Inspirational, passionate, creative. That’s how colleagues in the Mississippi construction industry describe William “Bill” Yates Jr., whose career began more than 50 years ago.
In 1960, a contracting company that Bill’s father, William “Gully” Yates, helped start with his brother after World War II won a bid for a three-story dormitory renovation at the University of Mississippi in Oxford. Bill was in his sophomore year there, studying engineering. Gully visited his son on campus and said to him, referring to the project: “I thought you might look after it.”