The Fighter for Freedom and the Underrepresented
STORY By Bridget Reilly
“Wow.”
“I remember this… I remember that….”
These are just a few of the phrases, amongst other explicit ones, William Sims expressed as he stepped back onto the Marist College campus.
This wasn’t your typical alumni nostalgia visit, however. Marist was Sims’ home at one point. Sims only attended Marist for a year, from 2012 to 2013, due to a gang assault C felony charge that stripped the then 18-year-old of the academic and grant support he had at the college.
It took effort on all sides for Sims to get to Marist, but it took even more for him to recover from a crime he didn’t commit. Sims’ story is nothing short of resilience, as this is one of several challenges he had to overcome.
The 27-year-old went from growing up 200 percent below the poverty line to making six figures after college and currently running his own business. Dressed in a suit and tie with a look good, feel good energy, many of his previous classmates or professors may not have recognized him if given the chance.
Sims grew up in Long Beach, New York, and was raised by a single mother who had been in an abusive relationship with Sims’ father. “He physically and verbally abused her but it was around when I was two that he almost killed her. She was seconds from death and so my mom decided to leave him,” Sims said.
Since then, Sims’ father has not been in his life and this left his mother on her own. For years, she juggled several jobs trying to keep the family afloat. Sims’ bed was the couch with his clothes stored in bags, not drawers. There were people sleeping in the stairwells and using drugs and gang violence was common around where Sims lived.
“I guess at that time, I didn’t really think much of it because when you have your back against the wall, it’s by any means….” said Sims. “Looking back now as an adult, my mom was an entrepreneur. She worked as a massage therapist, housekeeper and caretaker, just to be able to make ends meet.”
The family lived in a project building amongst minorities with the majority of the building being of Latin descent. Sims identifies as biracial, as his father’s side is Polish and black, while his mother’s side is Romanian. His mom also had Hispanic partners and his younger sister is half Salvadorian. Much of his childhood was around Spanish culture and he was able to learn the language.
Education was Sims’ answer to becoming successful, however, the issues at home turned into issues at school. He attended four high schools and three colleges to get his education. “I grew up feeling neglected and had anger issues. Just misplaced anger from my dad. And I took it out on her,” he said. A child protective services case opened from the traumas at home, but boarding school saved Sims from this and exposed him to true academics.
To get to Marist, he applied through the Arthur O. Eve Higher Education Opportunity Program (HEOP), which is a comprehensive academic access and support program for students who otherwise may not be able to attend college due to educational and financial circumstances. The program makes up a fraction of the population at Marist, with Sims estimating about 75 to 100 students in the program compared to the 5,037 undergraduate students.
“You definitely feel that… because when you come from a disadvantage, your goal is to level the playing field,” said Sims. He added that the HEOP program did them a great service, giving them all the resources they would need to succeed.
In his freshman year, Sims was active on campus and he had plans of walking on to the Marist men’s basketball team in the coming year.
As Sims has come to know, there is always a point where everything can be stripped away from you, whether you can control it or not. Saturday, April 23, 2013, proved to be that point.
It was a Saturday night during the spring semester of his freshman year and Sims was planning on going out to a college bar. Sims and a group of nine fellow freshmen, who were also members of the football team, from the first floor of Leo Hall, decided to walk to the bar together.
As they walked in a single file line along Washington Street, Sims noticed a student walking perpendicularly to them. The student soon crossed in front of Sims’ group and he assumed that the student was looking at their group, as someone from the front shouted, “What are you looking at?” This stirred up some “rowdy” conversation.
The student, who was on the rugby team, was in front of his house when the altercation began. Sims assumed that there was animosity between the football and rugby teams, and tried to deescalate the situation. The student’s roommates came down upon hearing the commotion and a fight broke out.
“I literally walked away to the gas station…I want to say about 100 yards away from there. I just didn’t condone that behavior. The fact that a group of nine students would then pick on one person by themselves when he absolutely did nothing wrong was beyond me,” said Sims. He began to run when he heard a brawl break out behind him, eventually making it to the bar, doused in a wave of shock.
“The goal was to go out and have a good time, and this whole thing just kind of happened. But I ended up having a good time. Again, I wasn't involved in the fight at all. No one touched me. I didn't fight with anyone. And so that was it,” said Sims. “I woke up the next morning, went about my business, and for the next two weeks I was a regular student again.”
That was until May 12, 2013, the last day of school, when Sims was supposed to take his last final at 11 a.m.
Instead, he was sent to Dutchess County jail.
That morning, Sims heard three loud knocks on his door. Once opened, four Marist security guards asked for his name, followed by asking for Sims’ ID and phone. He was then escorted to the head of security in Donnelly Hall where two detectives of the city of Poughkeepsie were waiting for him. Later, he was brought to the Dutchess County jail facing a gang assault C felony. Sims soon found out that there were statements made by some of his hallmates, pinning the incident on him and five other men who were arrested.
As a result, Sims was terminated from Marist and his scholarship was stripped from him.
“It was that morning, I woke up in my dorm room and that night, I went to sleep in a jail cell,” he said while closing his eyes. “My life took a 180-degree turn because I worked everything in my power to get to where I was in life and everything got swept underneath my feet.”
Sims made bail, hired a lawyer for thousands of dollars, and took a year off to fight the case, which he ultimately beat. This set off a reset button in Sims' life. Now, he had to start his college career over again, as he didn’t get credit for his year at Marist.
“I knew I’ve been blessed with another opportunity to get a second chance at life. So I really wanted to finish what I started,” said Sims.
He enrolled himself in an associate's degree program in IT at Nassau Community College. A career in tech was ideal for Sims, as he had a security mindset from childhood. He knew he needed to pursue a career that was in demand.
“No matter what industry you’re in, you need cybersecurity,” he explained.
Illustration by Zoya Schmitt
Applying to a four-year program came with its challenges, as Sims still had to overcome the issue of being dismissed from an educational institution and fighting an assault felony case. Plattsburgh State University was the only school that accepted Sims out of the 10 he applied to, and it was at this university he set up his future. He was a board member of the software engineering club and the National Association for Black Accountants (NABA), which taught him the skills of networking and creating an online brand. He also became the co-director of Hacker Space, building the cybersecurity center on campus and managing 20 interns on their projects. As if he couldn’t add anything more to his resume, he pledged to an academic-based cultural frat to raise more exposure around underrepresented cultures. He did this for his younger sister who is now a sophomore at the university.
After graduation, Sims landed a full-time job at Michelin, making six figures, with the help of BrandResumes, a company he has now partnered with that helps individuals looking for a career change at any level. He worked there for a year and then started working for a Fintech company, making 30 grand more than he was previously. Sims has marketed himself successfully and since 2018, he has received over 500 job offers, accumulating to a total of $15 million in salary. Now, his career is “bulletproof.”
Currently, Sims is the founder of The Freedom Unit, which was created in 2020 officially but the idea for the business came to him while in his jail cell in Dutchess County in 2012. Sims realized that no one is ever truly free and never fully appreciates it until it’s stripped from you.
“I knew I had to liberate people and get people to understand the power of unlocking their freedom because we possess the keys to set ourselves free…. Technology was my way of getting people to identify with that.”
Sims believes cybersecurity is the answer to solving the economic wealth gap. For someone from his background to make six figures after graduation, “that’s a game changer.” The Freedom Unit is a global tech-enabled career advancement platform that exposes underrepresented young scholars to a career in cybersecurity and professional development skills. The company was mentioned in MarketWatch, has a pending partnership with Google, and is an authorized partner of CompTIA, which is the biggest certificate issuer in the information technology space. Recently, a student who had no experience in tech, went through the program, finishing as a full-time cybersecurity consultant for EY making $100,000 which was a $60,000 salary increase for her.
Needless to say, Sims has cracked the code.
“We have the blueprint. Now it’s just building more relationships, building partnerships, and moving forward together,” said Sims.
Sims was also selected to join the Forbes Coaches Council, which is an invite-only ecosystem of the world’s top business and technology executives. This further puts Sims on the tech map, building on the foundation he has fought for.
Sims is grateful to be where he is today, he said as he breathed out heavily with his eyes closed, explaining that he should not, statistically, be where he is and most people don’t even make it to where he is. Sims continues to get out of bed every morning to pave the way for those who are in his old shoes to secure their future and for supporting the people in his own life.
“We're redefining the roadmap for our youth and what that career trajectory looks like. That keeps me going. Seeing my mom not have to worry about her bills, and struggle, and stress and cry about how she's making tomorrow's rent….” said Sims. “It is why I continue to do what I do and I want other people who experienced that to be able to do the same.”
As Sims leaves the Marist campus, his photo app is loaded with photos and videos of the campus, expressing his excitement about returning. He holds his head a little higher as he strides toward the parking lot, proud of where his path has led him and grateful for the opportunity to tell his story, as that’s what he has been fighting for all along.
PHOTOGRAPHY
Photography by Alejandro Basalo & Nick Spina