For the past seven years, Greenville’s Bill Brown has served as a member of the PCC Foundation Board of Directors, but his support for Pitt Community College dates back much longer.
Brown, owner of Brown & Wood, Inc., has been recruiting PCC Automotive Systems Technology (AST) graduates to work as service technicians at his auto dealerships in Greenville. And not long after the college opened the Craig M. Goess Construction and Industrial Technology Building, he contributed to the PCC Foundation to secure naming rights of the facility’s three automotive teaching labs, which he named for Brown & Wood.
In 2008, while serving as chairman of the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association (NCADA), Brown directed $1,500 from the organization to the PCC Foundation in support of the college’s AST program. He said he chose Pitt to receive the funding — part of a National Automobile Dealers Charitable Foundation program honoring five former NCADA CEOs from North Carolina — as a way to support the local community and address a statewide shortage of automotive service technicians by helping an AST student get an education.
In this month’s edition of “Foundation for Success,” the PCC Foundation sat down with Brown to learn more about him personally and professionally and why he has been so supportive of the college’s AST program and PCC Foundation …
Q. Can you tell us a little about your occupation?
A. I am a new car and truck dealer. I started in the car business full-time in August of 1973. Over the 51 years, I “sat in almost all the seats on the dealership bus”. In 2019, I was honored as the North Carolina Dealer of the Year. Also, in 2023, I was honored to receive the North Carolina Automobile Dealers Association “Lifetime Achievement Award”.
Q. Tell us about your family. What year did your wife graduate from PCC?
A. Married to an amazing wife, Jane, who is a 1997 graduate of PCC.
We have two children: son, Will Brown and his family (wife, Georgia, 15-year-old son, Hayes, and 13-year-old daughter, Celia-Gray). They reside in Raleigh.
My daughter, Betsy, and her husband, John, and their family (four-year-old daughter, Louis, and two-year-old son, John Jr.) They live in Greenville.
Q. What are some of your favorite hobbies?
A. My favorite hobbies are almost anything you can do on the water, especially saltwater inshore fishing, boating, swimming and waterskiing.
Q. What is one thing most people would not know about you but would find interesting?
A. First, I love helping other people achieve their goals in life. I am involved in a lot of civic organizations and non-profit organizations, but I really like the folks that work with us at our business to realize their goals. To steal a saying from Zig Ziglar: “You will never achieve the things that you want in life until you help enough other people achieve what they want in life” — that is how I have tried to live my life.
Q. What is the best advice you ever received and why?
A. First, always tell the truth. Be honest, because you will never have to remember what you said earlier. Second, write down your personal goals with a deadline for achieving those goals. Otherwise, a goal without a deadline is nothing more than a dream.
Q. In your words, what is the PCC Foundation’s purpose?
A. To support the students of PCC by raising the funds to support their education. One of Brown & Wood’s and my core values is having a sense of community and giving back to the community.
Q. Why do you support PCC with your financial gifts?
A. My family and our business have been associated with “Pitt Tech” since its founding. We have participated and supported the auto technology program since its inception. In fact, the first auto instructor came from our dealership — Roland Smith.
We have proudly hired over 60 graduates of the automotive program. PCC has been incredibly good for Brown & Wood, and it is easy to give back to PCC.
Q. Why was it important to name the automotive labs at PCC for Brown & Wood?
A. Giving to PCC fits our core values of community involvement and giving back to the community. Secondly, we take pride in the fact that we have hired so many PCC automotive technician graduates. We want to keep the Brown & Wood name in front of the auto tech students. This is another way to accomplish that goal.