There for the Asking
Bill McCann ’79 We talk a lot about the Pioneer network, lifelong connections and how Transy has your back long after graduation. Ask Bill McCann, Class of 1979, and you’ll find a specific example of how that generous faculty-student connection works even decades after graduation. In Bill’s case, it’s with a faculty member he didn’t even know as a student. But that didn’t stop him from asking for help. McCann has always loved the theater and held a deep interest in playwriting. “Theater is another way of looking at the world,” he says. “It’s a way of getting people to think about things they might not otherwise think about, in ways they wouldn’t have thought of before.” He began his career at Transy as a theater major, but, at his father’s urging, changed his academic focus to history. After Transy, he worked for a defense contractor in D.C. and earned a degree in education. He returned to Kentucky to work for the Department of Education as a financial management consultant for school districts, helping with everything from budgets to bidding practices. He was always observing and sharing best practices. Then, as he was passing through mid-life, he asked himself what he really wanted to be doing—“and it was to write plays and do theater.” He decided to earn a master’s in theater at the University of Kentucky. “I’d always been involved with theater,” he adds, “I’d tried and struggled to
