Waters, William R.

Waters was placed at six weeks of age with a middle-aged single woman as a foster child, and was adopted by her in 1935. He was unable to afford to go to university when he finished high school, but six years later he began to study part time, gaining his first degree that way. He continued to study, gaining three more degrees, including a Ph.D. in 1976.

Since 1964 he has been a member of the University of Toronto Faculty of Management, also holding a number of administrative positions at the university. He is also a company chairman, company board member, investment industry and public utilities consultant, and appears as an expert witness before tribunals, arbitration panels and in court cases in several countries.

He has been a major benefactor of his first college, Woodsworth College of the University of Toronto

has never tried to trace his birth family, although he was raised quite near to where they lived and his adoptive mother knew their names.