Robert W. Beckwith, Chairman, Board of Directors

• General Manager – Beckwith Electric Research, Largo, Florida
• 50-Year World Leader in the Electric Power Industry
• Company Founder
• Honored Scientist, Inventor, Researcher, & Consultant
• Life Fellow member of the IEEE
• MEE Syracuse University
• BSEE Case Western Reserve University

Background:

In 1942, Mr. Beckwith invented Frequency Shift Keying (FSK) while working for the General Electric Power Line Carrier Section in Schenectady NY. This was applied to protection of generator transformers in the interconnection of transmission lines to supply power for the Manhattan Project. He worked with Dr. Edward Teller and Bell Labs' Dr. Horton in developing secure voice modulated 26 kHz sonar for ship/submarine underwater communications. He worked with the Underwater Sound Laboratory at New London CT researching counters to German mines.

From 1955 to 1961 Mr. Beckwith was Manager, Computers & Communications, General Electric Company Electronics Research Laboratory, Syracuse, New York where the following significant achievements were made:

• 26KHz Spread-Spectrum Sonar
• "Machine Tool Director", for manufacturing steam turbine buckets to mathematically generated shapes, which improved turbine efficiency 1%.
• Over-the-Horizon Radar (OTHR), with a 2,000-mile range, under contract to Navy Research Labs (NRL), Washington, D.C.
• First Polaris Digital Fire Control system, developed in cooperation with Dr. Stark Draper & David Gold to work with Draper’s gyro-guided "bird". The fire control system used the first point-contact germanium transistors.
  
• In 1956, initiated change of the ERMA computer for the Bank of America
  from the vacuum tube wired program design of Stanford Research Laboratory to a new transistorized design using programmable drum memory. Was responsible for the first phase of the new design while the GE Computer Dept. was formed to build 30 machines for the bank.

From 1961 to 1967 Mr. Beckwith was Manager of Utility Systems at Gulton Industries where he developed an early-transistorized Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA) system for the Bureau of Reclamation. He developed the first transistorized synchronizer for generators, and for three electric utility tie points between the eastern and western USA power transmission grid.

In 1967 Mr. Beckwith founded Beckwith Electric Company (BECO) and developed the BECO generator and line synchronizers after buying his patents from Gulton.

In 1970 he developed the first transistorized control for underload tapchanging transformers for electric utility use.

In 1993, Mr. Beckwith oversaw recovery and reconstruction after a devastating Florida tornado destroyed the main BECO facility.

In 1997, under his innovative guidance, BECO again led the industry by introducing its "Autodaptive" system of tapchanging transformer and distribution line capacitor controls for hands-off automation of distribution substation Volts, Watts, and VArs.

In 2000 Mr. Beckwith founded Beckwith Electric Research (BER), a division of BECO, which conducts research at the forefront of present-day engineering and physics.

Robert W. Beckwith and the company he founded in 1967, Beckwith Electric Company (BECO), are world leaders in the electrical power industry.

Mr. Beckwith is a former member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE), and the Institute of Electronic Engineers (IRE) that combined to form the Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE).

Mr. Beckwith and his wife, Evelyn, have four adult children, are active in local community affairs, are patrons of the arts, and reside in Clearwater, Florida.

Clearances: Held TOP SECRET clearance at General Electric, Co.

Selected Accomplishments:

PATENTS GRANTED

Carrier current products were developed at GE during WW-II, which carried "AAA" priority as vital for the Hanford and Oak Ridge, TN nuclear research facilities. These established the first use of frequency shift keying (FSK) as the basis for the widely used FSK ever since. The first five patents were held up for writing and issue due to WW-II:

Beckwith Electric Co., Inc. 6190-118th Avenue North Largo, Florida 33773-3724 U.S.A. 727-544-2326
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