Bill Higgs

West Point Class of '74. Did great in Math thanks to Fairview teacher/coach Elmer Kress. Distinguished Graduate (Suma Cum Laude), semi-finalist Rhodes Scholarship. Intercollegiate Soccer, Wrestling, Judo. Engineer Officer Basic Course (Honor Graduate), Atomic Demolitions Certified, Airborne/Ranger (Honor Graduate and King of the Pits). Company Commander in 1st Cav Div. at Ft. Hood, Texas...Honorable Discharge from the Army in '79.
Met Ann in Alaska (there for Northern Warfare School) in '72, married when she finished 4 years of Nursing School at Texas Woman's University in '76...best thing I ever did!!!!!!!!!!!
Engineer on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico '79-'87. Stage IV Testicular cancer in '80, one year of experimental drugs and radiation at MD Anderson in Houston saved the day :)
Started Mustang Engineering with two Partners in 1987 in Houston, Texas...in '08 had 6,500 people in 12 countries and $1Bn in annual revenues. INC. 500 Fastest Growing Companies in America in '93 and '94. Spearheaded Deepwater Developments worldwide. Was known as the “King of Culture” worldwide in the industry. Retired from Mustang's Board in '08. Wrote and published Mustang, The Story.
Active in Boy Scouts...Silver Beaver, Distinguished Eagle, Lead role in Sam Houston Area Council (Houston). Changed Friends of Scouting fund drive significantly and the method was used across all Councils Nation-wide.
Was on the West Point Board of Trustees for five years and instrumental in changing how they did fund raising...moving them from $2M/year to $40M/year.
Moved to Charlotte, NC in '06.
Currently mentoring son's business manufacturing after market winch bumpers...fabfours.com. Fab Fours was in INC 500 Fastest Growing Companies in America in 2010. Also mentoring daughter’s company Cielo, nyc doing men’s suiting. My big job right now is taking the culture we crafted at Mustang around the world through the Forbes Business platform. New Forbes book Culture Code Champions: 7 Steps to Scale & Succeed in Your Business available on Amazon 1/5/20.
Son graduated Texas A&M, daughter The University of Texas in Austin.
Son married Rosita Hauck of Dallas in '04, had daughter Jaden in '06 and son Lucas in '08. Moved from Jakarta, Indonesia to Durango, Colorado in '05 and to Charlotte, NC in '07. Son and vehicles featured on Jay Leno's Garage... fabfours.com
Daughter started her own Custom Clothier company in NYC in 2014...Cielobrandsnyc.com. Dressed LeBron James for the 2016 NBA Finals and styled Julian Edelman of the New England Patriots. She is engaged to Seth Carter from the Austin area of Texas. Small wedding July 4, 2020 due to COVID-19, large one July 4, 2021 in Barcelona. They escaped NYC COVID stay at home and have been living with us since March 2020. Turns out Seth had it but no symptoms.
We love being in Charlotte and having the grandkids 12 minutes away.

Greg Glamm and I decided to be cousins one day and it has stuck forever...named my son after he and a best friend at West Point.
Elmer Kress and I got into it over whether a character in an equasion should be "Bar Z", or "Z Bar". Since I was from Colorado, I told him that out west ranches were "Bar Z"...he seemed to think that it was his class and we should use his terminology :)
A few of us used my Boy Scout free tickets to go see the Cleveland Stokers play the New York Cosmos in soccer. Pele' made an overhead bicycle kick goal off of a corner kick and we were hooked. We got our Physics teacher to sponsor us and started a club team that eventually became Fairview's real team after we graduated.
Wrestling against Rocky River senior year the team just needed me to not get pinned by one of their stud-muffins. Two seconds into the last period he flipped me on my back and I spent two solid minutes keeping one shoulder up while staring at the lights...he tried everything...but that shoulder did not go down :) At regionals I was winning until being flipped and pinned in the last 7 seconds. At the sports banquet, Coach Kress noted that I would make a good General after West Point, but that he wanted someone else to take over the war in the last 7 seconds!!!