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George Arthur Williams was born January 14, 1918 in Wilcox, Arizona. From 1937 to 1940 he taught in the public school system in Texas before returning to the Texas College of Mines and Metallurgy (now University of Texas-El Paso) where he received his B.S. in Mining Engineering in 1943. He then served in the U.S. Naval Reserve as an engineering officer in the South Pacific until 1946. He received his Ph.D. degree in Geology from the University of Arizona in 1951, after which he was employed as chief of the stratigraphic studies group of the U.S. Geological Survey in Grand Junction, Colorado. In 1954 he became an exploration geologist for the Union Carbide Corporation's nuclear energy division in Wyoming and northern Colorado. He joined the faculty at the University of Idaho as a geological engineer in 1957. He served as head of the department of geology from 1965 to 1983 and as Director of the Idaho Mining and Minerals Resources Research Institute from 1983 to 1988, and also participated in the Glaciological Institute program in Alaska. He was chairman of the Faculty council during the 1986/1987 school year. In 1988 he retired to Ojai, California.

He is a member of the Geological Society of America, American Association of Petroleum Geologists, Sigma Xi, Idaho Academy of Science, Northwest Mining Association and was a charter member of the International Association of Mathematical Geologists. Among the University Committees he served on were Audio-Visual Evaluation, Tenure Competency Review, 1964 Presidential Search, and the Teacher Education Coordinating Committee. He was also curator of the College of Mines museum collection and was a member of the Advisory Board for Idaho Bureau of Mines and Geology.