William H. (Bill) Edwards received both his bachelor's and master's degrees from the Via Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He was a three-time letterman and an honorable mention All American football player for the Hokies, as well as Tech's first Academic All American. Also, during his undergraduate years, he was a member of the Monogram Club, Omicron Delta Kappa, Chi Epsilon, and Who's Who in American Colleges and Universities. In 1997, Bill graduated from an Advanced Management Program at UNC-Chapel Hill. Upon graduation from Virginia Tech, Edwards began a career working as a Wytheville Community College (WCC) instructor while earning his MS degree.

During this time, he developed and implemented a two year Associate Degree Environmental Technology program at WCC to train environmental technicians and water/wastewater treatment plant operators and supervisors which were in critical shortage at the time. During this time, he also monitored and evaluated for acceptance by the Virginia Department of Health the Neptune Microfloc "package water treatment plant.

Upon completion of his MS, he accepted employment with the Virginia Department of Health Bureau of Sanitary Engineering, where he was instrumental in the development and drafting of the first Virginia Waterworks Regulations. In the 1970's, he served as one of the two presenters of the regulations to the Virginia State Board of Health for their adoption. He was also a Virginia Department of Health representative working in conjunction with members of the State Water Control Board staff in drafting the first Virginia Wastewater Works Regulations.

During his 38 years as a practicing professional consulting engineer, Mr. Edwards has been instrumental in the growth and development of the companies in which he has been involved. Beginning in 1975, with his employment with Dewberry and Davis as an engineer, he took over a small 10 person architectural practice growing it to a 50+ full service A/E practice. He was promoted to Associate, Senior Associate, and Managing Principal in Dewberry and Davis with responsibilities for the firm's branch offices in four states, many of which were opened under his direction. He also served as Director of Professional Services for the firm during this time.

Bill moved to Atlanta in 1992 as Vice President and head of Environmental Engineering for Lockwood Greene Engineers. At the request of the CEO, he formed a subsidiary company, Lockwood Greene Technologies, where he served as President, C.E.O. and Chairman of the Board, of the independently operated company. He grew LGT from 100 employees to over 300 employees in eight years. With the sale of Lockwood Greene Technologies, Bill accepted employment with AMEC and was responsible for developing safeguards and security initiatives for the company and for implementing storm water best management practices.

In 2006, Bill was approached by Stantec to take over lead responsibility for their U.S. southeast operations as Vice President. Two years later, he assumed responsibility for all U.S. operations east of the Mississippi, from the Great Lakes and Canadian border to Florida consisting of more than 600 employees.

Mr. Edwards, throughout his career, has been a leader in providing support to local governments and agencies following floods and other disasters. His efforts have focused on building state of the art water and wastewater treatment facilities and water distribution in impoverished areas where potable water and adequate wastewater treatment did not exist. He has also worked to support major security issues related to nuclear weapons development safety and storage. He provided engineering support to the U.S. Air Force in Kosovo to build refugee camps for displaced persons in an area with poor access and communications.

Following the shootings on April 16, 2007, Bill helped acquire a pledge from his employer, Stantec, to donate $100,000 to the Virginia Tech Civil and Environmental Engineering Department to support scholarships. He is married to his wife of 46 years, Suzanne, a Radford University graduate who also holds a Master's degree from Virginia Tech. The Edwards reside in Woodstock, Georgia. They have two children, Sarah, a Tech graduate, and Anna, an Auburn graduate, as well as three grandchildren, Grace, Taylor and Lily.