A Giant In Every Sense
Bill Little, 1942-2025.
A great old friend of mine died this weekend.
Bill Little was 6’10” and a giant in other ways, too.
For 50 years, he owned and ran a manufacturing company on the south side of Chicago. Quam-Nichols made audio systems for large corporate and institutional customers — hospitals, schools, large buildings.
He partnered with electronics companies in Taiwan and made “family” of his suppliers there. He had impeccable manners and Midwestern common sense but got all his clothes tailored in Hong Kong.
Bill believed Calvin Coolidge’s quip that “the business of America is business.” He sensed the pulse of the economy and both championed and critiqued corporate America. He spoke reverently about his employees and showed me cherished letters they and their families sent him.
He took pride that, despite the mass migration of U.S. manufacturing to Asia, Quam had figured out how to run a highly successful manufacturing concern in a high-cost city. In a recent conversation, Bill told me that, to his surprise, after a new scrubbing of the records, the company hadn’t suffered a losing quarter in 54 years.
Bill read thousands of books and cared deeply about politics, but more so about public policy. He first chaired the Electronics Industry Association in 1988, then moved to the boards of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Chamber Foundation. He chaired the Chamber board in 1998-99 and then spent 20-some years as chairman of the Foundation.
He and Tom Donohue, the larger-than-life Chamber CEO, were great friends and a formidable duo. After the Chamber hit bottom in the mid-1990s, when it supported Hillary Clinton’s healthcare reform, Tom and Bill rebuilt the organization into a powerhouse.
Bill was perhaps the best storyteller I’ve known. Bagels in L.A. Irish constables. Meeting his wife Corky for the second time in New York City. Meeting Barack Obama for the first time in Chicago. Elevator run-ins with pompous politicians and “brass-buttons” military officers, as he called them.
I generally dislike talking over the phone, but he and I chatted for hours, every month, for decades, almost always reluctantly ending our conversations before our topics were exhausted.
Bill was a stalwart libertarian and a fierce critic of counterproductive foreign military adventures. He was no ideologue or partisan, however. He was chiefly an independent thinker, splitting with his libertarian friends when they lost the plot. He foresaw the rise of Donald Trump and warned the U.S. Chamber about Wall Street excess and unsustainable mass migration.
In 2021, at the height of woke insanity and Covid oppression, the U.S. Chamber asked Bill to leave the board. It was a shameful low for an organization which had once again lost its rudder.
Bill played basketball at the University of Missouri in the 1960s and later retired to Columbia, where he cheered on Mizzou’s teams, including his friend Sophie Cunningham, now a teammate of Caitlin Clark with the Indiana Fever. He supported the business school and led a book seminar there. The athletes and students energized him. No doubt, he inspired them and enriched their lives.
Every other autumn for decades, we visited Bill in Columbia, took in a Tiger football game, ate good food, took long walks, and talked deep into the night, ready for another scintillating, laugh-filled conversation at breakfast.
We love you, Bill. I will miss our talks. Rest in peace.
I love this tribute. Bill talked of you often, and how fond he was of you and your wife. He will be missed by so many. Thank you so much for sharing this, Bret.
Wonderful tribute.