Born in 1910, Boyce Williams lost his hearing at age 17 after a bout of meningitis. He briefly attended the Wisconsin School for the Deaf and then entered Gallaudet College in 1929. He graduated in 1932, becoming a teacher at the Wisconsin School and later at the Indiana School for the Deaf. It was there that he met and married his wife, Hilda Tillinghast. At the Indiana School, he was promoted to vocational training director in 1937- a position where he saw how deaf people often struggled with discrimination when seeking jobs. Determined to change this, Williams attended Columbia University, where he got a master’s degree in deaf education in 1940. In 1945, Williams returned to Washington, DC, where he took a position with the federal Office of Vocational Rehabilitation as a consultant on the deaf and hard of hearing. Working closely with deaf groups such as the National Association of the Deaf and National Fraternal Society of the Deaf, Williams developed a framework for vocational rehabilitation services for the Deaf. His work helped educate the hearing world about the capabilities and challenges of the deaf while providing the deaf with training, education, and job placement opportunities.

During his time at OVR, Williams had a hand in developing programs such as the National Theatre for the Deaf, the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf, Captioned Films for the Deaf, the National Leadership Training Program on Deafness, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and more. Due to his work in vocational rehabilitation, Williams was awarded an honorary LLD degree from Gallaudet in 1958. In 1970, the government created a federal Office on Deafness and Communicative Disorders, and Williams became its director until he retired in 1983.

Williams was a leading figure in the deaf community, including serving on Gallaudet’s Board of Directors and the National Association of the Deaf Executive Board and being president of the Gallaudet College Alumni Association. After his retirement, Williams was awarded Gallaudet’s Powrie V. Doctor Chair of Deaf Studies from 1983 through 1984. He passed away in late 1998.