Art Beard

As a high school student, Art Beard was involved in track and field athletics, football, and basketball, but his main love was baseball. He was also academically gifted and received a full scholarship to Cornell University but, turning 18 in 1944, he decided instead to join the United States Navy. After the war, the Navy paid for him to attend Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), where he took part in athletics, football, and lacrosse. He was captain of the football team his senior year and was selected to represent the United States in the lacrosse demonstration event at the 1948 Summer Olympics, where the team from RPI tied the all-England squad 5-5.

Beard eventually received a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering and a master’s in physics from RPI. He considered obtaining a PhD, and even took night classes at the University of Pennsylvania towards that degree, but ended up choosing to pursue his career at RCA instead. He eventually rose to the position of Chief Engineer of the Computer Systems Division and later started his own company, Formation, with some of his former colleagues. He has been inducted into the Rensselaer Engineers Hall of Fame.