Dr. William P. Magee Jr., D.D.S., M.D.

Dr. Bill Magee co-founded Operation Smile in 1982 with his wife, Kathy, and currently serves as the organization’s CEO emeritus. Between 1982 and 2023, he alternated between roles as chief executive officer or executive chairman of the board of directors.

A Life-Changing Mission

After winning a Hays-Fulbright Scholar Grant to study in Paris, France, under the famed Dr. Paul Tessier, known as the “father of craniofacial surgery,” Bill Magee Jr., D.D.S., M.D., found his life’s calling. In 1982, Magee and his wife, Kathy, started Operation Smile, a leading global nonprofit; still, he had no idea how many lives they would eventually change.

Under Magee’s leadership as either CEO or as executive chairman of the board, both Operation Smile’s board and the leadership team grew as like-minded individuals who shared his belief that every child deserves exceptional surgical care joined the organization. As a result of his pursuit of a plastic and craniofacial surgery career, he co-founded an organization that treated cleft lips and cleft palates uplifting over 400,000 lives around the globe.

During a 1982 trip to the Philippines, Magee saw 250 children with cleft conditions turned away from surgery. He became determined to ensure that children with cleft conditions could get the care they needed. 

Today, Operation Smile boasts over 6,000 volunteers who work in 37 countries and have transformed the lives of countless families. Through Operation Smile’s training and education programs, thousands of health care professionals including plastic surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, dentists, speech pathologists, child life specialists and biomeds have been trained in some of the most remote places in the world.

Growing a Global Organization

As CEO of Operation Smile, Magee focused on the day-to-day operations of the nonprofit, spearheaded and cultivated corporate partnerships and traveled on hundreds of surgical programs, performing thousands of surgeries. Operation Smile spread across the globe, reaching anywhere there was great need. In 1987 Operation Smile took the opportunity to help the children of Vietnam living with cleft conditions and was the first U.S.-based nongovernmental organization to re-enter Vietnam, 12 years following the Vietnam war.

Magee also pioneered the Physicians’ Training Program in 1989 which brought hundreds of doctors from program countries to the U.S. for a specialized two-week training in plastic surgery techniques and other surgical specialties. He also began a fellowship program hosting 20 qualified candidates from program countries for one-year trainings in craniofacial surgery in the U.S.

Always thinking outside the box, he envisioned the “World Journey of Hope” in 1999, recognized by the “Guinness Book of World Records 2000: Millennium Edition” as the largest-ever international surgical program. The program used an L-1011 flying hospital to visit 31 sites in 18 countries in nine weeks, providing 5,300 free surgeries.

In 2007, Operation Smile hosted the “World Journey of Smiles,” where more than 1,900 volunteers from 80 countries worked simultaneously at 40 sites providing surgery to 4,086 patients in two weeks.

Education and Honors

Bill received a D.D.S. from the University of Maryland, and then an M.D. from George Washington University Medical School. Along with their three small children, Magee and Kathy lived in Switzerland for three months while he studied with Dr. Hugo Obwegeser, “father of orthognathic surgery.” He then went on to serve his general surgery residency at the University of Virginia Medical School and received the Fulbright-Hays Scholarship Grant to study in Paris with Dr. Paul Tessier for six months in 1975.

He then received his plastic surgery training at the Eastern Virginia Medical School in Norfolk, Virginia. He joined Plastic Surgery Specialists, Inc. in Norfolk in January 1978 and later became president of the group, which at the time was the largest private training program in the United States. In 1980, he invited Dr. Tessier to come to Virginia for two weeks every six months during which time they operated on over 150 patients with major craniofacial anomalies who were brought to Norfolk from around the world for care. In 2016, Bill left the private practice to invest all his effort and energy into Operation Smile.

Bill was awarded honorary doctorates from some of the finest universities worldwide, including the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden in 2014 and Loyola University in 1991. He received the Blessed Edmund Rice Humanitarian Award from Iona College in 2022 and The Albert Schweitzer Leadership for Life Award from the Ireland Chamber of Commerce in 2017. The American Society of Plastic Surgeons recognized Bill’s contributions to cleft care with an Honorary Citation Award in 2014 and named him the first-ever recipient of the Nordhoff Humanitarian Award in 2022.

Also recognized by the American Society of Maxillofacial Surgeons, Bill is the proud recipient of the 2013 Tagliacozzi Award and has accepted over 60 awards and honorary degrees from societies and institutions across the globe since 1969. Bill was highlighted in “U.S. News & World Report” issue “America’s Top Leaders” in November 2009 and was given the National Medal for Peace and Friendship Among Nations in Vietnam in 2009. In 2007, UNICEF presented the Magees with a special recognition on behalf of Operation Smile, and he received the Distinguished Service Award from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

A sought-after keynote speaker, Magee has delivered commencement addresses at Georgetown University, Villanova University, Fordham University, Old Dominion University, Denison University, Mount St. Mary’s University and College Misericordia, among others.

A Continuing Legacy

Today, while Kathy manages the day-to-day CEO operations, Magee focuses on nurturing personal contacts and mentoring relationships with Operation Smile donors and medical volunteers, as well as with former patients. His office door is always open, and he welcomes conversations with employees, providing words of wisdom and a message of inspiration.