The Man in the Black Cowboy Hat

By Michael Willard

He was the man with the black cowboy hat, an erudite fellow who could and would debate a point into a black hole and see the truth come out on the other side. He could be cantankerous. I once referred to him as Yosemite Sam, the cartoon character.

H. Glen Willard, age 68, died Dec. 29 in Kyiv. He was a lawyer's lawyer and an accountant's accountant, though in truth over the last 20 years he practiced those professions in an ad hoc manner, primarily for friends and often, casual acquaintances.

Much of that time he was helping me, for which I am eternally grateful. He was my older brother by nearly three years, my friend, my advisor and my confidante.

A cancerous tumor at the back of his mouth had taken away his voice. In the last months, he carried a notepad and would write down what he wished to say. His weight had dropped to 45 kilo, and his face was drawn. He was frustrated by his illness.

To be sure, though, those final days were some of my best days with Glen. Sitting in the lobby of the Hyatt, because it was a stone's throw from both of our apartments, we reminisced. We traveled country roads in our minds to places familiar.

It was there he wrote on the pad he wanted to be buried at the rural Union Cemetery in North Mississippi, somewhere between William Faulkner's Oxford and New Albany. Willard relatives are buried there, including a grandfather and grandmother.

I don't know what people around Kyiv thought of Glen. I know he had many friends, and that he liked to be around people. He liked good conversation and a good argument, the latter he took for serious mental combat.

He also liked to talk and he liked good food - not the fancy stuff, but collard greens, black-eyed peas and fried okra. After he lost his voice and the ability to eat anything but liquids, he also started to lose his hearing. It frustrated and upset him. Just weeks before his death, he had an operation to restore his hearing.

Glen was often seen with a book, a computer and a knapsack, either at O'Brien's or the Sunduk Pub near Independence Square. A splash of Jim Beam in a Classic Coca-Cola with loads of ice seemed to ease the pain of his tumor.

As for that tumor, it had a war on its hands: Glen suited up for battle and, along with young Dr. Sergey Zemkov, in whom Glen had total confidence, he waged a near- epic struggle for two years. He underwent chemotherapy on several occasions and took massive dosages of radiation.

He lost his hair - twice - and for the longest time his neck was near crimson from radiation burns. The doctor and his patient looked for modern laser surgery around the world, but were turned down by hospitals in London, Miami, Seoul and elsewhere because of the tumor's delicate location.

In the end, Glen admitted some arguments simply can't be won, and was content to be in control of his last days. Other than his wife, Galina, he leaves two children, Stacy and Whitney, both of Atlanta, Ga., and two grandchildren, as well as our mother, Mary Willard, age 89. There are two other siblings, Joy Willard-Williford, an Episcopalian minister, of Melbourne, Fla, and Alan Willard, of Orlando.

Glen was drawn to Ukraine 13 years ago to help me acquire that which would become The Willard Group from the international company Burson-Marsteller and its parent, Young & Rubicam. He was instrumental to our growth to Moscow and Istanbul.

I called on Glen in 1998 because he was the one person I knew I could count on. His wife, Carolyn, had died the previous year, and he was casting about for somewhere to land. He was the person with whom I have always said I would most want to share a foxhole in times of trouble.

Perhaps Glen's greatest role with Willard was as editor of The Ukrainian Observer, a publication that lasted for seven years, much of the time with Glen guiding the editorial content. It was during this time that the magazine was at its colorful best, taking on issues that landed us in hot water but gained the respect of the community.

Shortly after coming to Ukraine, Glen met and fell in love with Galina. She was from Western Ukraine, and they bought an apartment in Bursytn, near L'viv, but Glen commuted often to Kyiv where he also kept an apartment.

Glen was always an overachiever He wrapped up his undergraduate degree at the University of Mississippi in three years while working in the school cafeteria. He obtained his law degree from the University of Tennessee while working 30 to 40 hours a week teaching accounting classes.

On graduating from law school, he formed a law practice in Humboldt, Tennessee, but found small-town law confining. He joined the Arthur Anderson accounting firm in Atlanta, where he quickly became a manager.

For much of his career, he practiced corporate and tax law at Willard & Rushing in Atlanta. In the mid 80s, he merged that firm with Neely & Player. He was admitted to the bar in Georgia and Tennessee.

Glen was an expert at workouts, acquisitions and consolidations, but I guess the best description was that he simply solved other people's problems, whether personal or business. Though at times he had been relatively wealthy, money never motivated him.

He brought a creative spark to nearly every issue. Often, he would dwell on a problem for several days before emerging in a Eureka moment with an innovative solution that brought sides together as it stripped away the subterfuge. It was always a reality-based solution.

I worked closely with Glen for nearly a decade and a half. As associates know, we didn't always get along. We agreed more than we disagreed, but when we disagreed most who really knew us also knew we would reach a compromise by the end of the day.

Glen was the person I counted on when the chips were down. He helped guide me in forming Willard. He was at my side when we engaged in a Herculean battle with the communications conglomerate WPP and Young & Rubicam. In a downturn, he stood shoulder-to-shoulder in helping right the boat.

But he had been there all my life. Long ago, when the board of trustees at what became Orlando University was threatening to kick me out because of my editorials promoting African-American integration of the school, he advised me to carry on.

We withstood that small hurricane and many others together. When I have to make a serious decision from now on, I will ask: "What would Glen advise?"