Bill Troxler
I am delighted and proud to be on the production staff for The Bivalve Trail Podcast. I compose music for the podcast, do sound design and engineer the podcast. Lexi Hubb created this collection of historical stories about the people of the Virginia Shore. Learn some history and have some fun!
The Bivalve Trail Podcast is available on Apple, Spotify, Amazon and Audible. Click here to listen to episodes.
Notes on the episodes are available here
How I got here
The Short Story
✓ Started playing music when I was in the 3rd grade
✓ Released from high school to join the great folk-scare of the 1960s
✓ Two years as an English major
✓ Two years in the US Army as a Buck Sgt. E-5 posted in the Highlands of Vietnam and
Arlington National Cemetery
✓ Eight years earning four degrees, mostly in electrical engineering and technology
✓ Six years as a professor and dean
✓ Twenty-seven years as president of Capitol Technology University
✓ Retired to continue what I began in 3rd grade
Details below………….
I was part of the Capitol Technology University community for forty years. From student to professor to dean and for the final twenty-seven years I was president of the University. Capitol's academic programs focus on engineering, computer science, IT, cyber security and business. Full-time undergraduate students are eligible for a job guarantee. Check out the Capitol At a Glance stats.
The National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security designated Capitol as a National Center for Academic Excellence in Information Assurance and Cyber Defense Education.
Capitol is a member of the United States Space Command Academic Engagement Enterprise. The University works with this agency to foster relationships and collaboration through engaging the future workforce, increasing space applied research and innovation, expanding space-focused analytic partnerships, and enriching the strategic dialogue on space.
Capitol is an amazing place providing an important service to industry and students. I am very proud to have led the University through decades of consequential change.
Visit Capitol's website and see what this small, focused, University provides to students. View a great five-minute video of the University.
I was the producer and recording engineer for the CD Music to Read By. This project engaged twelve musicians who live on Chincoteague Island to create twenty-one tracks of music on a CD that ranged across classical, bluegrass, new age, Celtic, blues and original compositions. Everyone involved in the project gave their time and talents so that the profits from the sale of the CD would be used to help fund the expense of expanding the Chincoteague Island Library. The musicians ranged in age from 21 years to 92 years.The expansion of the library is finished. Today Music to Read By has been re-released multiple times. The income from sales of the project continues to help fund this independent, non-profit, library.
Common Ground on the Hill is a Regional Folklife Center of the Maryland State Arts Council's Maryland Traditions Program.
View a short video describing Common Ground.
Common Ground was founded on the premise that there is a common human thread unifying all people expressed in our various artistic traditions.
Common Ground’s mission is: 1) to provide the opportunity to teach and to study various musical instruments and art forms representing various ethnic and cultural traditions, 2) To sponsor a series of musical and artistic events from cultural and ethnic groups who are marginalized in our society or who are in conflict with each other and listen to their voices, 3) to encourage and facilitate dialogue, by way of the arts among different cultural traditions, in order to discover that this artistic common ground unites us, and that, as a result, the world might become a more human place.
I served as the founding president of Common Ground on the Hill. Walt Michael, an international touring musician, is the creator and executive director of the organization. In 1994 Common Ground offered its first summer classes.
Today, Common Ground runs a concert series, music festivals, jam sessions, songwriting contests, offers classes and, thanks to volunteers in Arizona, helps to promote a weekend festival called Common Ground on the Border.
I am a Fellow of the Washington Academy of Sciences
The Washington Academy of Sciences was incorporated in 1898 as an affiliation of eight Washington D.C. area scientific societies. The formation of the Academy culminated a decade of planning under the leadership of the Philosophical Society of Washington. The founders included Alexander Graham Bell and Samuel Langley, Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution. The purpose of the new Academy was to encourage the advancement of science and “to conduct, endow, or assist investigation in any department of science.” That purpose guided the Academy throughout its first 100 years,
I am a Fellow of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Founded in 1893, the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) is a nonprofit organization of individuals and institutions committed to furthering education in engineering and engineering technology.
ASEE's 12,000+ members include deans, department heads, faculty members, students, and government and industry representatives who hail from all disciplines of engineering and engineering technology. ASEE’s organizational membership is composed of 400 engineering and engineering technology colleges and affiliates, more than 50 corporations, and numerous government agencies and professional associations.
I served on the volunteer staff of reviewers for Science Books and Films of the American Association for the Advancement of Science from the mid-1970s until the early 2000s.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) was founded in 1848 and is today the largest general science organization in the world. AAAS is an international non-profit organization dedicated to advancing science for the benefit of all people.
I spent most of 1968 as a Buck Sargent E-5 assigned to B Company, 2 Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. The Division is nicknamed "The Ivy". B Company was a combat unit stationed in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The region was then known as II Corps – the Second Allied Combat Tactical Zone in South Vietnam.
My other duty assignment was with the “Old Guard” of the Army, the 3rd U.S. Infantry Regiment. The Old Guard is best known for supplying the soldiers who guard the Tomb of the Unknown Soldiers and serve the memorial needs of Arlington National Cemetery. The Guard also conducts ceremonies and special events to represent the Army, communicating its story to our Nation's citizens and the world. On order, the Old Guard conducts defense support of civil authorities in the National Capitol Region.
While I was assigned to the Old Guard many of my contemporaries attended a demonstration to levitate the Pentagon. When that happened, I was one of the guys in green holding the Pentagon down. Our efforts prevailed. The Pentagon did not rise on that occasion.