Rhea Law & Wayne Williams

There are some people you meet in life that are compassionate, command instant respect, are humble, intelligent, live life to the fullest, and exude warmth. It is rare to find all of those qualities in one person, but Rhea Law effortlessly pulls them together. You know this the moment she shakes your hand and smiles. In fact, one of her best friends, John Fogarty (her dad), says Rhea is very "energetic" and has a "spirit" about her. Rhea's professional and personal biography stretches an impressive four pages of small text. Her accomplishments are a plethora of "firsts" in so many categories it would be impossible and redundant for me to list them in this space. Rather, I strongly suggest you Google her name or log onto the Fowler White Boggs Banker law firm website and read it yourself. Instead, I have several items I would like to share that some of you may not already know. Rhea was born and raised in Seminole Heights in Tampa. She received her undergraduate degree from USF. Her first job was at USF for approximately ten years. It was not in law, but rather she helped faculty at USF obtain grants and contracts. At night, she attended classes. One day, she quit her job to enroll in Stetson Law School. Funded only by the money in her pension savings from USF, she attended law school with an all out success or failure attitude. But, as I mentioned earlier...Rhea is ver smart. She first talked to several attorneys and asked them what attributes they would want to see on a new attorney's resume in order to be hired. She put together a list and carried it with her. During law school, she made a point to achieve every item on this list - one of which was becoming Executive Director of the Stetson Law Review. Her plan worked. She was hired out of law school by Dixon Lawson & Brown which merged with Fowler White in 1981. On one of her first days on the job, she was asked if she knew much about chemistry and the phosphate industry. She answered, "Yes," because while taking night classes at USF several years earlier, she had helped the Director of Research. This led directly to her helping a large client of the firm. Since then, Rhea has become one of the top (in not the top) environmental and land use attorneys in the state. Rhea is president and CEO of Fowler White Boggs Banker. It is, by far, the largest law firm in the state to do this type of law and another first - first woman to lead a large law firm in Florida. She continues to be the only woman to head a large Florida law firm. The best thing that happened to Rhea while attending law school was meeting her husband, Wayne Williams. She literally met him on the Howard Franklin Bridge while talking on a CB radio. As she drove back and forth to law school, she listened to hear if there were any police ahead, as Rhea has admitted to having a bit of a lead foot at times. A gentleman started to try to talk to her on the radio. She did not talk back. He figured out what times she usually traveled over the bridge. One day while she was driving on the bridge, the gentleman told her over the CB that he was driving right beside her. He wanted to know if she would have breakfast with him at the scenic overlook. He had brought coffee and a granola bar. Rhea figured she couldn't pass that up. The have now been married for 21 years. Rhea's dad had it right about her energy and spirit. Many folks know about her passion for racing cars. She just bought a new Le Mans blue metallic Corvette Z06. I was told her top speed on the tract (so far) is 180 MPH, but she won't say how fast she has gone off the track. However, you may not know that she also flies planes. She has flown in a F16 in which she did multiple rolls, loops, bombing and strafing runs, and broken the sound barrier. She has skydived with the Golden Knights and driven a tank in Fort Hood, Texas. Funny story about the tank...when she first got into the tank...the tank captain said "ma'am don't be afraid of the accelerator." A few minutes later, she had the tank floored and the tank captain screamed to slow down, as she took the whole tank airborne off the top of a hill. Rhea later told the Captain to stop being a wimp! Besides her husband and two children (her son is a secret service agent and her daughter in real estate management)..two of her biggest accomplishments have been achieved at Fowler White and USF. In just a little over five years as president and CEO of Fowler White, Rhea has watched the firm grow from five to ten offices. They have a huge presence in Florida and have developed a very impressive national and global reach. She loves working and is very proud of the excellent legal advice, ethics, and community outreach for which the firm is known. At USF, she is chair of the Board of Trustees. She is very thankful for the role that USF played in exposing her to opportunities and notes that she has come "full circle". She now has an opportunity to help USF seize its opportunities. When asked what she liked most about the Tampa Bay area, she responded "the potential". Rhea feels that the future success of the Tampa Bay area is strongly linked to USF and the many businesses, organizations and affiliates which enjoy synergies with the university. As Rhea says, "We have all the ingredients for greatness - we just need to all work together to achieve it."