Richard A. Williams, Jr. – 50th Reunion Essay

Richard A. Williams, Jr.

142 Beaumont Ct.

Wilmington, NC 28412

Richard.Williams2@gnf.com

910-547-1034

Spouse(s): Maria Esther (Fontanez) Williams (1982)

Child(ren): Cristina Mariel Williams-Fontanez (1985), Daniela Esther Williams-Fontanez (1986)

Education: Yale College, AB 1969; Yale Law School, JD 1973

National Service: US Peace Corps, Community Development Training Program, 1969 (Brazil)

Career: Curtis Mallet-Prevost (NYC), Associate ’73–’75; Davis Polk (NYC), Associate ’75–’78; PepsiCo Law Dept (Purchase, NY) ’78–’88; Chiquita Brands Law Dept (Cinti, OH) ’88–’00; Frost Brown Todd (Cinti, OH), Of Counsel ’00–’01; Global Nuclear Fuel Law Dept (Wilm, NC) ’01–’10; GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy Law Dept (Wlm, NC) ’10–Present

Avocations: physical fitness, international travel; foreign language study; int’l folk dancing; singing (Yale Russian Chorus & church choirs); motorcycling; land speed racing

College: Saybrook

As I write this, I have just completed two months of proton radiation therapy for prostate cancer at the University of Florida Health Proton Therapy Institute, or “Florida Proton” as it is popularly known. Thus far, I am inclined to be upbeat, given the impressively positive patient outcomes Florida Proton has garnered in its almost 12 years of existence. However, I will not learn the results until July, when the test results are no longer skewed by the aftereffects of the radiation.

In the meantime, life goes on here in Wilmington, North Carolina, where we moved in 2001 after the Cincinnati chapter of our lives closed. I became chief counsel at Global Nuclear Fuel (GNF), a unit of GE engaged in fuel rod fabrication. The transition from urban high-rise office buildings to a rural factory site was, to say the least, jarring. My wife, Maria, morphed into a basketball-volleyball-soccer-tennis mom, racking up more than 60,000 miles of travel in a single year in our trusty SUV while ferrying our girls to endless practices and matches.

I missed a lot of this while traveling back and forth to GNF’s nuclear fuel operation in Kurihama, Japan. In 2002, I made 11 round trips in a single year, and by 2010 I had completed 47. Needless to say, my Japanese improved tremendously in those years (although I was never as good as our classmate, Will Bogaty, whom I used to visit in Tokyo from time to time). Eventually, I moved from GNF to GE-Hitachi Nuclear Energy at the same factory site and began traveling to Europe (especially England, France, Finland, and Poland) on a regular basis. With our daughters both in college (Cristy at UNC Chapel Hill and Dani at Savannah College of Art and Design), I had more time for motorcycling, going off to sing Yale Russian chorus alumni concerts, and attending the occasional reunion with Ajde!, the Balkan folk dance troupe I belonged to during my Yale years.

For her part, Maria, a fine artist, joined an artist association and, in addition, took up ikebana (Japanese flower arranging), where she has made a mark for herself in our local community. Our daughters went off to L.A. for eight years in an attempt to join the TV and film industry (with mixed results). Happily, though, we just saw them off on a year-long sojourn in Seoul, where they will be working for an English-language school while also studying Korean. Their goal is to become fluent enough to interview K-Pop idols in Korean (as they now do in English as the “Nutty Nomads,” online video bloggers extraordinaire). Living and working outside of the US while mastering a foreign language is a dream their dad never achieved, despite traveling for business to over 20 countries and spending years becoming fluent or semi-fluent in three foreign languages and conversational in two more. I am now convinced that there is something to living vicariously after all.

Although it has somewhat dimmed with the passage of time, I have not given up the dream of finding a “place in the sun” for Maria and me in southern France or Spain, where teaching and writing may still be possible for a while longer yet. Hope springs eternal.