Throughout his career, Bill had a sardonic take on work, being simultaneously frustrated and bemused by the bureaucracy and managerial missteps that kept delayed projects and blew cost and schedule. He would lament that things really went downhill when they took “Engineering” out of the company name: Grumman Aerospace Corporation had been Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corporation. On retirement he planned to write an ironic tell-all about his time at Grumman entitled “BUTTER AFTER TOASTING or OBSERVATIONS from LEM to Super-TOMCAT.”

The title referred to a label on a toaster in the buffeteria. Bill thought the need to state the obvious in such a mundane matter did not bode will for the company’s future.

Bill got so far as to start an outline for the book on 20 September 1985.