If you take your romantic fairytales seriously, you want to know what your romantic heroes stand for—beyond the looks and the charms, the whirlwind of passion and the heat they ignite… Especially if, like William McGrath, they are not just rich playboys, but—as I define him in particular—the ethos billionaires…
Granted, William McGrath is not a man who feels the need to explain himself. He doesn’t give speeches about values, he doesn’t publish manifestos… As Regina eventually describes it, he is one of those rare people who are capable of turning their dreams into reality. What he believes in, he builds and implements. What he stands for, he engineers into enduring systems with planetary impacts. And he does it without the pomp and fanfare.
Reading Fireworks and Other Illuminations, some may think that his determination and success are literary twists. Behind the scenes, however, it is something far more deliberate. William McGrath is definitely not just your garden-variety “romance billionaire”.
When I was conceptualizing William’s character, I realized right from the start that his wealth could not be ornamental. It had to be earned in a way that felt ethically inevitable—not as a conquest for its own sake, but as a consequence.
His company, McGrath Frontiers, is not just a technological powerhouse with commercial objectives. It’s a moral system disguised as capitalism. It externalizes his worldview: that power should repair and replenish, not extract; that progress should arrive ready to take responsibility for humanity’s fallout.
Scientific Ambitions of Environmental Stewardship
“Don’t let this suit fool you – on the inside I am a hardcore tree-hugger,” William confesses to the state governor at a NYC charity event1 . And it’s said not in posturing or preaching—that’s not how William McGrath is. It’s a simple declaration of his personal truth and vital intent. Protecting and revitalizing the Earth through preservation of woodlands and reforestation of wastelands all over the Globe has been one of his life’s central missions since the young age.
So, in the somewhat altered reality that I devised in Fireworks and Other Illuminations, he focuses his efforts on developing, forwarding, and implementing scientific inventions that facilitate this purpose. Their technological applications are not just sustainable—they enrich and restore, ensuring the planetary wellbeing. Earth was desperate for a breath of fresh air and William was compelled to answer her call.
The innovative products and processes he pioneered were conceived first and foremost with the aim of diminishing pollution, eradicating the accumulated waste, preventing the further damage, and returning the contaminated lands to their natural state of being. But William McGrath couldn’t stop there: intellectual fulfillment and personal liberty are of great importance to him as well.
McGrath Frontiers: Enterprising in Reverse
Unlike the majority of commercial ventures—motivated into existence by desire to generate profits or address market’s demands—McGrath Frontiers was founded in response to William’s ethos. Like an inspired artist, he placed his personal system of beliefs at the core of his pursuits. That what necessitated his innovative and entrepreneurial efforts. The financial rewards just followed.
The fundamental changes prerequisite for the initiation of the environmental mending could not be achieved without scientific discoveries of revolutionary novelty and unfathomable magnitude. Controlling their utilization required the development of highly sophisticated technologies and large-scale operational facilities. Furthering the impact of the resulting achievements demanded the establishment of flexible infrastructure.
William knew that he needed to invest himself and his resources into linking together a coherent chain of research, production, acquisition, distribution, and implementation components united into a strong dynamic organism. Thus, the phenomenon of McGrath Frontiers was put together: with McGrath Labs at its inception, McGrath Energy to follow; subsequently adding one division after another in the integral manner of high efficiency.
The enterprise operates under the motto “Future Is Now”. And it’s not just its marketing slogan. It’s a refusal to delay responsibility. The urge for the immediate enaction of the vital steps in pursuit of the company’s and its owner’s goals.
The novel’s lifespan eventually brings the readers to the year seventeen of McGrath Frontiers’ existence. And I’m not giving any secrets away by telling you that it’s still under William McGrath’s sole and private ownership—under his full control.
It’s not just that he never had a need for the influx of public funds or much regard for the speculative paper wealth brought by the stock-market maneuvering. It’s not even about his absolute loathing of the publicity and the noise that inevitably come with it. His reasoning is far more fundamental: he could never jeopardize his own and his employees’ mission and integrity for the sake of investment-banking frenzy.
We all have seen it happening over and over again: founders who stick to their creative and moral guns end up losing their powers to the boards of directors . They see their companies changing course for the sake of “investors’ interests”. The possibility of such an outcome is inconceivable for an entrepreneur who pursued business in deference to his own ethos.
Keeping the entity under his personal leadership is the only way William can assure that the true meaning behind McGrath Frontiers’ logo remains intact: with The Saved Tree on the breathing Earth at the center and his promise of American Wealth Evolution as a moral and economic imperative, not blind nationalism.
Rheanol: The Invention That Had to Come First
Long before the dreams of paper-thin rollup electronics that can be operated unseen and controlled by jewelry; before immersive 3D virtual reality conjured in front of the viewers’ naked eyes—there was a mandate for a different invention. One born out of the rebellious refusal of complacency.
William’s first breakthrough was a proprietary energy source synthesized entirely from plastic waste. Named after Earth2 and rationality3, Rheanol became the moral spine of everything that followed. In William’s mind the future had to begin with redemption.
This is the power source with the potency of salvation. It gives back, not wrenches away. The globally procured plastic waste is converted into Rheanol, which is formed into flat power cells with energy capacity 100,000 times of lithium-cadmium batteries.
The vast areas unburdened of the waste stockpiles are decontaminated, re-soiled, and fertilized in preparation for planting the trees. Reforestation completes the cycle. That is McGrath Frontier’s mandatory requirement: the waste is bought and removed under the condition that the planted forests are kept intact. It makes the environmental repair itself into a contractual clause.
VR 3D and Rollup Electronics: the Technologies of Freedom
Only when the energy solution was well underway, William allowed himself to indulge one of his childhood dream. The one inspired by Jaws 19 ad in Back to the Future Part II, which he watched with his dad when he was ten.
McGrath Frontiers’ VR 3D is an immersive virtual reality technology. It is designed to capture and transmit live images as well as reproduce preexisting media in the three-dimensional life-like representation. It also facilitates manipulation of the two-dimensional images and texts allowing for their movement and spacial placement anywhere it’s convenient for the users. No headgear required; not even eyewear.
Naturally, Reahnol’s overwhelming potency, which enables the production of unprecedentedly compact power sources, found one of its first applications in electronics. McGrath Frontiers has developed Rollup EcoDisplays to be adapted to the limitless array of devices that require functional screens.
Paper-thin, rollable, unobtrusive, hideable—these screens can be operated through the specially designed wireless remote connections. The device itself can be unseen by the spectators who observe just the 3D images it produces. It’s the kind of technology that steps back from its effect instead of demanding attention to itself. Imagine bringing up any type of content, messages, reading material, and three-dimensional visual media right in front of you, while your phone is in your pocket, your briefcase, or your Chanel bag.
Yet, that’s exactly what William McGrath had in mind when he started his “Feel Free to Look Up” campaign of replacing the devices that isolate you into looking down and away with Frontiers’ rollups. This combination of the innovative visual technology and the flexible, both physically and in their universality, devices reflects their originator’s spiritual standing like nothing else: open, powerful, liberating—but never imposing.
The Code of the Raised Fists
As his priorities were crystallizing, McGrath has defined his system of beliefs as the Code of the Raised Fists. Fists are symbolic to him in more ways than one. After all, they are our natural weapons: the products of the millennia of human development that gave us an evolutionary advantage—a fighting chance.
But they are also arrangements of individual digits—every single one with its vital role. When they bring their own value into the fold, the power of the combined force is magnified.
William McGrath strives for advancements in every direction. With both fists raised he fights against decay, poverty, and ignorance.
Performative Philanthropy: It’s Against William’s “Religion”
A fiercely private person, William McGrath is unbothered by the very notion of “public image”. Moreover, he goes out his way to keep his existence and activities as discreet as possible—out of media, out of public eye, out of unnecessary attention…
Consequently, he would never entertain the idea of philanthropy for the sake of acknowledgement or social recognition. He doesn’t need or want any of that VIP hassle. He is busy otherwise—creating and nurturing substantive, long-term changes in the fields that are vital to the globe and close to his heart. And it applies to his charitable acts as well.
While all other divisions of McGrath Frontiers operate within the traditional commercial profitability framework, the entire net profits from the sales of Rheanol are contributed exclusively into environmental projects and initiatives. Most of William’s personal gifts are pledged to similar causes: with the preservation of forests all over the world—from Amazon to Sumatra—being his primary concern.
It’s revealed early in the novel that William McGrath is well known to the high-level cultural fundraisers as an unwavering and generous patron of the arts. He is particularly partial to the theater. The keen appreciation of performing arts is one of the initial common-ground connections he establishes with Regina.
Where Your Essence Leads, the Heart Follows
William’s lack of vanity, his open mind as well as the strong grasp of the psychological intricacies affecting human behavior—that is what allows him to accept Regina for who she is. “With the specs of grime, and the damage, and the darkness…” as he puts it.4
His comfort with complexity, guilt, and second chances makes him tolerant of her moral ambiguity. And whose past and present don’t contain deeply hidden turmoils? William himself is no stranger to pain, inner struggle, and occasional stumbling.
That intense pull he feels from the very first time he watches her—it goes far beyond the electric charge that sets his entire physical being aflame over and over again. He is also drawn in by the experience of an uncommon intellectual and emotional current stemming from her.
Ultimately, the very belief in restoration—not elimination—is the source of his compassion for Regina…
If you wish to find out more about William McGrath, Regina Cohen, and their relationship—check out the novel’s dedicated landing page→“Fireworks and Other Illuminations”, the Novel
- Chapter Four ↩︎
- Rhea—the Greek goddess of Earth: daughter of Gaia the Mother. ↩︎
- “Rheanol” means “rational” in Welsh. ↩︎
- Chapter Thirteen ↩︎
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