Bill Plunkett

Facing retirement 11 years ago, Bill Plunkett had a problem: He’s neither a golfer nor a fisherman.

So Plunkett, a retired electrical engineer and senior vice president of sales for a large company, decided he wanted to give back to the community and went to work for Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas as chief executive officer. He said people often ask him why, at 68, he continues to work there. “I love it here,” he said. “The people here are great. You have a feeling of accomplishment every day, and you come home and sit down and relax and really think, maybe I made just a little difference in somebody’s life today. I think that is what matters.”

Habitat for Humanity has 25 employees and about 3,000 volunteers annually.

“The joy,” he said, “not only comes from helping people get into a new home, but also in watching neighborhoods and communities, like Baring Cross in North Little Rock, change.”

One of the more touching moments during his 11 years as CEO occurred a few years ago. A woman who had received the first house built by Habitat for Humanity of Central Arkansas in the early 1990s died, and her two children, then college-educated, said they wanted to return the house so it could be given to another family. They wanted to help the nonprofit that had helped them.

“If you hadn’t moved us out of where we were and into this house and given us a chance, I don’t know what would have happened to me and my sister, but I’d probably have been in a gang,” the young man told Plunkett. The house was later refurbished for a new owner.

“The house is a tool to change their life, and when you change their life, you change their kids’ lives and their kids’ kids’ lives,” Plunkett said.

Hiring talented people and allowing them to grow into their position is his management philosophy, he said. “I don’t micromanage them, but instead allow them space to manage their own position.”

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