Bill Town has a BSc Chemistry from Birmingham University (1964), and a PhD Chemistry from Lancaster University. In 1967-69 he was at Sheffield University doing research on structure searching systems. During 1969-74 he was at the Cambridge University Crystallographic Data Centre, and 1974-83 saw him at the European Commission (Ispra, Italy) as ECDIN, EINECS project leader.
In 1983 he founded Hampden Data Services, and in 1991 William Town Associates Ltd, a consultancy. From 1992-97 Bill Town was at Derwent Information as Business Development Manager, Scientific Information. Since 1997 he has been Chief Operating Officer of ChemWeb, Inc.
Dr Town's career has included research, software development, database development, product development, business development, and company management.
With the American Chemical Society, he was Chairman, Chemical Information Division 2000, and Programme Committee, Chemical Information Division 1996-98. From 1991-94 he was Chairman of the Chemical Structure Association, 1989-2000 and has served in positions with the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry, Royal Society of Chemistry - Chemical Information, University of Sheffield - Visiting Professor, Dept. of Information Studies 1997-present.