Bill is Chairman Emeritus of SRA, International, a company that he helped found in 1978. He is also trustee and former board chair of the CNA Corporation of Alexandria, Virginia: and trustee and former board chair of the Fuller Theological Seminary of Pasadena, California, an institution with 5,500 graduate students representing 80 countries and 120 denominations. Bill and Dee reside in McLean, Virginia.
In 1964, following twelve years in advanced systems engineering in the California aerospace industry, Bill joined the staff of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara as director of Army and Marine Corps land forces programs. In 1968 President Johnson appointed him assistant secretary of the Army; he was reappointed by President Nixon in 1969 and served until December 1970. He then returned to industry as vice president for corporate development at Dart Industries, a consumer products company with headquarters in Los Angeles.
Bill was recalled to public service in 1973 by President Nixon who appointed him assistant defense secretary to oversee the transition from the military draft to the volunteer force. He served to the conclusion of the Ford administration in 1977, the last year as assistant secretary for legislative affairs. During his ten years of government service Bill served five secretaries of defense and three presidents. He was presented with the distinguished public service award three times.
Following his second government tour Bill joined the Computer Network Corporation in Washington DC as a director and executive vice president. During this time he also served as a Defense Department consultant, and directed policy-level evaluations of a series of DoD crisis-management exercises that began in 1978. In 1981-82, he led a team assigned by the Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, to develop a plan for reforming the JCS organization and its military operations planning and execution process. His JCS reform recommendations were adopted by the Congress and codified in the legislation known as Goldwater-Nichols 1986.
Bill is a 1947 graduate of the Fordson High School in Dearborn, Michigan. He studied at the University of Michigan, earning a B.S. with honors in 1950 and an M.S. in 1952, majoring in mathematics and physics. Bill has a deep interest in music and is a published composer and lyricist. In addition to their work with the University of Michigan and the Brehm Coalition, Bill and Dee devote time to the Brehm Center for Worship, Theology, & the Arts that they founded at Fuller Theological Seminary in 1999. They also support undergraduate and graduate students who have demonstrated outstanding scholarship and leadership with full-tuition scholarship programs at the University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, and Fuller Seminary.
“The Coalition raises the concept of collaborative medical research to a new level -- to a truly new paradigm for research collaboration and focus, mobilizing and integrating the talent and experience of over a hundred scientists under the leadership of our ten principal investigators. Dee and I are very grateful for the dedication and commitment of the ten who lead and inspire this effort to accelerate the search for cure and prevention of type 1 diabetes, and for the example they set for others engaged in overcoming the challenges of auto-immune disease.”