To add to his list of accomplishments as a businessman, he is also an amateur actor, a sailor, a model airplane connoisseur and an avid gardener.

He can still remember the first day he arrived in Yellowknife.

"On October 25, 1969, I flew to Yellowknife from Edmonton. I had $10 in my pocket. That's all I had left, because the flight couldn't actually make it in -- we got weathered out in Edmonton, and I only had so much money.

"I remember this place called the King Edward Hotel. All the Yellowknifers stayed there when they were in Edmonton. The problem was this place was about $35 a night, and I only had $50 in my pocket."

Williams said he came to Yellowknife because of what he had heard from friends who were already here in town.

"There's a gentleman called Glen Thomas who is very well-known who owns Highwood/Aba Resources which is now part of the diamond play," he explained. "He came from a couple blocks away from where I lived in South Wales.

"He's a geologist who came in 1967 and he told my brother Merlin that there was something happening in the North and why not emigrate from South Wales and come over and see this wonderful country. So my brother came in 1967 and I joined in 1969."

William's career in electronics began humbly, sweeping floors and doing other odd jobs at Yellowknife Radio for then-owner Harold Glick. Because Williams had an interest in electronics from his childhood in South Wales, he worked his way up to repairing electronics for him.

He stayed with Yellowknife Radio until 1974, when he graduated from Northern Alberta Institute of Technology as a professional inter-provincial journeyman technician and decided it was time to see the world.

Williams travelled through Europe and eventually landed in the South Pacific, where he worked fixing cameras, photocopiers, antennas, and did odd jobs. He then went to New Zealand and worked there for eight months.

Returning to Yellowknife in July 1975, Williams set himself a deadline. "I said that if I didn't have my own business in six months, I'm going to go back to Australia and try and get a job," he said. "By September, I had signed for a franchise for Radio Shack.

"It was December 12, 1975 when I first opened. It was the first franchise in Yellowknife."

Williams's interest in electronics started early, when he was a boy in South Wales.

"My father was a pioneer in electronics -- far more brilliant than I'll ever be.

"We can go back to 1934-35 where he was building mono amplifiers and later stereo amplifiers. In the war he was employed by the Royal Air Force as a maintenance technicians for the radar installations that were in the battlefields.

"When he came out of the war, all of the things he picked up were things that we played with. We mucked around with it."

Which isn't to say that the die was cast.

"We could be brain surgeons too, but we didn't have anybody that had any brains that needed fixing up or than were lying around the shed," he recalls, "It was just something that I put my mind to and that was that. It could have been anything -- it just happened to be electronics."

Another area of interest for Williams is the theatre -- something which he said he feels was also a large part of his life growing up.

"Being Welsh, it's automatic that you're put up on stage from a very early age and you're asked to perform, whether you are reciting words of poetry or a narrative or singing -- generally singing. So in school, every morning if you've got a voice you're asked to get up and sing in front of the whole school, so it just becomes natural.

"I once sang with a 7,000-voice choir, all sung in Welsh. That's how big it was. The event happens about every four years, it's an Olympics of poetry and song which the Welsh bring themselves together.

"Pavarotti was actually discovered at a similar event. Someone told him he should do this for a living and right at that moment he decided he would."

Through his involvement in the arts in Yellowknife, Williams has had some memorable experiences.

"When the Prince of Wales Museum was opened, at that time we actually had a group called the Navarre Singers, and we actually a group of seven Welsh people and we sang for the Prince of Wales and the Queen and his sister at the Explorer Hotel. We all got to keep the suits -- they all bought us white tuxedos.

"We sang "God Bless the Prince of Wales" to him in Welsh, which is our national anthem. And obviously, he came over and shook our hands. I cried my eyes out doing that."

Williams's involvement in the local arts community doesn't just stop at his own talents -- he also encourages the talents of others.

"I've given money to NACC -- lots of money -- as I think all businesses should try to do. I can't think of a better venue to offer money to, personally," Williams said. "I mean, there are people who might do it with hockey or something else, but for me it's got to be theatre."

Williams said he fondly remembers the days when Yellowknife was booming and the city was in its heyday.

"Those were wonderful, heady days," he said. "We were the capital, and when there were balls, there were balls. Everybody joined in. If you worked in the government, you went. If you didn't work for the government, you went. If you worked for the newspaper you went."

Apart from his interest in electronics and theatre, Williams has also toyed with sailing during his time in Yellowknife -- and has some harrowing stories to tell as proof.

"When the tornado hit Edmonton, I was on the lake in the sailboat, and I got the tail end of that and I was thrown overboard with no life jacket. I was an hour in the water and was finally able to make it back to my boat."

Another area Williams has involved himself in is model airplanes.

"I did a lot of stuff with model airplanes for about four years. I showed up twice for the Flow Fly up here and I was called to do demonstration flights in years gone by.

"I'm on the other side of that now. I still have them and I still own them but I'm not fanatical about it."

Even after more than 20 years in the electronic business, Williams said there are still times when he is fascinated by the new technology being developed.

"I was really intrigued was when satellites came in, so I spent money and went down to Las Vegas where there's a huge symposium and I quizzed all the suppliers and decided to jump in.

"And that gave me wonderful new horizons. Imagine a man who's been doing very much the same thing, selling TVs, VCRs, which isn't bad but your horizons become somewhat limited.

"So the opportunity came with satellite dishes to fly on a DC-4 to Carrot Lake with Ken Amerigio to see the diamond head or to fly two hours on a plane with all your gear and nail up an antenna and give these people access to the most incredible television that you can't even top in Yellowknife. To go to Coppermine and spend a couple of days and turn 16 people on to a satellite systems there.

"I tend to look for new things, and that was a really, really new thing that was viable and useful and turned me on so I jumped on it. Now I've trained other people in my store so I don't have to climb the ladder or point the dishes."

He might not be climbing ladders anymore, but Williams is still involved. "When the groundwork has to be done, I do the investigating. In the summertime at my house we'll install eight dishes of various sizes and I'll evaluate them all and keep the information on the all so if I get a call from Rankin Inlet or Cambridge Bay I'll be in position to talk about the results.

"The technology always changes. I don't care if it's a Walkman or a VCR but sometimes getting into something completely new is intriguing and puts you in a profitable position.

"My cat finds it fascinating when I bring new technology home to go in and out of these boxes."

One way Williams sees the technology changing is in the ability of one machine to replace a household full of electronic equipment.

"There's very heavy convergence in transmissions. We're all searching for the faster modem so we can get that access to all that wonderful information that's out there," Williams explained. "But by the same token, it's getting to be that you will soon see television sets that are computers. You'll be able to sit in front of your television and decide you want to surf the net during the commercials.

"Before, you definitely had a computer and you definitely had a television ad you definitely had a stereo. We're now seeing them all converging into a one-product scenario."

But as much as technology takes up the lion's share of his life, Williams understands there is more to living than electronics.

"I get a lot of enjoyment out of making things whether it be flowers or engines," he said. "I think that people who are doers do. It's not that I can't relax, I can do that. But generally, I'm always planning something in my head."

His success in business may be a reason to be proud, but Williams takes greater pride in the accomplishments of his two sons -- which becomes clear when you hear him talk about them.

"I guess one is lucky to see one's children grow up and they don't have a problem with alcohol or drugs and are fascinating.

"My 19-year-old was up in December and came into a play rehearsal and there was a small party afterwards which he came to. The talk afterwards was "wow, what a guy."

"But I'm building model airplanes, and he got his pilot's licence when he was 16. He could do anything. He's a very gifted kid. He's four times more intelligent than I am.

But don't expect on celebrating Williams's contribution to Yellowknife when he is an old man.

"It kind of bothers me when I see oldtime Yellowknifers who haven't basically given up the business and gone on to enjoy what's left of their life," he said. "Somebody who did do it was Harold Glick, from whom I bought the YK Radio store from. His children didn't want to take on the responsibility of the business, so he came and asked if I was interested in taking the business over because he didn't want to see it die.

"I went to go visit him in British Columbia on Lake Okanagan and it was beautiful. He's got a home and his wife and he's retired. That's how it should be done. You get to a point where you've worked for 30 years and you should try to go out."

And while he doesn't know where he will end up, Williams knows what he wants to do when Radio Shack is a part of his past.

"Obviously having done this since 1975, you're beginning to think more about that," he said. "I'd like to have like a hobby farm -- grow chickens and small bulls. Do all the things that would be necessitated by having the responsibility of a tractor.

"I can't tell you where I'll go. My best bet would be to buy a mobile home and go to all the various places. I could meet with all the oldtime Yellowknifers who have moved away."

One place Williams knows he will not live out his golden years is South Wales.

"I have no aspirations to go back to the old country. I have a home there and property there, but I think I'm going to give it to my in-laws who live there. It's an inheritance that I have, but I'm going to give it back to the family because I'm not going to go home -- I don't need to go home.