Gen. R.W. "Bill" Crossley Collection

Brigadier General R.W. (Bill) Crossley served in the United States Army. He began his college career at Mercer University, where he received an AB degree (equivalent to a Bachelor of Arts) in History and Mathematics and later earned a Master of Arts in International Politics from Duke University. He also attended the National War College in Washington D.C. and the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.

In 1979, Crossley became Chief Vice President for the Nuclear Division of the Army and served from 1983-1985 as Chief Executive Officer of the United States Corps Artillery and Frankfurt Military Community in Frankfurt, Germany. In 1985, he was promoted to Corps Chief of Staff by General Colin Powell that involved supervising a staff of 1,400 military officers and civilians for three years. Upon retirement in 1988, Crossley became the Chief Operating Officer of Digital Area Networks in Munich, Germany where he was the third employee in pioneering local area networks (LANs). Crossley established a company in 1990—American Business International, Inc., that started as an export development company and eventually merged into Productivity Plus, Inc. After the merger, he became Vice President of Sales from 1993-1996.

After his company became well established, Crossley pursued writing and sailing (Bill Crossley, LLC) from 1996-2006, during which time he wrote the book, H2. In 2006, he founded another company in Marietta, Georgia, called eChapterOne, LLC—an internet-based digital book sales company that operated for three years before closing. Crossley has since ended his entrepreneurial endeavors, but has continued to write since 2010, with his most recent manuscript being “Build It! Run it! Sell it?: A Novel for Entrepreneurs & Angels.”