Crayton Webb 

Welcome to Reputation Matters. Our guest today helped transform a quiet town nestled between Dallas and Fort Worth, Texas into the most popular destination town between Orlando and Las Vegas. He’s a civic engineer by trade, but a civic leader by heart. Our guest today is Jeff Williams, the former mayor of Arlington, Texas, Mr. Mayor, Thank you for joining us today.

Jeff Williams

Great to be here, Crayton.

Crayton Webb

I think it’s really interesting to talk about the reputation of a community, a city, which is a little bit different than the reputation of a person or an individual. But I mean, we all have our impressions of communities. Set the stage for us. And before you do, I think  it’s important our guests know that as Mayor, you helped usher in the Cowboys Stadium AT&T Stadium, Globe Life Park for the Rangers, the National Medal of Honor Museum, all of these things you either helped usher in, helped make sure came to Arlington, Texas. It happened in great part on your watch, but set the stage. What was Arlington, Texas like before all this? I remember moving here in the late 90s, and there was a Six Flags and a mall, but that was about it.

Jeff Williams  02:00

Well, Crayton, we have had many great leaders through the years in Arlington that have built a lot of great building blocks, home to General Motors, the largest automobile plant. We’re home to the University of Texas at Arlington, which, by the way, is still the biggest economic engine in town. And then the other things that we have are Six Flags, great amusement park, and then the Texas Rangers, who have been there, so I’ve got to give them credit. Those are great building blocks to work from. But when I came in in 2015, our leaders came to me and asked me to come in and help lead us to bring in more jobs and grow our tourism so that we had more money to help take care of our city. And so things had stagnated somewhat. And in fact, they brought an article to me from the Dallas Morning News and said that, in fact, the Metroplex at DFW Metroplex was leading the nation in job creation, and then here, Arlington was not even in the mix. I said, we have got to start bringing in more businesses here, and and, and then the other part of it is, is that lots of other cities were after taking the Texas Rangers to their community, and rightfully so. So the stage that I would set is that I came in knowing that we had a lot of great things to take care of, and I also had a little bit of fear, because I said, we’ve got to succeed. There isn’t an option. But then the other part, I said, “I need a lot of help, and so I have got to recruit the citizens of Arlington to help me.”

Crayton Webb  03:50

Yeah, but, but even your description, mentioning the General Motors plan, mentioning all the things that were in Arlington already, including the Texas Rangers, great case study in how a community can have a pretty decent foundation and not have the reputation that goes with that. What is it? What happened? Do you think that Arlington did not have the reputation that it perhaps even deserved before all these things that you helped usher in?

Jeff Williams 

Well, that’s pretty easy. We needed our leaders to unite there and come together. There’s never been a shortage of leaders in our city, and also that can-do spirit is there in Arlington, but they needed to come together and start working. And thus I knew we needed to build unity, and we needed to build trust there so that we could work together. And of course, that is what I wrote the book on called The Unity Blueprint, bringing people together, aligning people with purpose. And throughout my career as an engineer, I’ve seen the importance of teamwork and the importance of what can happen when you bring large groups of people together to do good, and people have that interest in wanting to come together and do good. And we needed that to happen in Arlington.

Crayton Webb 

Yeah, I want to talk about your book here in just a few moments, coming out in September of 2025, but you also mentioned the Texas Rangers. And of course, the Rangers had been in Arlington, and there was discussion about them perhaps going away. Tell us the story. What, what happened, and how did you keep the Rangers?

Jeff Williams  05:25

Well, the Texas Rangers there, you know, there’s only 30 cities who have a major league ballpark throughout the country and and Arlington has had the Rangers since 1972 and they were very much a part of the fabric of the community, and we didn’t want to lose them. It was really a, not only an economic building block, it also is a morale booster. So many people have celebrated their anniversaries, their birthdays. They’ve even gotten engaged on the field. And different things have happened there at the Rangers ballpark. So we needed to dig in and make sure that we kept the Rangers. And so we made a plan. We developed a plan even before I came into office, and literally, the first week I was in office, I went to see the owner of the rangers and asked him what it was going to take for him to stay in Arlington. He said, “I don’t know.” He said, “We are doing a survey right now and surveying our fans on what they want to, want to have. We also are researching what the ball, the ball players want.” And he said, “It’s going to be a few months before I can tell you.” And then, and then I asked a question that I said, “Mr. Davis, will you give Arlington a chance before you select any other city? Because we want you to stay here first.” That’s exactly right. And there was a long pause, and my heart was beating. And then he said, “Yes, I will.” And you know, Mr. Davis is a man of his word and and I had heard that, and I knew that was critical, so that we had a chance. Because for all I knew, he already had made commitments there to it, and he had already gotten some proposals from two cities, and he had four other cities he was working with. And so the next thing I asked him, I said, “Look, whether you stay or not. We know that we have an opportunity to bring Texas Live here to Arlington, and it still would be beside the Cowboys Stadium. Can we go and try to recruit Texas Live here to our community, and with your help?” And he agreed immediately. He had studied that. I knew he knew about it, and that it been talked about there for about a year. And so two weeks later, we’re in Baltimore talking to the Cordish family about bringing Texas Live to, they agreed. We also saw a lot of pictures there, and their business that had hotels beside their live product. And so I asked them that too. I said, “Will you bring a hotel with you?” And they flat out, said, “No, we’re not interested. We’ll do the Texas Live but not interested in the hotel.” So I hated that, but we went on back a week later, Blake Cordish called me and said, “We are reconsidering. We think that this would be a great place for a hotel and we’re going to announce Texas Live. And when we do, we think that will be a catalyst to be able to bring a hotel there.” And so in a few months, literally two months, we were ready to announce Texas Live. We did. And sure enough, after we announced that the hotels were all interested. And you go, Well, why? Why were the hotels interested? The reason they were is because they had something to do at night by going to Texas Live, which is a huge entertainment complex, and in addition that we’re only 10 minutes from DFW airport. So hey, a lot of people will want to stay here, just so they have something to do at night, and then there’s still an easy access to the airport. And we saw every major hotelier come to Arlington then, and for years, we had been trying to get a luxury hotel right, and so that was a big moment for us.

Crayton Webb  09:17

What is it you think it was about you and your mannerisms or your reputation that helped take it over the finish line?

Jeff Williams  09:27

Well, I think it’s important not to be talking about what you can do for others and then have a track record of doing what you say you’re going to do. And all of us have heard that, but, and you think that would be a given, but it’s not. And so I think building trust and having that reputation or track record of doing what you say is critical. And so that’s what we did. Is when we went to the Cordishes, we said, “Here are the things that we think we can do for you. Here are the numbers and what we can produce. And we want to, and there’s the schedule and how we can make it happen,” Because I think that’s the other part. You want to make it easy for them to say yes, and for them to see that they have a very definitive cost and schedule that will be happening.

Crayton Webb  10:16

Was it smooth sailing after that, or were there some bumps in the road?

Jeff Williams  10:22

Oh my. It was an amazing six months, because in that six months we also were able to land the Tisch family in Loews Hotels, which ended up being an incredible partner to add to it. And in Arlington, we’ve always talked that we needed a Bass family or a Hunt family in our city to help pay for things. Well, we didn’t have them in our city there, but we still had, we had Ray Davis. We had had the Jones family. They were the Cowboys, but then we added the Cordishes, and also the Tisch family, all working together to make Arlington a destination. And again, unity played a large role, because they were all united in making that happen. And so after we got Loews, then things started getting rougher, because we had to get the commitment of the Rangers, and we made our pitch to them, and had not heard back. It turned out that they were going to have, going to spring training, and we heard that they would have a board meeting and spring training of all the Ranger owners. And so I called our city manager, and then we also talked to their CVB president, and I just told him, I said, “We’re going to spring training, and there’s a, there’s a party the night before for season ticket holders and suite holders, and all the owners will be there, even though we’re not invited to the board meeting. Let’s go there and actually spread our message of why they should stay in Arlington.” And we went, and it was an incredible night. We were able to talk to the owners and share with them the vision, all of the owners we’d already talked to, Ray Davis and Neil Liebman and Bob Simpson, but yet we hadn’t the minority owners we had not been able to talk to. And then also the thing we weren’t expecting, we got the ball players were all clued in to what was going on, and we got to visit with them, and we were so hoping they would invite us to come to the board meeting the next day, and did not. But however, at the end of the meeting, into their board meeting and other business, Ray Davis brought up, “Hey, I think we need to take a vote on whether to stay in Arlington or to or to look at moving somewhere else.” They took the vote, decided to stay in Arlington. So that was a great moment, but then we had to, and they told us that. And yes, we celebrated, but then we knew we had to get to get to work, because we needed to have the sales tax election in order to fund it. So that was the next step,

Crayton Webb  12:57

Right. Now I have to ask you, this may be the most serious question that I ask you. I just recently went to Globe, Globe Life Park with my son. Do you have any consternation whatsoever about watching baseball inside? I’m being facetious.

Jeff Williams  13:13

Here’s, here’s, here’s a very interesting thing, two things that I think are just golden stories there. One is Tom Grieve, who’s considered Mr. Ranger. Yeah, you know the TV announcer now, but he came in 72 there. He was not happy about us building a retractable roof ballpark, and he took off a particular Wednesday to take his grandkids to the game in the ballpark in Arlington, which is Choctaw Stadium. Yeah, they were in there, and it was a Wednesday afternoon, and he tells the story of how the first inning, the kids were ready to go, after the second inning, his wife was ready to go, and after the third inning, he was ready to go, and they left, and he said, “I didn’t know, I’m in the press box calling the game. I didn’t realize how hot it got.” Yeah, and of course, that was the secret to why, and it’s not a secret now, but at the time, why do you want to replace this beautiful ballpark in the ballpark in Arlington? But the reason being is that people were going to stop going to Major League Baseball here in Dallas-Fort Worth, if we didn’t do the retractable roof. Expectations change, society changes, expectations do. And then, in addition to that, they wanted to be able to sign free agents. And for years, that had always been a stumbling block. Because the heat.

Crayton Webb  14:33

You mentioned this. But for those who don’t know, there is a, the existing, or was pre-existing, Texas Ranger stadium. Now Choctaw stadium, it’s outdoors. It’s beautiful, still in good shape. Now there’s, is it rugby, and there’s some other things that have been programmed there. But of course, for those of you don’t know also, Texas summers are just really, really hot. But back to the programming at Choctaw. Now, there’s some great things that are happening.

Jeff Williams  14:59

There are, Crayton. And my goodness, this goes right back to reputation to throughout the time we were talking about, we’re going to repurpose the old ballpark, most people did not believe us. And in fact, the media was saying, hey, as soon as I get that new one up, they’re gonna turn it down. They’re gonna knock it down. That was never the intention. And Ray Davis stuck with his bargain. We did with ours, there, with the city, and we repurposed that, and it’s a phenomenally successful place, and it’s the only repurposed major league ballpark in America. There’s only one other one standing, and that’s in Houston, the Astrodome still standing. But it’s not, has not been repurposed. It’s empty, but yet ours is vibrant. It’s being used for Texas high school football, the UFL, rugby, soccer, and then the office building has been expanded, that’s in center field. And then we also have started putting shops in. And that was always the plan from the original architect that it was made to where in the concourses we could install restaurants and shops, and so we have Lucchese Boots there. We have Lone Star Dry Goods. El Tiempo, and stay tuned. There will be more.

Crayton Webb  16:14

Smart. National Medal of Honor Museum- didn’t even have Arlington, Texas on its radar. You weren’t even on the list. How did you manage to get them to look at Arlington and ultimately choose Arlington Texas?

Jeff Williams  16:27

Well, that is a wild story there, because you can imagine, this is a national museum. And everybody asks, well, why is it being built in Washington, DC? Because it was going to take 20 years and also twice the cost of what it would in other cities, 20 years, 20 years, all of the red tape and so forth that you would have to go through to be able to build a national museum. Well, the Medal of Honor recipients did not want to wait that long. Many of them would not live long enough to see that museum open, so they formed a foundation and said, “We are going to pick 20 cities for us to look at, and take a year to study it, and pick a city to go into.” Well, they were narrowing it down from 20 to 10, and as they got to 10, they did not have a city there in Texas that was going to be it. And then part of the story is that Dallas was not that interested in it, and they took a visit here, and they mutually decided it just wasn’t a fit. So they called one of the Medal of Honor recipients from Texas, and also he happened to be with the Head of Airpower Foundation at same time. And they said, “Have you looked at Arlington?” And I said, “No, we have not.” And so he said, “I bet that we could get the mayor to meet with you if you’d stay overnight and check it out, because we think it could be a great fit.” And he agreed. And they called me about eight or nine o’clock at night and said, “Hey, can you meet with the Medal of Honor museum tomorrow.” And I said, “No, I’m really too busy. I just really-“ No, you know, I didn’t do that. I immediately said, “Repeat this. It’s the National Medal of Honor Museum. You mean, we have an opportunity for this”. And I asked the question, “Why are they not going to DC?” And of course, immediately after that phone call, I said, “Please make it as late tomorrow as you can.” And I called our city manager, our Chamber of Commerce president. I said, “Guys, we’ve got a lot of work to do tonight.” And so we got busy and prepared, and they came in, it turned out remarkably well, and we started on a six month journey to compete against those nine other cities. And we were 10th there, and they told us that you’ve got a lot of ground to make up.

Crayton Webb  18:44

And these are nine other cities all around the country.

Jeff Williams  18:48

That’s right. You bet, right. You had Chicago, Kansas City, Nashville, Miami, San Diego, Denver, those are some of the cities that we were competing against there. So we had an uphill battle.

Crayton Webb

Yeah. How’d you do it?

Jeff Williams

Well, Crayton, it’s interesting how sometimes you work on things and they don’t work out. We went after the Amazon HQ two, and we were one of the finalist cities, and so they came and visited. Our hopes got up and they ended up picking the wrong Arlington. They picked Arlington, Virginia, and not Arlington, Texas. But there we had tons of preparation that was done. We also, our team worked together, so we built trust among our team. We had all of our information together so we were able to hit the ground running, and so we really created our story that we had, and and I think the big thing, we started including more people. We bring, we brought in people from our community and the expertise there. But then we went to Dallas. We went to Fort Worth, Dallas, and Fort Worth provided much more expertise. They added much to the team there too. And it was a, it was a, really quite a team effort for North Texas, and I don’t want that to get lost. And then we expanded to our former president, George W Bush, the governor. And then we showed them how we can build things quicker and better than any other place in the United States. We gave them a schedule, but interestingly enough, the thing that really hit home is that we included our school children. We, we brought them in and had our Grammy Award winning high school choir to greet them there and sing the national anthem and sing the Eyes of Texas there, and then to share with them why they wanted it to be, wanted this museum to be here. And then we went on to the field of AT&T Stadium on the 50 yard line and showed them, “Hey, we built this great, magnificent facility here, we can do it for you. We brought in the contractors, the architects, the expertise that we have here to be able to make it happen.” But then that night, they went to a reception there in which we had Roger Staubach in there, and you go, well, why did we have Roger Staubach? Well, we here in Dallas know why we did, but we need. Naval Academy grad, great businessman. One of the great ambassadors for North Texas, but here’s why we needed him. Denver was our main competition. You go, well, why was Denver such a competitor? Because they had Peyton Manning and Peter Coors. So we brought in Roger Staubach to offset that any more than offset it. And then in addition to that, we brought in several of our key business leaders and business owners here too to meet with them. And that reception went so well. And then we went in to do the dinner, and that’s where we really brought in our weapon. And that was six elementary school children that shared the importance of each one of those qualities there that, that, and when I say qualities, I’m talking about character, values, integrity, sacrifice, courage, commitment, citizenship and patriotism. Each one of those kids shared the importance of that. And then we had the mother of one of those children who was a former army commander to share with them the importance of this museum to spread this story to the school children all over Texas and then all over America. They got a standing ovation from the Medal of Honor museum board and the Medal of Honor recipients that were there, so we knew we had a chance. We were in the running there, and that was a pivotal moment, because they came into town every couple of weeks, and we were really worried, and that set the tone, and really helped us to move out and to get to where we needed to do to bring it across the finish line. But a great testimony to teamwork, unity and bringing people together, and then also being authentic and in the end, at the press conference there, when they announced that they were coming to Arlington, Texas, they said that Denver was a great city and offered a lot, but however, the spirit of Arlington and the Spirit of Texas is what sent it over the top, being as a spirit of the people.

Crayton Webb  23:26

Do you think some of the other projects in the area and the vicinity, I mean, it’s all right there. Do you think that had made a difference as well?

Jeff Williams  23:34

It took every one of them, Crayton, everything that we had built, from the new ballpark to the old ballpark to Texas live, the Loews hotels, Six Flags, even the things that were throughout North Texas. It took every building block we had to be able to achieve that. It was a, and that is one of the most challenging things that I’ve ever tackled there, because it did take everything we had and then every day working on it.

Crayton Webb  24:03

Success often begets success. But these kinds of developments don’t often get built in a community like Arlington, or any community without some controversy. There are always, I don’t know, but I imagine there are always neighbors, long standing neighbors, who would just like to see things stay the way they are, and in a fast-paced world like we live in today with so much change, sometimes you don’t blame them. How did you deal with that from a leadership perspective as mayor? Because you know you’re the mayor. You’re not, you’re not the mayor of the National Medal of Honor museum, you’re not the mayor of the Texas Rangers. You’re the Mayor of Arlington. So how did you deal with that and navigate through that, that difficult time, if there were any?

Jeff Williams  24:50

Oh there was. It was a very difficult time when we were working on the sales tax election, because, like you say, it was very hard for people to understand investing money into a sports facility. But however, we shared that story of the fact that, hey, we need to bring in OPM. And you know what OPM is? That’s other people’s money, and tourism does that, and especially Arlington had, had, has made so much money over the years because of the Rangers and Six Flags. Now we add to it the Cowboys, and then the opportunity there for the Rangers to have a new ballpark and not have any rain-outs there, to actually have great attendance in July and August there, so that we can bring in more money. But basically, we had a story to tell there, and it was a true story of the fact that we had actually made the money from tourism that then went in to build our neighborhoods, to strengthen them, to actually pay for part of our streets and our utilities and so forth there. And so our mantra was other people’s money and, and then the formula that is so prevalent that we talk about is tourism plus jobs equals better city services and lower taxes, because cities are subject to inflation. And we shared that story, and so many there were spreading the story throughout Arlington. We had coffees in the homes we we had meetings at many of the businesses there, the Chamber of Commerce there helped us there in getting that story out. But ultimately, it was the individual citizens message there that really resonated.

Crayton Webb  26:38

And it passed. Did it pass handily? Or was it close?

Jeff Williams  26:41

Well, it did it, it. We were worried in elections. You’ve always got to stay scared, yeah. And so we did. We ended up getting a 60, you know, 60% of the vote there, which is the most at that time, is the most it had ever been gotten for sports facilities. Yeah. And then here’s, here’s a surprising story. It surprised me is this was for the Rangers, and the first one the next morning after the election that I heard from was Jerry Jones. And walked in, and my assistant was trying to find me, said, “Jerry Jones wants to talk to you.” And he had a handwritten letter delivered and said, “Thank you for working for our community and making this happen.” And it was an amazing win here for North Texas. And it was it was really neat.

Crayton Webb  27:29

You mentioned Jerry Jones. I would love for you to either dispel if it’s a myth or if it’s a true belief as it relates to football stadiums versus baseball stadiums. Just a little bit of a preview: 20 years ago, of course, when and you were not mayor, when the Cowboys were considering where to build their new stadium, Dallas had some real issues with raising the hotel motel tax. At the time, Dallas would have had the highest hotel motel tax in the country. And one of the arguments was like, “Look, this is eight home games a year.” And of course, the American Airlines Arena had first right of refusal on the Garth Brooks and the, you know, U2, all the concerts. But there’s been this, this notion around municipalities around the country that baseball stadiums with the number of games bring OPM, other people’s money, but football stadiums with only eight home games a year without the concerts, do not and the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. What do you say to that?

Jeff Williams  28:38

Well, AT&T Stadium broke the mold, because they now have 300 events a year going on there. They also are the number one place for visitors to tour. The tours that they take at Cowboys, they average around 1500 people a day. And I’m very grateful to the Jones family for the investment they made to create a special event center. It is not just a stadium, and even now, they are adjusting that stadium to really make it an incredible place for soccer as we host the World Cup this next year. But they set the tone. And in fact, there still is not another stadium in America that can do what they do. In fact, you notice the national championship there here a couple of years ago that was held out at SoFi Stadium in LA, it was supposed to be weatherproof. Our TCU fans from Fort Worth got soaked, you know, and truly, we have a weather resistant, not just weather resistant, weatherproof facility that is proven out to be a great special event center, but then the Rangers studied AT&T Stadium, and they went in the same mold in the way they designed their stadium, and they now, or have reached over 300 events, and I might add, a couple of years earlier than what they thought they would reach. And it’s, it’s very exciting because we have two major stadiums within walking distance that each can host over 300 events, and it’s a wide range. And also, they’re not, not all sports. You know, there are a lot of concerts. There are a lot of different conventions that take place in these stadiums. There are even monster jams and motocross. And then one of the great moments for our community was in 2020 as we came out of the pandemic, we hosted the National Finals Rodeo when Vegas was shut down. And then we also hosted the first neutral World Series when others couldn’t do it, and so we had LA and Tampa, and then I’ve got to share this with you, Crayton, because this is a great story. Because the other thing that we had is we were sharing with our community how these big businesses and these big stadiums help small communities. And when we hosted that neutral World Series, a lot of our restaurants went viral because the LA Dodgers and the Tampa fans were posting them on social media. And Hurtado Barbecue has now risen to be one of the top barbecue spots in America, and actually as an agreement with Taylor Sheridan to supply the four sixes beef through his restaurant, and then we had other of our small restaurants now that have become famous because of that weekend when we hosted the World Series.

Crayton Webb  31:32

Ships rise with the tide. Okay. Last question about Arlington, at least for the moment. Does it bother you, and is it fair or even true that people still continue to refer to this area as Dallas-Fort Worth. It might be happening in Arlington. It might be happening in your community. It might be happening because you and your predecessors or successors got it over the finish line, but they still call it Dallas-Fort Worth. What do we do about that? Does it matter to you?

Jeff Williams  32:05

Oh, it matters. But let me share this with you. Whenever somebody mentions Arlington, now, they’re not thinking about Arlington, Virginia, and in fact, I’ve had a fun time with the Arlington, or the Arlington Virginia Mayor about that. They do think about Arlington, Texas, and she even concedes that. But then the other part is that we have broken through, because whenever we have events there, 90% of the time they say we’re in Arlington, Texas. And then everyone that has an event there says Arlington Texas, except for some of the singers, who may be a little over served when they take the stage there, but most of them even acknowledge that they’re in Arlington, Texas, but I don’t want to get too hung up on it, because I think it’s so important that Dallas and Arlington and Fort Worth and the entire Metroplex work together, but here, but watch out there, because we have become the destination between Orlando and Vegas, no question. And we draw almost twice as many people as any of the other cities in North Texas. And we are right at the beginning of what we can do. And I really would say the same thing about Dallas and Fort Worth. We are right at the beginning. Our trajectory is upward, and I think again, we’ve got to be unified and work together, because whenever you build a bigger pie, there’s enough for everyone.

Crayton Webb  33:29

Do you ever think it will be, DAFW, I mean, will we-

Jeff Williams  33:34

Oh, sure. It will be, of course, it will be!

Crayton Webb  33:37

Good answer. All right, you’ve got a new book coming out, as we discussed, September of 25. “The Unity Blueprint.” What made you decide to write a book, and why did you decide of all the things you’ve done and accomplished, of course, you’re CEO of a very successful engineering firm. You’ve done a lot of things in your life. Of all the things you decided to write about, why was this the topic you chose?

Jeff Williams  34:03

Well, I can’t say that I chose it there. As a matter of fact, what happened is New York University was studying our city, and had been for several years after we had become the sports capital of the nation, and during the pandemic, they sent a lot of people down here to study our community and believe that we were one of the first cities to come out of the, out of the pandemic, both economically and physically. And they said, “You really need to write a book. And they because what you’ve done is you bring people together to make a difference, and it’s working, and you’re able to get it done faster and better because you’re including people in it.” And they actually introduced us to Forbes. And so things were moving along there, and in New York University and Forbes both said that, you know, the secret here is unity. That’s, that’s what, how the things that you’ve got are done. And I wanted to do a leadership book, not a biography, yeah, but I also wanted these stories documented, because there are 1000s of people who have helped with everything that I do. And, and the power of a leader there is really right there with his people. And I feel like that God really called me to do the things that we did. And then I think he really directed me to this topic of unity. And I think all of us in this world of dissension and trouble and arguing, so much energy is wasted on that. And then yet, when you bring unity, you’re not spending all your time arguing. You are actually entering into projects to do good, and you make things happen, and so you’re able to do them faster. But the other part that I love is a side benefit of that is that you’re forging friendships. You know, just think about who are your best friends? I bet that you worked with them on some project. You worked with them on something, maybe in schools for your kids, or at church or civic organization, and it’s a tremendous benefit there to be able to forge those friendships. And then you’re working with your friends, and you don’t know everybody around you, but it’s amazing how it breaks down barriers to when you’re working together to do good.

Crayton Webb  36:23

Yeah, you mentioned the world that we’re living in. It’s not especially unified right now. In fact, it feels, if you look at national politics or even international politics, less unified than ever. So what piece of advice, do you have that you hope and expect people will listen to and observe that could help us change the current decorum, if you will?

Jeff Williams  36:53

Well, Crayton, first of all, Forbes, identified that people want unity. They are tired of the dissension, and so they believe this book will be a help there to people, to get them to unity. And so what advice do I have? I would say it would be very important there to have a plan for what you want to do as a leader. You need a plan and a vision, and then you want to be to put your ego aside and gather friends together and our colleagues in business and refine that plan, have them be a part of developing that and then you move forward together with that plan and then you’re able to build trust, you’re able to actually work together and the leader, it’s so important to not be focused on power, but to be focused on service.

Crayton Webb  37:49

Yeah, yeah. And what, I think some of your messages have so much been about relationships and common ground. And if you listen to elected officials, most of them will tell you that behind the scenes, that’s really what’s happening. You know? They’ll say, listen, we passed so many things on our consent agenda that we all agree on, but I don’t know. I mean, I think it’s where the things we disagree on is where we show our true colors. And if you look at our electoral system right now, you’ve got the extremes that run to the either the far right or the far left, to win in a primary, to stay in office. And it’s, it’s the extremities that seem to get the, you know, the extremes that seem to get the attention, the sound bites, the interesting. We’re getting everybody all kerfuffled up and angry, and that that’s what brings them out to vote. Fear seems to drive a lot of action, as opposed to unity. How do we combat that?

Jeff Williams  38:49

Well, you just talked about a one of my favorite topics, and that is the ability to disagree, and frankly, my two best friends, we love to argue. You know, we love to disagree and try to bring the other one over, but we respect each other and we value each other, and that’s the real difference. Instead of this cancel culture that when someone disagrees with me, I don’t want anything to do with them, I think we’ve got to remember that we need to have respect and value as we are discussing the topics. But the thing that is very evident is that people are looking for leaders that they can trust and that value them. And in fact, it was very much illustrated earlier this week, I spoke to 20 managers from Chick fil A, and they were young people that are working on their career, and ask them the question, what are you looking for in a leader? I knew what they were going to say, and sure enough, they did. They said trust and a leader that values me, and it’s just, it’s, it’s common, and that’s common ground for us. So the other part that I think that we have to build in, and I’ve added it to my core of my personal core values, and that is forgiveness. We’ve got to be forgiving of people. Can’t write them off. And as I mentioned, those two best friends are from my high school, and we’re very different people, and we have different opinions, and we have often laughed. There’s no way we would still be friends if we had adopted society in the way it approaches things now.

Crayton Webb  40:24

Yeah, what’s, what’s the biggest mistake leaders make in trying to bring people together? Do they skip a step?

Jeff Williams  40:32

Well, I’ll just stereotype it, but they want to talk about themselves and how great they are, and they don’t have a plan, they don’t have a vision, or they have a plan and a vision that is theirs, and they don’t listen to the input there, because there’s, there’s no better plan than the one that has been worked on by multiple people from different expertise. And then it’s molds that plan, and it’s, it suddenly takes a good plan to make it a great plan. And then the real secret is, it’s not my plan, it’s our plan.

Crayton Webb  41:06

Yeah, people support that which they create. Yes, it makes a big difference. So as you’re talking to the next generation of leaders, and they’re telling you that they want to feel valued, you know, there are, there are differences in generations, right? I mean, you, you see it. And what is your observation about how this next generation of leaders sees unity, and what lessons are you hoping to teach them through your book and your conversation?

Jeff Williams  41:37

I think it’s important for all of us to be lifelong learners, and when I say learn, it’s also we need to learn about society. We need to respect the differences between generations here too, because you can’t be successful in business if you are not able to answer the question, why? Now, in fact, the way we need to treat our employees is the way that we have always treated our volunteers in civic organizations and so forth. You know they we need to value them. We need to listen to them, but then they need to be told when they ask why? We don’t say because I told you so. But no, we talked to them about why. As an engineer, I think it’s so important we don’t just talk about that. Hey, I designed the roads and the sanitary surfer this project, we say we helped build the National Medal of Honor museum that has a mission for all of us, all of our society, to adopt character values and to recognize that we can choose to be courageous people. We have that in us. That’s the difference there. I think, because we, we’ve got to be able to spread, really, the mission of whatever we’re doing.

Crayton Webb  42:49

What about the difference in leading people as a community leader or an elected official versus leading people in a company? You know, if you if people support that, which they create in a company, it isn’t always that easy, right? Because there’s a vision, there’s a mission. You got to get paid, right? You got to get it over. Got to get it over the finish line. How do you distinguish Is there a distinguishment between the two? And how do you do that?

Jeff Williams  43:19

All right? Crayton, this is what’s amazing. Changes can really be good. And I think change in business, from the fact that we need to value our employees, we need to actually include them in our decision making, is a great thing. And so consequently, there’s been a paradigm shift there in the fact that the way we treat our people trader treat our citizens, or the, as I mentioned before, treat our volunteers and our nonprofits, and now the way we treat our employees is all the same, because people need to be valued, and they can’t just be told what to do. And then, in an interesting too, that people are not driven just by money. They’re more driven by what the mission is. And that can be the mission in your business. And for us as a civil engineering firm, we are working to be a valued partner in building communities.

Crayton Webb  44:17

Character matters as well. And you’ve talked about several character principles. Have you seen a person’s character influence their reputation or even their ability to lead or have impact or make change? Is there a particular character or characteristic that you admire the most?

Jeff Williams  44:37

Well, I’ve got to share with you. I had a game changing experience there. When we, I was a civil engineer for the original ballpark in Arlington, Choctaw Stadium, the one that I was told that I was going to be tearing down, as a matter of fact. But on that project, we had George W. Bush as a managing general partner, and we had a man that later became the ambassador to Japan and Australia, Tom Schieffer, that was on that, and then we had a man, Jack Hill, who has been the owners representative on many of the great stadiums and great projects throughout the United States. And we had one of the greatest mayors I have met, and Richard Green, that were all serving on that project, and they set an incredible example for me as a young engineer. And they very much had character values. They very much respected the team, and they were tough and they were firm, but yet they, they garnered the expert. Jack Hill was, Jack Hill was the first leader of construction that I had ever seen that never yelled. He did it there by being firm and having the information and then and then made you a part of the team, and you had to hold up your part of it. So that influence there was very important for me in picking my character values, all of us, no matter what the age, can decide what character values we are going to adopt. And I think right at the top of it has got to be integrity and respecting people and leadership is not sustainable. Without character values, people will not follow you. And so that’s probably one of the first steps that people need to take. And of course, we, we have that very clearly defined in the unity blueprint, because it is a plan, you know, and a blueprint is a plan. And so it is a plan on how you can take care of yourself personally, but then how you move out to engage others for success.

Crayton Webb  46:40

Yeah, okay, we’re going to move into a little lightning round that we have as we finish each of our conversations on Reputation Matters. So, so the first question, just for you in particular, is, is there, is there a character value that you admire the most?

Jeff Williams  46:58

Well, I think I’ve got to go with integrity, and that doesn’t mean that you don’t make mistakes, that you don’t, that you’re not perfect, but however you’re working at it all the time, and people recognize that even when you make mistakes, there, hey, he’s working at it.

Crayton Webb  47:13

I define integrity as doing the right thing even when nobody’s looking, that’s how I’ve always defined. How do you define?

Jeff Williams  47:19

I couldn’t agree more, because then you’re on your game all the time.

Crayton Webb  47:25

Yeah, and if you’re a person of faith, you obviously feel that everybody’s looking or you’re always being watched, right? We’re always, we’re always-

Jeff Williams  47:35

It’s true. And isn’t it interesting how God uses imperfect people and that’s something I think that scares a lot of people away from leading, is because they say, I can’t do that all the time, but no, if you’re working at it and you’re trying, it’s amazing how people will be forgiving, but you’ve got to be able to lay that down and say, I am going to work at having this character value.

Crayton Webb  48:00

Yeah, I love that you’re open about your faith, and I love that you’ve mentioned forgiveness as an important, grace is something we all need and require, and offering it is as important as accepting it. Okay, we’re down shifting. What was your favorite subject in school?

Jeff Williams  48:14

Well, that was easy. That was speech, that was although I was very good in math, but, but I had an incredible drama and speech teacher that was phenomenal.

Crayton Webb  48:26

What was your major in college?

Jeff Williams

Civil Engineering.

Crayton Webb

Favorite holiday?

Jeff Williams  48:32

Oh, my, I love them all there, and I, I can say that Thanksgiving is pretty awesome because there’s not as many distractions, and you’re with family there. And of course, I can’t say we don’t love Christmas, but, but Thanksgiving is a time in which special things have really happened for me.

Crayton Webb

Favorite hobby?

Jeff Williams

Well, that’s hard. I have a lot of them, but I would say snow skiing is my favorite.

Crayton Webb  48:58

Okay. Your favorite guilty pleasure?

Jeff Williams  49:04

Wow. Well, that has to be to do with probably coconut cream pie and banana pudding.

Crayton Webb  49:11

What was the last TV show you binged, binge watched?

Jeff Williams  49:16

Well, “The Chosen”, there no doubt. But I can say we’re looking forward to “Lincoln Lawyer”, which we had done, and we got a new season coming on it, and it’s pretty fascinating.

Crayton Webb  49:27

Okay, favorite movie of all time.

Jeff Williams

Field of Dreams.

Crayton Webb

Favorite day of the week.

Jeff Williams  49:35

Hmm, wow, wow. Never been faced with that one there, no doubt, well, you know, it’s not Friday or Monday for me, because it’s outgrown tremendously, but I can say that the rest of the days I thoroughly enjoy, and then Sunday sets a tone, no doubt.

Crayton Webb  49:55

Your hidden talent or superpower.

Jeff Williams  49:59

Uh. Hmm, it’s other people there, I draw on the energy of other people.

Crayton Webb  50:05

If you could pick one person, alive or dead, that you could meet for dinner, who would it be?

Jeff Williams  50:12

I think it’d probably be Rick Warren there. Rick Warren there has made a big difference in my life. The last couple of years, I had a friend of mine who shared with me that he was a new Christian, and shared with me the fact that he gets an email every morning there on with a devotional from Rick Warren. And I said, you know, I probably ought to do that so I can visit with him. And so I did it. And anyway, it’s amazing there what Rick does, it helps you in your personal and business life. And interestingly enough, my best friend there is meeting with him right now in Australia, and I’m hopeful that someday I’ll get to meet him and visit with him, because he’s a very wise man.

Crayton Webb  50:59

Favorite sports team. No, I’m just kidding. I would never make you do that.

Jeff Williams  51:03

Well, there’s no secret there. I mean, it’s definitely the Rangers and the Cowboys. You know, it’s a long time. I remember as a kid, my dad taking me to the Cotton Bowl to see the Cowboys, but also going to the Cotton Bowl to see Texas beat Notre Dame in the national, for the national championship.

Crayton Webb  51:21

Mayor Jeff Williams, you’ve accomplished a great many things. Thank you for your time. Thank you for joining us on Reputation Matters. New book, “The Unity Blueprint”, coming out September 2025. Thank you all for joining us on Reputation Matters. Be sure to check us out at sunwestpr.com or on LinkedIn, or you can find this podcast on your favorite podcast channel or outlet. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much.