We have the great privilege to have Dr. Bill Quirk as our speaker on Nov 4th , Singing for a Greener Tomorrow - World Music Curtain Raiser. He will give a short introductory talk about "Making the Economy Green"- Developments in technology are making the cost of generating wind & solar energy more competitive with fossil fuels, but further technical breakthroughs are needed. When it is hot and California has it's highest electrical demand days, the wind does not blow. There is abundant sun, but solar energy peaks at 2PM and demand peaks 6PM. We will need a variety of technologies to meet this challenge including storage for renewable energy and peaker natural gas plants. Dr. Quirk will discuss the technologies being developed and the policies needed to support their development.
He was an engineering undergraduate at Columbia University, where he was a member of 3 National Champion fencing teams. He earned a PhD in Astrophysics at Columbia at the age of 24, then taught at Caltech, and managed a NASA research team that studied global warming. The Management Consulting Firm of McKinsey and Company recruited him because they needed people with a technical background particularly in computing. Later he became a corporate planner at Amdahl Corporation in Sunnyvale. He then settled into a career at Lawrence Livermore Lab, where he became an expert in nuclear weapons. His career highlights include playing a key role in the negotiation of the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and producing research showing that the plutonium parts in nuclear weapons could be reused. The ability to reuse plutonium parts led to the shutdown of the Rocky Flats Plant Plutonium Parts plant near Denver, resulting in tens of billions of dollars savings to the US Government and saved nearby Denver from the threat of a nuclear accident.
Bill Quirk started taking responsibility early in his life as the oldest of 7 children in an Irish family that lived near Boston, Massachusetts. Bill’s dad was never home, so he became the surrogate father to his younger brothers and sisters. Bill learned then how important it was for his younger siblings to have someone to listen to their problems. It is this sense of compassion and responsibility that led him to become engaged in community life and a registered Democrat. His community volunteer and political work started in College has continued ever since.
Bill and his wife Laurel moved to the Hayward area in 1978. They chose Hayward because they loved being by the bay and the hills and because Hayward was a diverse community in income, race, nationality, language, and culture. Bill and Laurel have now been married for 40 years. They have raised two children. Their son Ian went to UC Berkeley and now works at PG&E, where he is involved in creating the future energy market. Their daughter Zephyr is a UC Santa Cruz graduate. She teaches history and is a counselor in a high school in Ukiah and is living a sustainable life style off the grid.
When Bill’s children went to Hayward Schools, he got involved. He volunteered at the school, became a PTA President and fought to improve his kids’ education. He became President of the Friends of the Library, Chair of the Hayward Library Commission, and Vice President of the Ohlone Audubon chapter. He has been to China and Japan on sister city visits and serves on the board of the Hayward Ghazni, Afghanistan Sister City Committee. He is a member of Hayward Rotary.
Bill was elected to the Hayward City Council in 2004.
Get your tickets for Nov 4th at this one of a kind event at Santa Clara Convention Center
