Architecture `Expert’ Only Built Resume Fox’s Consultant Admits He Has Not Built A Single School

The man picked by Republican state Schools Superintendent Anne Fox to head her new architectural design division admits his impressive resume contains exaggerations and inaccuracies.

But Bill Stanley is blaming that on his wife and fired Fox Deputy Superintendent Terry Haws. He said corrected information on his background is being prepared.

Fox, whose first month in office has been plagued by one internal problem after another highlighted by Haws’ firing 10 days ago, said she is satisfied with the explanations from her $40,000-a-year consultant of some of the inaccuracies, but she left open the possibility of taking action against him if transcripts fail to back up the explanations.

“I’ll have to take that step when it happens,” Fox said.

The problems with Stanley’s resume were disclosed by the Twin Falls Times-News.

Stanley, 56, was introduced a month ago by Fox as the expert who would oversee her $745,000 plan to develop a dozen generic designs for school construction that would be available free to districts seeking ways of reducing expansion costs.

But while he was described as “president and owner of a construction company specializing in school construction for 25 years,” Stanley conceded that he never has built a school. He also admitted he has no college degree or graduate school teaching experience even though his resume claims both.

A news release issued a month ago claimed Stanley had “undergraduate degrees in foreign affairs,” had been an adjunct professor at Northwest Nazarene College and had taught graduate school at the National War College.

It also boasted that he had helped renovate and remodel the White House and the National Air and Space Museum.

Stanley, a high school classmate of Haws’, said he had not seen that release, and Haws said he included only information he had been advised of.

“I’ve never had any knowledge of his background other than what I was told,” the ousted deputy superintendent said. Stanley’s own resume omitted the White House work, but it noted a bachelor’s degree from George Washington University, the adjunct professor position, and a stint as “academic research analyst for the Inter-American Defense College in Washington, D.C.”

But George Washington University officials said Stanley never finished his studies there; a Northwest Nazarene College spokeswoman said Stanley has never been an adjunct professor there; and officials at the National War College could find no trace of a William Sidney Stanley in their files.

Stanley again blamed Haws for the error on graduate school teaching experience.

But he defended his scholastic record, saying he has a “bachelor’s degree equivalency.” Fox said she is ready to accept that if Stanley can back it up with proof.

As for his school construction experience, Stanley headed Functional Systems Ltd. Inc., that between 1973 to 1985 sold furniture to schools along the East Coast but never built a school. Since that company was disbanded, Stanley said he has been a steel company sales manager, a construction estimator, a purchasing manager, a real estate agent and an antique store manager.

Stanley provided The Times-News two references on his work history. But Don Perini of Perini Construction in Hagerstown, Md., refused to discuss Stanley, and the other, Delbert G. Summerville, described Stanley as an affable furniture salesman but said he didn’t know much about Stanley’s construction business.