Sunday Interview with Ben Williams of the National Infantry Foundation

Ben Williams retired last month as the president and chief operating officer of the National Infantry Foundation.

The National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center is part of his legacy.

Recently, the Mississippi native sat down with Ledger-Enquirer reporter Chuck Williams to talk about the museum and his role.

Here are excerpts of that interview edited for length.

First, congratulations on your recent retirement. That had to be a decision that you put a lot of thought into, right?

It was. It's something I started thinking about toward the middle of last year, I guess. In talking with Greg Camp and Carmen (Cavezza), I felt like the best time to do that would be at the end of January, to go through our annual meeting. Our foundation's annual meeting is always the third week in January each year. That's when we close out the previous calendar year, prepare the budget for the upcoming year, and go through the election of officers and new directors. That was the right time to do it, and that's what happened. I announced to the board in November.

Did you do it with mixed emotions?

Sure. I've been involved with this project since Day 1, so I've got a lot of skin in the game, and it's hard in a lot of ways to walk away. But someone once told me, "You'll know when it's time," and I started feeling like it was the time to move on, pass the baton, and hopefully be able to do some other things with whatever number of years I might have left with the family, and travel, and doing some things like that.

You talk about being here since Day 1. How long ago was that?

We started with some early planning for it in 1998, I guess it was. The National Infantry Association had been created, or recreated, in the mid-1990s, and one of the things that the association looked at was what to do with the old museum -- if you will -- the old Infantry Museum, which was in the old hospital building on post. (It was a) building that was built in, I think, 1925, and converted in the mid-'70s to the -- at the time -- the existing Infantry Museum. (It) needed a lot of work, a lot of heating/air conditioning issues, climate control, humidity controls that are essential for the Army collection, the artifacts and all,

We helped and worked with the Army, and the Army staff, the museum staff, to try to come up with some solutions of what to do about that, and so we undertook a feasibility study, hired a consultant to come in and take a look at what some options might be, talked to some community people as well as folks on post -- leadership on post -- and out of that grew an idea that what we needed to do was not try to fix up the old museum, but to start with a new facility that would be first-class.

A lot of people thought that was a crazy idea, right?

I don't know if that's the case. I don't think any of us in the beginning had any idea of what it might turn out to be, a facility like this.

Nobody said $110 million museum. ...

We start out (at a) much lower number, but as somebody told me along the way, you really don't know what it's going to cost until you put it out for bid and you finish your plans. It was a process that we went through, and we got a tremendous amount of encouragement from the local community, particularly the philanthropic community -- Bradley-Turner Foundation, Mr. Lumpkin. Frank Lumpkin Jr. was an early advocate of doing something special. We listened to them; their thoughts were to think big and try to do it in a first-class manner, so we took that advice. They also put some money behind it and gave us a significant lead gift. The two of them -- two people together -- gave us a significant lead gift which gave us the funding needed to really go forward with the project.

Were other sites considered?

We did look at several other sites. There were two locations out along I-185 that were on Army property, actually, that we considered. This site was identified because, one, it belonged to the City of Columbus -- it was 90 acres of land here that the city owned. It was just trees, it was wooded, it had a small passive park that you would enter off of South Lumpkin Road, so when we identified this site, we also engaged, through the Convention & Visitors Bureau, Randall Marketing -- Randall Tourism, I think -- (which) did another feasibility about trying to help us determine where, from a visitor's standpoint, what would be the best location.

There was also some thought of creating a series of buildings that might be located along the RiverWalk, between Uptown and out here. There was another building in Uptown Columbus that was considered. ...

Where was that?

I think it was the old Eagle and Phenix Mill that before -- while it was vacant -- that was put on the table as a possibility at the time. Randall came in and did a lot of analysis of what might work best, and their strong recommendation was that it would be either on or adjacent to Fort Benning. It should not be in the Uptown area, but should be as close to Fort Benning as possible.

When you've been involved in something like you have, from theory to concept to due diligence to design to building it, is there any part of the process that you liked more than any other process part of it?

I enjoyed the conceptual piece of it. I know we did a lot of due diligence along the way as we were working with partners, trying to come up with various ideas. One of the things that a group of us that came together to be the leadership group -- if you will -- knew, was that we didn't know how to build a facility like this, or a museum, for that matter. We were able, because of the funding that we received early on, to be able to go out and engage some world-class architects and designers and master-planners. We were able to get some of the creative minds together to help us arrive at what you see here today.

Fort Benning, the leadership at Benning from the commanding general down, certainly all of the museum staff, the Army museum staff, Center of Military History out of D.C., they were all at the table as these decisions were being made all along the way.

When you look at this facility -- the National Infantry Museum Foundation owns the building, operates the building -- what is the Army's role inside this building?

The Army has a major role. We're partners -- and have been from Day 1 -- partners in this effort. The Army, more than likely, could never have been able to get the funding needed to build something like this, or even anything close to this. Our role was to be the central group that pulled everything together, working with all the various constituencies, whether it be the true museum people, Center of Military History, Army staff here, museum staff here, whether it's the local community leaders, city government, Congress, members of Congress. We spent a lot of time in Washington, needless to say, telling about the vision we had for this and getting some federal funding along the way, so our role was that of a sponsoring organization that pulled it all together. The Army owns the artifacts.

How many museums do you know where the people that own the facility and operate the facility don't own many of the artifacts, if any?

This is the only one of its type like this that was truly a public/private partnership, that word you hear so often. We plowed a lot of new ground in our dealings with the Army and the leadership of the Army in D.C., but the Army, Army staff, has a central role in this thing, absolutely. The building, technically, is called the National Infantry Museum and Soldier Center, so the museum itself (is) basically the galleries and where the artifacts are located, and some of the non-public areas where the artifacts that aren't on display are in storage.

They are the ones responsible for the collection and the maintenance of the collection and the preservation of the collection. We have worked to facilitate creating it all. Our foundation built it, built all the galleries, built ... everything that you see inside the museum except the artifact itself that might be in a display case. All of that belongs to the Army.

Do you remember the first time you heard the figure $110 million?

It was after we'd gotten into it a little ways. We started off, I think, with about a $70 to $75 million budget, and it essentially grew from there as we made other decisions about the design of the building, what should be included, what's not to be included. But it was -- it's a big number and it has been -- was a challenge for us, but we were able to raise the funds necessary. We still have some debt left on it, and that's what we're attempting to deal with in this capital campaign that includes ... part of it includes reducing that debt, if not paying it off totally.

As I understand it, you're within $5 million to $10 million of being debt-free, right?

We still got about $9 million in debt that we are dealing with and paying down on an annual basis, trying as best we can to accelerate that payment, so we'll have some money freed up that we're paying now in interest expense to our friends at CB&T. We could use those funds for programs and other things once that debt's paid off.

It was a very small group of people that were at the core of this in the beginning. You were in it, Gen. Jerry White was in it, Greg Camp was in it. It was a very small group that was doing it. How much credit for the museum should go to Gen. White?

He was the original leader of the project. When he was commanding general here, he had the National Infantry Association reformed, and so he became the chairman of that after he retired. Gen. Ken Leuer was an early chairman of the association as well, so he in a sense gave birth to the association, and then the foundation was created in late 1998 as a 501(c)(3) foundation that was an outgrowth of the association. It had a separate board, but ...

It was designed to raise money and get this built.

It was designed to be the entity that was responsible for whatever might could be done in terms of museum -- either fixing up the old museum or creating a new facility here. He (White) was the original chairman of that, and led the effort up through his retirement at the end of 2010.

How long were you in the Army?

I was on active duty for three years. I went through ROTC at Mississippi State and graduated and was commissioned in the finance corps, and served on active duty. Then got out, went to work for Southern Bell, in Atlanta, on their management training program. Moved around the state of Georgia with Southern Bell, and then ended up here in Columbus in 1976 as the district manager for Southern Bell. That's what got me and my family to Columbus, and we had a chance to stay here. I left Southern Bell in '83 and joined CB&T. We were tired of moving. I think I counted the first 10 years out of college, we lived in 9 different places between the Army and Southern Bell. We liked Columbus and decided this would be a nice place. We wanted to stay here. Fortunately, I knew some people at CB&T. I was involved in the community, a lot of community activities.

Could you have been as effective as you have been in this job if you had no prior military service?

I think it helps to have an appreciation for what it's like to be in the Army. I was clearly in one of the support branches of the Army. I was in no way in combat or anything like that, but I certainly had an appreciation -- and I've always had an appreciation -- for ... those on the front line, like our infantry soldiers particularly. Whether it was with Southern Bell, I always had a lot of interaction out here at Fort Benning. When I was at CB&T, I was responsible for the branches out here. I was the designated military liaison guy, because of my prior service.

Were you stateside the whole time you were ...

I actually spent a year, or 13 months, in Korea, 8th Army Headquarters there in Seoul.

What were you doing?

I was in the finance section there. I was a popular guy once a month when we paid everybody. It was that kind of operation. Then I left there and came back to Fort Lee, Va., and was part of the post finance operation there, and stayed there until I got out in April of 1970. ...

Talk about this building again, now. ... Did y'all accomplish what you were trying to do?

No doubt about it. We really had a great professional team of architects that presented us with a lot of options. We were fortunate to have some seed money, some lead gifts that were significant from the Bradley-Turner Foundation and Mr. Lumpkin, that allowed us to go out and hire what we felt like were the very best architects and designers in the country. We put out RFPs (requests for proposal), had a tremendous amount of interest, and we selected as our lead design firm Verner Johnson and Associates out of Boston.

They had done about 130 museums at the time, and one of the latest ones they had finished was the Texas State History Museum in Austin, Texas. We went out there as we were doing our due diligence and talked to the people and found what a wonderful job they did. We had the very best of museum architects to help create the design. We teamed them with ... local architecture firm Hecht Burdeshaw, who really did a significant amount of the work, too.

I know that when they presented us with some designs about the front of the building -- and we knew we wanted to use the Follow Me statue as part of the design somewhere -- they came up with this rotunda and the look ... it reminded us all of the Jefferson Memorial on the Mall in Washington. It was just a really iconic image that we liked.

When we got into pricing out all the options -- and we were trying to arrive at a reasonable budget -- one of the features, putting that rotunda and statue the way it's built here, was about a million dollar decision. We could have saved a million dollars by not having that, just having some other less dramatic entrance, but we clearly -- all of us to a person -- said, "We want this look."

You guys know it's a good decision today.

Oh, it's a great decision. It'd be interesting to know how many pictures since we opened have been taken out in front of that statue there. It has to be in the millions of pictures that have been taken out there. It's really ... when somebody sees the front of the building, they know exactly what it is.

What are you most proud of when you look back over the 17, 18 years of this project?

I think we're all proud of what has been created by a great team of people and donors and supporters from the local area to nationally -- clearly nationally. (They) have come together to really create something that's very special. It's very rewarding when we see groups of young soldiers come through here, and particularly after graduation, they're on Family Day, the day before graduation, they might bring their family through here. You see them light up and see how proud they are to be able to show off to their families what they've now embarked on as a career and profession.

(You) see a lot of veterans who come through here that enjoy the visits, so we get a lot of very positive feedback about what's been created here. We're proud of the reviews we get on TripAdvisor, the No. 1 travel website. We're listed as the No. 1 attraction in this area. You look it up. They go on a 1-star being lowest, up to a 5-star rating, and we've got an average rating from our visitors of 4.91, which is one of the highest ratings that we've been able to find of any other place in Georgia.

Were you glad to see Greg (Camp) step into the role?

Yeah, Greg's a great guy. I've known Greg since he was chief of staff out here at Benning. He was getting ready to retire. He and I talked a couple of times, and he was undecided what he wanted to do, so I persuaded him that he should come to work at CB&T, which he did. He worked in our credit card operation there, and so Greg and I have been friends and working together for quite a while.

After I got involved in this, I stayed in touch with him. His operation had been transferred over to TSYS at that point, and so I approached him about coming to work over here, which he did, about three years after we got the thing up and running.

I've known Greg for a long time. He's a tremendous, capable guy, and that was part of my logic in saying it was time for me to move on, time to pass the baton to him. He deserved to run this operation. He's done a great job. He's mainly been focusing on fundraising, and he's been very successful at that. He'll do a good job.

Bio

Name: Ben Williams

Age: 71

Hometown: Greenwood, Miss.

Residence: Cataula

Job: Retired president and chief operating officer, National Infantry Museum Foundation; retired executive vice president, Columbus Bank & Trust Co.

Education: Greenwood High School, 1962; Mississippi State University, bachelor's degree in Business Administration, 1966;

Family: Rose Marie, wife of 49 years; two grown children, Kim Williams and Todd Williams; two grandchildren, Ben and Josh Williams.

This story was originally published February 20, 2016 at 10:38 PM with the headline "Sunday Interview with Ben Williams of the National Infantry Foundation ."