LAKE WORTH, FL—William L. ‘Bill’ Jones died September 5, 2017 after battling various illnesses over a two-year period, each time rallying back. At his request, funeral services were not held. Bill was a well-respected and dynamic marketer of fabrics for the cruise ship industry and was well liked by all who knew him. He founded Global Textile Marketing Exchange in 2003 as a consulting group with his wife and partner Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Jones who never left his side. Bill was President and Director and Ellie was the treasurer, Director, Secretary and Vice President. Bill was a great entertainer. He held lavish parties for the cruise trade at great locations like the Biltmore Hotel in Miami. His last big event was a sunset cruise along Biscayne Bay in Miami during the Seatrade Show in Ft. Lauderdale last year in May. The event hosted a variety of design, fabrics and furnishings professionals for some of the world’s leading cruise lines including Carnival and Royal Caribbean. Bill had lost a lot of weight after being ill but he looked very fit at this last event decked out in a captain’s hat, black blazer and white pants keeping to the party theme of ‘black & white.’ (The publisher of F&FI had the pleasure of seeing Bill earlier this year and we both had ice cream sundaes to celebrate our reunion.) Bill was always so enthusiastic about everything he did. Earlier in Bill’s long and successful career, he was the marketing director of Dow Badische where he came to be an expert in the contract fabric yarn industry. Prior to that, he was a U.S. Marine and Bill carried himself accordingly—ramrod straight, with a code of ethics second to none. He was one of the finest people I have ever met and I will miss him very much. --Eric Schneider