McWilliams, William Reece, 2003 June 23

This is a Living History interview with Mac McWilliams, class of 1941 and 1946, conducted by Marilyn Somers on June 23, 2003 at his office in Columbia, South Carolina. The subject is Mr. McWilliams’s life, and experiences at Georgia Tech.

Mr. McWilliams was born in Dalton, Georgia in August of 1918. He has a brother and two sisters. As a child, Mr. McWilliams was an average student and was involved in scouts, camping, basketball, and track. He remained in Dalton until leaving for Georgia Tech at the age of seventeen. Mr. McWilliams had a cousin that was a Tech Mechanical Engineering, ME, graduate and convinced him to pursue ME. He joined the Co-op program, which gave him valuable hands-on experience. He was in the ordinance battalion of the ROTC. Upon graduation in 1941, he was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant and sent to ordinance school in Maryland. He remained there for two years and met his wife, Josephine. They got married just before Mr. McWilliams was sent to Italy. He fought in Italy for eighteen months and was sent home after VE day. Upon returning to the States, Mr. and Ms. McWilliams moved to Atlanta to allow Mr. McWilliams to take Industrial Engineering, IE, classes at Tech. In 1946, he graduated with two other students in the first IE class. He then went on to found Columbia Cooling and Heating, where he has worked for fifty-six years. Mr. and Ms. McWilliams have three sons and have had a blessed life.