William moved himself and family to San Jose in 1967, and joined Philco, later acquired by Ford as its Ford Aerospace division, as an process engineer. His work was directed at the fabrication of high reliability electronic systems of thick film hybrid construction.

For the uninitiated, this means special aluminum oxide ceramic wafers (or substrates), onto which conductive inks were used to connect chip components. Fired in a special furnance, the point would be to have electronics that could withstand the harsh environments of rocket launch and longterm space exposure.

Many different kinds of system components for many, many different "birds" were constructed in the years at Philco/Ford, for government and commercial interests.

The part bolted into a satellite often looked like a small gold "brick" with cables attached to it. Inside would be a thick film circuit containing 30 - 200 components, and often microwave strip lines would be involve.

The process would involve a team of 20-100 which would handle electronic, mechanical, and materials engineering. More time was spend on simulation and testing than on fabrication and design. Often partial samples were constructed to examine how they would respond to the rigors of space. Components, partial assemblies, and full-up systems tests would be taken through shake, vaccuum, and temperature tests multiple times.

A classic team player, he received many awards for solving "impossible" materials problems. Often these required interdisciplinary skills crossing into many domains. As an example of this, he and Dick Williams worked together on corona discharge inside of satellites. Dick Williams, physicist and chief research scientist, analyzed the static generation and dissipation mechanisms, with a possible approach to the problem. William took and put Dick's ideas into action with a series of prototypes, arranged sample test discharges, and proved the best application of them into a usable manufacturing process. They shared the spotlight for a novel solution, which until then limited the power of TWT transmitters on satellites, due to breakdown voltage.

William, or Bill to his team mates, worked at Philco / Ford with his team to get high reliable satellites in orbit. His individual contribution was the materials side of what held the electronics together - the glues, the solders, the substrates, the interfaces, and the peculiar effects that environments played on them.

In his office, he accumulated years of study of why materials failed and worked in specific ways. Sometimes, even when a satellite was long on orbit and an anomaly occured, he'd dig through this to discover how the materials and construction effects contributed to the anomaly.

Sometimes the processes were hard to replicate from one project to the next. Like stained glass work of the middle ages, much materials knowledge is hard to retain, because its base of knowledge is not as appreciated as the object d'arte it creates.