Bill Pickett graduated as a Carleton English major; after four years as an officer in the U.S. Navy, he earned a master’s degree and a PhD in history from Indiana University. A member of the teaching faculty at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology from 1972 to 2007, he also led local history projects and advised a lengthy campaign that made Rose-Hulman coeducational.
He has been a visiting professor in Japan (as a Fulbright scholar), Korea, and Kyrgyzstan and is an accomplished writer. In 1990 he published a biography of U.S. Senator Homer E. Capehart and later launched a series of works about President Dwight D. Eisenhower, including a biography (1995), an authoritative account of his decision to run for president (2000), and a monograph on the origins of Eisenhower’s strategy toward the Soviet Union (2004).
Bill lives in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, with his wife, fellow Carl Janet Pickett ’64, P ’95.