William T. “Bill” Semple is a retired entrepreneur, businessman and Navy veteran best known for inventing and successfully licensing mapping programs to numerous Fortune 500 companies now used by practically everyone in the world who owns a smartphone, tablet, or computer. 

After serving as an officer in the U.S. Navy for three years, Bill started his business career in life, variable annuity, and group health insurance sales with the John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company. He then shifted to non-profit development, marketing, public relations and operational benchmarking. He lists among his former employers and consulting clients The National Trust for Historic Preservation, the National Symphony, the Washington Opera, the Pharmaceutical Research Manufacturers Association, the Advanced Medical Device Association, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Olney Theatre, and The Institute for Educational Leadership.

In 1994, he organized CIVIX, Inc. (“Computerized In-Vicinity Information Technology”) to hold title to his inventions and to enter the local search business. Over the next twenty-one years, he oversaw the development and licensing of these and other related inventions to twenty-six different technology companies, including Microsoft, Google, Verizon, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Verizon, Garmin, MapQuest, CoStar and The National Association of Realtors.  Along the way, he served as chief financial officer of a technology company in Boulder, CO.

Bill has won numerous awards for his community service, including Volunteer of the Year for his alma mater and Volunteer of the Year for the United Black Fund in Washington, D.C.

Bill came to Fauquier County as a young child when he first visited his grandparents on their farm near Delaplane. He remembers the day when they put on their Sunday best when they planned a trip to Warrenton.

Bill and his wife Sally live with their poodle Sophie on Falmouth Street in a 1900 Victorian that Sally started renovating in 1994. Sally has two children from a former marriage, Nathan and Emily Harmon, who went to the Fauquier County Public Schools and the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology Governor’s School.

Sally volunteered for years in the school library and music programs while working as the National Clean Air Act Compliance Expert for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. She is recently retired and volunteers as a Virginia Cooperative Extension Master Gardener at their help desk, the Warrenton Farmers’ Market, and writes quarterly gardening articles for InFauquier magazine.

Bill is an avid clarinetist. Classically trained, he also plays Dixieland. He has been a member of the Fauquier Community Band since 2016 and for the past three years has played in the pit orchestra for Highland’s School annual musical production. His other avocation is walking his poodle Sophie around Ward 2. Each week, Bill averages about 100,000 steps, but Sophie gets in probably more than a half a million.