BizHONORS 2017 Lifetime Achievement Award

Honoring Bill Nelson By Lee Allen

This onetime Scout spent 45 years – 1970-2015 – with GLHN Architects and Engineers before earning the title of president emeritus. Nelson guided GLHN through an extraordinary period of growth and development. That kind of tenure is reflective in his Lifetime Achievement Award. He also was a longtime adjunct professor at the University of Arizona. “It’s always been one of my maxims to work hard to make everybody around you successful and I’ve tried to help as many people along the way 134 BizTucson

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Spring 2017

as I could,” he said. “Recognize the potential in people and give them the resources, then get the heck out of the way and watch them move forward. It’s amazing.” Nelson, who worked his way through the ranks of Cub Scout, Boy Scout and Explorer – Order of the Arrow – said scouting was a big part of his life and it first taught him the wisdom of making objective decisions. “Making decisions, without bias, without prejudice, embracing the objective ways of thinking that would get

you better results. “I wouldn’t say I’ve complied with all 12 attributes of the Boy Scout Law with regularity, but when I made major decisions in life, I reflected back on that credo. “When I reflect back on the concepts I learned as a scout, they have helped me form the value system that you carry with you for your whole life. Scouting was important for me some six decades ago, and for young people today, it’s still important.”

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