Bill Strickland is the Founder and Executive Chairman of Manchester Bidwell Corporation and its subsidiaries, Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, Bidwell Training Center, and National Center for Arts and Technology. His duties include developing and implementing major fund-raising plans of action; working with Boards of Directors and Industrial Advisory Boards; encouraging participation of corporate executive officials from major multi-national Pittsburgh corporations
Strickland was born in Pittsburgh in 1947 and graduated from David B. Oliver High School in 1965. In 1969, he earned a bachelor’s degree in American history and foreign relations from the University of Pittsburgh and graduated cum laude. In 1968, he founded Manchester Craftsmen’s Guild, assumed leadership of Bidwell Training Center. Inc. in 1972 and founded National Center for Arts and Technology in 2007.
Throughout his distinguished career, Strickland has been honored with numerous prestigious awards for his contributions to the arts and the community including receiving the Key to the City of Pittsburgh (August 2018) and in 1996, the MacArthur “Genius” Award for leadership and ingenuity in the arts.
In January 2012, Bill Strickland was selected to serve on the Task Force for Child Protection by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, received the GOI Peace Award in 2011, served on the White House Council for Community Solutions in December 2010, served as Chairman of the Expansion Arts Panel of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) in Washington, D.C. and served a six-year Presidential appointment as a Council Member to the NEA. In 2002, Strickland was sworn in as a member of the Presidents Committee on the Arts and the Humanities.
Strickland currently holds 22 honorary doctorates, is the author of Make the Impossible Possible and is working to replicate Manchester Bidwell model in cities throughout the US and internationally.
