Memorials, 0513 ALBJ, 74 The Alabama Lawyer 186 (2013)
| Author | William Waddell Featheringill |
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\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0Bill Featheringill died suddenly in Birmingham on December 9, 2012 at age 70, at the pinnacle of his remarkable career. Although a graduate of Columbia University Law School and a member of the Alabama and New York bars, he never held himself out to practice law for others. Instead, he was a highly successful entrepreneur who used his legal training to gain an edge in business planning, execution and competition, and who used much of the fruit of his success to support educational and philanthropic causes and to fund the Featheringill Foundation.
\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0Bill believed that the health insurance and health care businesses in the United States were antiquated. With help from his advisor group of older CEOs, he was able early to strike an arrangement with UAB and create his own new company with himself as CEO, Complete Health. He was an effective leader to employees as well as experts like lawyers and accountants and bankers. He was excellent in keeping the investors and UAB fully aware of the risks, including those not obvious. He was generally the smartest person in the room and the room kept growing.
\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0When Complete Health’s revenues had grown sufficiently, a sale of all its stock to United Healthcare was completed, with UAB making a profit in the $100 million range. The Complete Health experience also enabled Bill to continue to grow various other start-ups. Before and after Complete Health, Bill made pioneering efforts, and enjoyed great successes, in business areas such as paging and mobile communication, digital document imaging, telecommunications, and electronic patient records, among others. Bill contributed his great talents to Brookwood Medical Center and many other companies.
\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0To all his endeavors, Bill added the absolute requirement of complete integrity Bill’s integrity and insistence on fully committing himself whenever he signed up resulted in many recognitions and honors, including being named a trustee of Vanderbilt University and a member of the Board of Overseers of Samford University
\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0\xA0One of Bill’s last gatherings was a party at the Birmingham Museum of Art, where he was also a trustee. At that time, he and his...
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