Background
William A. Rhoads earned a PhD in botany, and worked for defense contractor EG&G (Egerton, Germeshausen, and Grier), Inc.,
studying the effects of radiation on plants for the Atomic Energy Commission. He spent his weekends in a small house he owned
near Venice Beach, but lived weekdays in Goleta, where EG&G's Santa Barbara Operations were based. He died of congenital heart
disease in the early 1980s.