Professional Profile: Robert Beal - 1974

Name: Robert Beal - 1974

Title: Vice President

Company: Beacon Construction Co.

Location: Boston

Birthplace: -

“Absolutely fantastic” were the words used by Robert Beal, vice president of Beacon Construction. He was describing the new aviary of the Boston Zoological Society at the Franklin Park Zoo. Bob is treasurer and a director of the BZS. The $20 million rehab and renovation development undertaken by the society at the zoo is expected to be completed sometime next year, the target date for many projects, when Boston begins the national observance of the Bicentennial. If you haven’t seen it yet now’s the time to go before the Boston 200 tourists begin to crowd the park. The cofounder, former national treasurer and now member of the national executive board of the Ripon Society, is among those young progressive Republicans who are sad because of what is going on in the nation’s capital these days. When he helped get the organization on its feet in the early ‘60s, his friends at Harvard wanted to find out where the G.O.P. was headed. Apparently not in the right direction, and Bob agrees the battle is a tough one, to get the party to become more progressive and attuned to the time. Ripon was the first national group to recommend revenue sharing, when people hadn’t even heard of the term. Now that both parties are talking about it, he feels Ripon is beginning to make its mark in American politics. In fact, he adds, “the whole political structure needs change. Fundamentals have to be looked at closely.” Making his home on Beacon Hill, Bob will be 33 years old next month and is a graduate of Harvard College (B.A., cum laude) and Harvard Business School (MBA, 1965). He went right to Beacon from the school and is now involved with development, financing and marketing of commercial activities at the firm. He’s the one who determines what type of investment development Beacon gets into and then handles the marketing, leasing and property management. Bob likes to travel and does a lot of it with Beacon’s business: Puerto Rico, Syracuse, the Midwest and South. He’s an instructor and lecturer of the GBREB and the BOMA division of the Boston Realtor Board and a current director of the National Realty Committee. Other affiliations include member of the corporation of Belmont Hill School (from which he graduated), class agent and reunion gift chairman of the Harvard College Fund and a director of the fund’s council last year. Center Plaza was Beacon’s first investment property and the first office facility in what is now Government Center, Boston. The firm now has some three million sq. ft. of office space it oversees, more than 10% of this at Lincoln Plaza in Syracuse. Involved heavily in apartment construction, Beacon owns over 2,500 units in New England and N.Y. with another 1,000 under construction. Georgetown at Hyde Park Ma., of course, was the first large multi-family development in the city in the mid ‘60s. What’s coming? More diversification in upstate N.Y. and Pa., more involvement in housing, Bob says. And other office buildings, constructed “on a specialized basis because of today’s market. We’re cautious with our development plans, we’re watching the economy and the environment. That’s why we need special purpose type developments.” Bob’s business philosophy? “Keep it profitable and have fun doing it.