Joseph Williams Obituary

Joseph Hill Williams CHARLESTON - Joseph Hill Williams died peacefully on April 27, 2023. He was noted for being both an innovative energy industry leader and an avid conservationist. Williams was born in Tulsa, OK on June 2, 1933. He was raised in Camden, SC and educated at St. Paul's School and Yale University. In 1959, after serving two years in the U.S. Army in Germany, he joined Williams Brothers, a family-owned engineering and pipeline construction company, and predecessor to the publicly owned Williams Companies, headquartered in Tulsa, OK. He retired in Charleston in 2009. Williams learned the family business from the ground up, spending seven years building pipelines across Iran in the 1960s. Later, he became Chairman and CEO of the Williams Companies (1979-1994), where he was noted for successfully and profitably refocusing the company back to its core energy-related businesses in continental pipeline transportation and the gathering and processing of natural gas. In the late 1980s, Williams also built one of the earliest nationwide fiber optic cable networks through its decommissioned pipelines, an innovation that provided critical infrastructure underlying the telecommunications revolution. Williams was active in many conservation leadership roles. After returning to the United States from Iran in 1968, he noticed how rapidly the natural places he loved were being lost to development. He became a local, state, and national leader for conservation. He founded the Oklahoma Nature Conservancy in 1986 and became the Chairman of the Global Board of Directors for The Nature Conservancy. Most notable was his galvanizing leadership to preserve one of the last intact expanses of native tallgrass prairie in North America outside of Pawhuska, Oklahoma. He brought together business leaders, conservationists, scientists, ranchers, tribal leaders, and others in a collaborative effort to purchase the 29,000-acre Barnard Ranch in 1989, which was later re-named "The Joseph H Williams Tallgrass Prairie Preserve." The preserve is now 40,000 acres with 2,500 bison roaming the native prairie. Williams was also active in many other leadership roles. He served as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City and served on the boards of American Express, Prudential Financial Company, the Bank of Oklahoma, Orvis, and the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology. He was a Life Trustee of Yale University and received the Yale Medal. He also was a Trustee of St. Paul's School and The University of Tulsa. He was elected to the Oklahoma Hall of Fame and to the South Carolina Business Hall of Fame. Williams was a member of Augusta National Golf Club, Linville Golf Club, and Yeamans Hall Club. Williams will be remembered for his passion for life and world view, his personal warmth and humor, and most of all, his integrity. His parting words on most occasions will live on in all he touched: "Go your best". He is survived by his wife, Terry, three sons and two stepdaughters; Joseph H. Williams, jr.; Peter B. Williams; James C. Williams; Margot T. Rose; Jennifer B. Ross; and seven grandchildren. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to the Yale School of the Environment (environment.yale.edu) or The Nature Conservancy in South Carolina (www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/south-carolina). Visit our guestbook at legacy.com/obituaries/charleston