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Aspects of My Life

by Michael L. Williams

“Most lives have defining moments.” For me, it was the period between 1967 and 1971. I learned I could compete, could succeed and had value. That was the genius of my parents’ emphasis on religious faith, strong family and community bonds, self-reliance, hard work and learning.

In 1967 I was in the 8th grade at St. Ann’s Catholic School in Midland, Texas. That year I won the spelling bee, the science fair contest — the affects of alcohol on white mice — and, having perhaps inherited some of my father’s athletic talent I showed real promise on the football field and track. (Years later we would discover that most of the athletic genes went to my younger sister, Pam, who was a state champion gymnast and one of the first women to ever get an athletic scholarship to USC.) Also, as somewhat of an omen of things to come, I won the 8th grade class speech contest. Rather than give a speech, what we really did was recite a poem. For me, it was “Invictus” by Ernest Henley. When things haven’t gone especially well for me I’ve found myself reciting that poem. On Sunday, I was a teen reader at Mass. The next year I was off to Canon City, Colorado to a small boarding school, the Abbey, run by Benedictine monks. I was elected class President and the successes in the classroom and on the athletic fields continued. Living away from home forced me to grow immeasurably. Yet, my stay at the Abbey only lasted a year. I was eager to return to Midland to be coached by my father. By that time Dad had won a state football title and had a long list of great high school athletes to his credit. So back to Midland I went, graduating from Robert E. Lee High School. Top 10% of my class, student body Vice-President, “Mr. Valuable” and an all-district intermediate hurdler.

Someone once said, “Go west young man”. So, I did. I earned a bachelors, a masters and a law degree from the University of Southern California, “walked” onto the USC track team, (where I was mediocre at best) and served as President of the USC Black American Law Student Association. In the 1940s, dad attended graduate school at USC. We have a great picture of him on the 1948 football team. But, I have to admit he was later ruled ineligible to play. He had already played four years of college ball while an undergrad at Texas College, a small predominantly black school in East Texas, where he was a two time black college all-American running back.

Today, I’m still running and trying to serve.

In 1998, my friend, then Governor George W. Bush appointed me to a vacancy on the Texas Railroad Commission. In November 2000, the people of Texas elected me to complete the term expiring in the year 2002, and in November 2002, they reaffirmed their support by reelecting a “bald headed guy who wears bowties and cowboy boots” to a full six-year term expiring in the year 2008. I am humbled to have chaired the Commission from September 1999 to September 2003 and to be the first African American in Texas history to hold an executive statewide elected post and the highest-ranking African American in Texas state government.

My Commission duties include chairing the Governor’s Clean Coal Technology Council and representing the Governor and the Commission on the Southern States Energy Board. I am also the Commission “point person” for the agency’s regulatory reform and technology modernization efforts.

Prior to joining the Railroad Commission of Texas, I was the general counsel to a minority-owned high-tech corporation and “of counsel” with the Texas law firm Haynes and Boone. I also served in a volunteer capacity as the general counsel of the Republican Party of Texas, the chairman of the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission and on the Board of Directors of the Arlington Chamber of Commerce, the Texas Public Policy Foundation and Our Mother of Mercy Catholic School.

In 1990, President George H. W. Bush tapped me to serve as the Assistant Secretary of Education for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education. (Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas held the same position ten years earlier). I had previously worked in the federal government as the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Law Enforcement at the U.S. Department of the Treasury where I had oversight responsibility for the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Customs Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (Aug ’89 – Jun ’90).

I also served as Special Assistant to Attorney General Richard Thornburgh at the U.S. Department of Justice (Jan ’88 – Jun ’89). After having been a state prosecutor at home in Midland, from 1984 – 1988 I prosecuted federal hate crimes and police misconduct cases in the Criminal Section, Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. In 1988, Attorney General Ed Meese gave me his “Special Achievement Award” for the conviction of six Ku Klux Klan members. The Carolina Knights of the KKK, also known as the White Patriot Party, attempted to obtain stolen military weapons in preparation of an anticipated race war. Because of death threats against me, I tried two trials under the very watchful eyes of ATF agents.

This story would not be complete however without mentioning that on May 25, 1985 I married my best friend. Donna, like me, was born and raised in Midland. My parents actually taught her father. Her uncle played on Dad’s state championship team. But we met in Washington, DC. It’s a great story. Maybe, I’ll tell it sometime later. Donna is a mechanical engineer from Prairie View A & M University and Vice-President with the Parsons Corporation, heading a five-state region that includes Texas. We can thank her and her team for many of the physical improvements at airports in the Southwest Region.

Amazing what grows out of the dry, hot, flat, brown lands of the Permian Basin.