Bill is also a poet and has organized poetry readings for the year-long Gloucester 400 celebration. Bill holds Italian citizenship and visits Italy regularly.
Why He’s Running
Bill was married and divorced. He has no children and is willing to devote his time to the strenuous duties of the Governor’s Council. His chief concern is public safety, law and order, which he will zealously guard to the best of his abilities.