Bill Fabrey helped found the Council in 1991, along with seven others, and has served as a board member since that time. Prior to that, he founded the NAAFA organization (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) in 1969, and co-founded the web and mail-order company Amplestuff in 1988. Also, he wrote a regular news column in Radiance Magazine, for large women, for 12 years, ending in 2001. Currently his memberships include CSWD, NAAFA, and ASDAH (Association for Size Diversity and Health).
His interest in the media project includes the monitoring of what is said about size acceptance in the media, each day. Often, when comments are permitted, Bill puts on his activist hat and posts one online. He has a frequent CSWD presence on LinkedIn and, to a lesser degree, Facebook.
His interest in human factors engineering relates to the fact that as a retired biomedical engineer, he has a special interest in how people, especially larger people, can be helped (or hindered) by technology. Such information as increases in the size and weight limits on medical imaging devices (such as MRIs), or mobility products (such as scooters or wheelchairs), or the availability of office chairs and other furniture with higher size and weight limits, and so forth, always catches Bill’s attention.
Since he has been involved in size acceptance for 54 years, Bill has some hard-to-find information for historians and other students of the history of the movement, especially in its earliest years, 1968-1991.
Currently, Bill functions as both the President and the Executive Director of CSWD; for the latter role, he receives a small monthly stipend. He succeeded the Council’s former President, Miriam Berg, upon her death in 2017 from pancreatic cancer.