Newspapers / Philanthropy Journal of North … / Jan. 1, 1996, edition 1 / Page 13
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January i996 Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina • 13 Talking with Gates Microsoft chief says major giving must wait Editor’s note: The following exchange appeared recently in The Washington Post. It was excerpted from an interview with Bill Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corp. POST; A personal question: You’ve made an extraordinary amount of money People in the past who have made that much money have left great monuments in the society....Have you thought about what you’d like to do, if an^hing? GATES: WeU, 1 think there’s prob ably a great number of people who made a lot of money who didn’t leave monuments. You just don’t know their names. You know, I’m in a phase of my life where my focus is working at Microsoft and seeing whether we can maintain our leadership. So for the next 10 to 20 years, that’ll be my pri mary focus. I’ve decided not to give money to my children in huge amounts - 1 say that without even meeting them. [Gates currently has no children.] But it 1 stiU have sub stantial wealth when I’m in my late Paint Continued from page 12 SOS director Joseph Canty does n’t care who gets the credit; he’s just glad Williams, Groom and Cal-Tone are around to help. Canty met Williams in 1991 when he was on the board of directors of the Wilder’s Grove Youth Center. He invited her with the hope that he could convince her to help with fundraising. Williams responded by oi^anizing a golf tour nament for the oi^anization. Four years later, Canty called on Wilhams again to develop business support for SOS. “She’s been the catalyst for bring ing business people into the pro gram,” says Canty, who lists Arby’s, Glaxo Wellcome and Bruegger’s Bagels among the businesses that Williams has helped shepherd into the SOS nock. “She’s not just giving her money, but she’s giving her time - she’ll talk to other businesses, work with a child or roll up sleeves and paint a wall,” says Canty “She’ll do anything to get the job done.” Corporate executive, buddy of the governor, nonprofit hero - not bad for a small-town girl from Smithfield who skipped college to help raise her four younger siblings. Williams says nobody’s more surprised by her suc cess than she is. “I never thought I’d meet the gov ernor,” she quips. “And I never thought I’d ever have a job like [the one at Cal-Tone]. I’m just a worker bee.” Williams got her first experience in the beehive in 1971 at the Sylvania TV factory in Smithfield. It was an experience she keeps in mind when she volunteers with SOS. ‘A month after 1 graduated from high school, 1 was working, 1 made $5.50 an hour and I was totally unpre pared for the job world, just Ihce a lot of these kids [in SOS] aren’t ready,” says Williams. “That’s why I’m so big on this program - people need to teU these kids that education is impor tant.” Williams planned to continue her own education after high school, but a bitter divorce between her parents forced her into the job world prema turely. After a year at Sylvania, she moved to the Meigh YMCA, found a job in the records office of the Department of Corrections and start ed sending checks home to Smithfield. Fbr eight years, WUhams worked for the state Department of Corrections during the day and added odd jobs during the evening. “By 1980, 1 was working from 7 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at Corrections, then I’d go out to Crabtree [Valley Mall] and manage a crafts store. When that ended at 10 p.m., I’d decorate win dows at North Hills and The Emporium until 2 a.m. It was crazy” Williams quit her job at the Department of Corrections in 1980 to start Capitol City Landscaping. But it wasn’t long hours or a green thumb that put a rake in her hand. “There wasn’t enough money,” Williams says. “By then, all of my brothers and sisters were in school and they needed books and trans portation and tuition. I’d always been the one who mowed the lawn at home, so I bou^t a used truck and started knocking on doors, looking for busi ness.” Within a few years, Wilhams had added interior decorating to the busi ness and was turning a neat profit. But even more important, she says, her three sisters and brother were aU coUege graduates. “I didn’t pay for everything - they did a lot of it on their own,” Wilhams says. “But they are my fanuly and it was my responsibihty to help them.” WIQiams was stih in the landscap ing business when she met Mhton Groom in 1988. “I was landscaping a development owned by one of my customers, and ah the homeowners kept complaining that the paint on their homes was peeling,” she says. “I had used Cal- Tone paints before, so I went in to talk to them about selling paint to the developer. I was just trying to solve a problem so these people would stop bothering me about the paint and I could get my work done.” “I had my head in a 600-gahon fifties or sixties, then I’h really focus attention on that. At this stage, there are some things - like education. United Way, population control - that I’m giving $10 million to $20 million a year to. But it’s more to get my toe in the water. POST: One of the big worries, obviously, about this coimtry is the growing divide between haves and have-nots and the extent to which that might be accelerated by comput er power. From what I’ve read so far about your book [“The Road Mead”] and in your book, I don’t see you addressing that question. GA'TES: WeU remember, the book is written by a technologist, and the goal is to take what I know about and those are fairly technical things. In terms of computers, if there’s some one who has a Uttle bit of motivation, a Uttle bit of self-confidence as a youngster, having access to a comput er can be a wonderful thing. TOien [Mdrew] Carnegie put Ubraries out there, it wasn’t Uke, “Hah, no more haves versus have-nots. Hey, there’s a bunch of books there!” I mean, he’s actuaUy one of the most, most hard core individuals - “People who don’t want to read, screw ‘em! 'They’re worthless! M I’m trying to do is help the ones who are sturdy and ener getic!” I’m not saying I agree with that. But if there’s a role for comput ers, it’s where you’ve already got some stabUity and some structure for them to be used. bucket of paint,” chuckles Croom, who was 78 at the time. “She started taUdng about doing some decorating and then we decided to put her to work on sales without a sdary After a few months, I offered her a job at a store manager’s salary” Of her early days with Croom and Cal-Tone, Wilhams says: “He worked me Uke a dog. I’d work half the night for him for no pay, then go out and do landscaping during the day “He’s very rigid, he’s relentless. He always told me, ‘If you don’t want to do it my way, then quit.’ “’ Both Croom, who has no chUdren of his own, and WiUiams, who is immarried, readUy admit that they have found something in the other that was missing in their Uves. Fbr his part, Croom admits to having a “father-daughter relationship” with WilUams, but is still quick to point out that “eveiything she’s aceompUshed, she’s earned throu^ hard work.” “Basically, he took the interest in me that a father would,”says WilUams. “He reaUy stuck his neck out. I mean, here’s this guy who’s in his seventies and he’s spending aU this time teaching me about paint, which I knew nothing about.” Groom’s bet that WilUams could help Cal-Tone started paying off immediately. She centralized the company’s purchasing, started visit ing Cal-Tone’s retaU outlets and supervised facelifts for aU of them. “Without P.D., I don’t think we would have made it,” says Croom.”We were in a Uttle bit of trouble when she arrived.” Despite her accompUshments at Cal-Tone and her friendship with Croom, WilUams knows that business can be a tough contact sport. In fact, she says, she may lose her dream job if Croom decides to accept a recent offer to seU Cal-Tone from an undis closed company But whatever her professional fate, WilUams says she’s not worried about the future. “I can stUl crank up a lawnmower and I can stUl plant a tree. Md TU help kids for the rest of my life.” V *E*R*S*A‘*X*I*L*I*X*Y You can use the Philanthropy Journal to: • Wrap fish. • Light a fire. • Line a bird cage. • Muich your garden. Or you can do what thousands of North Carolinians do* Read it. Philanthropy Journal of if you’re not reading it yet, you :^arpllna To subscribe, call (919) 899-3740; Surprise gift $800,000 for school A long-time Henderson Ubrarian surprised officials of Vance-GranvUle Community CoUege in November by naming the coUege as beneficiary of an $800,000 trust - possibly the largest gift ever to a community col lege educational foundation. Nannie A. Crowder, former head Ubrarian at H. LesUe Perry Memorial Library in Henderson, named the col lege as beneficiary of an ^revocable trust agreement with NationsBank. Crowder’s donation, payable upon her death, wUI enrich the school’s endowment fund, which now has assets of about $1.2 mUUon. Interest earned on the fund’s princi pal supports scholarships for acade- micaUy talent students with financial need. Crowder, who attended St. Mary’s CoUege in Ralei^ and the University of North Carolina at Chapel HiU, says she chose the community coUege instead of schools she attended because she wanted her gift to remain in the community in which she was born. She says she has stayed informed about the community coUege’s activi ties throng the school’s dean of stu dent affau’s, with whom she attends church. Ben Currin, president of Vance- GranvUle Community CoUege, says Crowder’s decision came as a com plete surprise to him. When NationsBank’s trust department caUed to teU him about it, Currin says, “At first, they didn’t even want to give me a name. 'They said the donor wanted to remain anony mous.” Crowder retired in 1987 after working for more than 50 years at the Henderson Ubrary. She was head Ubrarian tor most of those years. Merrill Wolf J.D. MORGAN ASSOCIAXES Strategic Program Development 23: ttegtc frogt & Communications Helping Clients Invest Resources Efficiently ■ Corporate Community Affairs ■ Public/Private Partnerships ■ Strategic Planning ■ Key Audience Communications ■ Meeting/Conference Facilitation 8612 Seagate Drive, Raleigh, North Carolina 27615 Tel 919.518,2221 ■ Fax 919.518.2492 ■ Internet: JeffersonM@aol.com Xhe Fifth Annual Duke Institute in Nonprofit Leadership Leadership in Chaotic Times is presented in partnership with The Center for Creative Leadership. The Institute provides tools with which to strengthen your leadership skills to give you control, vigor and the ability to face, or perhaps even to welcome, chaos as a natural state. April 14-17,1996 The Trinity Center, Salter Path, NC For registration information, call (919) 684-6259 This is a repeat of the Fall Institute. The Duke Certificate Program In Nonprofit Management
Philanthropy Journal of North Carolina (Raleigh, N.C.)
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Jan. 1, 1996, edition 1
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