Bill's business career began at age 19 when he and his younger brother co-founded Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc., a company that now manufactures over half of the theater lighting equipment in the United States.

Bill's scientific career was as a high-energy physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). Bill was a member of the team that discovered the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter. He also led the teams that designed and built several scientific facilities and detectors still in use today, including the Recycler Ring, the latest of Fermilab's giant particle accelerators. When Bill first ran for Congress, his campaign was endorsed by 31 Nobel Prize Winners.

Bill's Congressional career began in March 2008 when he won the special election to replace former House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert in Illinois' 14th Congressional District. Bill served for nearly 3 years in Congress as it responded to the greatest financial crisis of our lifetimes.

Bill's Family - Bill lives in Naperville with his wife Aesook, who is also a physicist. Bill has two grown children, Billy and Christine. Bill's father was a civil rights lawyer who wrote much of the enforcement language behind the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Bill's mother lives in Madison, Wisconsin.