M SPOTLIGHT WITH JULIANNE MICHELLE
WILL HEAD: THE CONSUMMATE BUSINESS GENTLEMAN CHANGING THE WORLD HIS WAY I had the pleasure of chatting with serial entrepreneur Will Head to discuss the launch of his new media platform, how he got his start in business, family life, politics, and fond memories of President Ronald Reagan. Will was born and raised in Wilmington, NC. His childhood summer home, in fact, was the same house featured in the famed TV series Dawson’s Creek. Both mother and father descended from a long lineage of Americans dating back to English merchant adventures, who journeyed here on the Mayflower, and the French Huguenots, who fled religious persecution. At age 7, Will and his father started growing Camellia seedlings in their backyard, and Will sold them to Sears. As a teenager, Will started his own successful bike rental. These early business developmental experiences would pave the way to a long and prosperous career. Will confides that he had a midlife crisis about 10 years ago, so instead of buying a Harley Davidson, he founded a 20,000 member tea party group, Wake Up America of North Carolina, which was a credited impetus for flipping the NC General Assembly from Democrat to Republican in 2010. The Tea Party group inspired the creation of an online media platform by the same name, which produced 1,000 minutes of 5-minute shows on multiple topics,
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viewable on a cell phone. However, producing shows in a studio was very expensive, so why not just provide the platform and let the viewers submit the content? This was how Will came up with the concept for NOOZ. NOOZ is an innovative media platform, which delivers local coverage of community businesses, events, and issues by leveraging its network of social media and cable television outlets. NOOZ trains and deploys NOOZ Correspondents as Brand Ambassadors to cover and promote these local businesses and community events on the NOOZ Media Network. Will’s passion for politics burgeoned at a young age with the opportunity of a lifetime working for President Ronald Reagan. “I absolutely loved Ronald Reagan. He was a gentleman full of common sense, and he had a way with words like no other.” While attending the Ravenscroft school and volunteering with the local teenage Republicans group, Will accepted the Reagan campaign’s invitation to stay out of high school his senior year and travel with them on the road. “At the Kansas City convention, I was 1 of 800 Youthful Reagan staff members. We made all the signs and greeted everyone at the airport, trying to outshout all the Ford people. Ton of fun. However, Reagan lost on the third night of voting. It came right down to the wire, and Clarke Reed, who ran the Mississippi delegation and loved Reagan, flipped the whole delegation on the third night of
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voting after Ford promised him a job or something. That’s how Ford won. I’m so depressed. I had stayed up 72 hours without sleeping, drinking Coors beers out of trash cans and making signs. We are at the Alameda Plaza Hotel ballroom in Kansas City, and Reagan has two aids with him. I have my coat and tie on. I’m the little high school guy, who has to get on a plane the next day and miss spending the fall with Reagan. I met him five times, but he didn’t really know me. I figured I’ll just walk over there and join them and they can ask me to leave. So I walked over there to Reagan and his two aids. Reagan looked at me and at his two aids, and the aids looked at him. They did not ask me to leave. They are talking strategy. Then it got so quiet, I could hear a pin drop on the carpet. Clarke Reed, who sold him out, walks across the ballroom floor to see Reagan in the corner. He walks right up beside me, looks over at Reagan, and says, “I’m so sorry.” Reagan extends his hand, shakes his hand, and says, “That’s ok. I understand.” Clarke Reed broke down crying, realizing he made the biggest mistake of his life. Reagan proceeded to give his concession speech. It was an emotional moment.” While Reagan eventually lost the election in 1976, there was a paradigm shift in voting that contributed to Reagan’s broad appeal and eventual victory in 1980. President Lyndon Johnson had implemented huge spending
programs with unintended consequences that further split families apart. Government payouts to single mothers financially enabled fathers to leave and incentivized women to monetize their children in lieu of employment. Additionally, single mothers in subsidized housing were prohibited from allowing fathers to spend the night, which is a policy still in effect. “Many people were disappointed with big government and started to vote for Republicans state wide and nationally. However, they didn’t start changing their registrations until the late 1970s, because if you lived in a little town in my state, the candidates for local judge or dog catcher were all Democrats. This precluded registered Republicans from voting in the primaries. It took a while, but now most people I know are Republicans. This shift kicked off with Reagan in 1976 and then when he was president in 1980.” When Will is not working, developing new businesses, Will is a proud father to his beautiful daughter, Lily Head (@ lily_winston), who is a successful model. What are the most important life values/lessons you learned that you try to impart to your daughter? Set goals, follow through on what you tell others, be on time, be authentic, don’t gossip about others, appreciate life, be thankful, know history, respect the sacrifices of our Founding Fathers and our military, and love God.
