Anthony Stafford Beer - Biography

Biography

Beer was born in London in 1926. He started a degree in philosophy at University College London, but left in 1944 to join the army. He saw service in India and stayed there until 1947. In 1949, he was demobilized, having reached the rank of captain.

He joined United Steel and persuaded the management to found an operational research group, the Department of Operations Research and Cybernetics, which he headed. In 1961 he left United Steel to start an operational research consultancy in partnership with Roger Eddison called SIGMA (Science in General Management). Beer left SIGMA in 1966 to work for a SIGMA client, the International Publishing Corporation (IPC). He was appointed development director at IPC and pushed for the adoption of new computer technologies. Beer left IPC in 1970 to work as an independent consultant, focusing on his growing interest in social systems.

In mid-1971, Beer was approached by Fernando Flores, then a high-ranking member of the Chilean Production Development Corporation (CORFO) in the newly elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, for advice on applying his cybernetic theories to the management of the state-run sector of the Chilean economy. This led to Beer's involvement in the never-completed Cybersyn project, which aimed to use computers and a telex-based communication network to allow the government to maximize production while preserving the autonomy of workers and lower management. Although Cybersyn was abandoned after Allende was removed from power by the Pinochet coup in 1973, Beer continued to work in the Americas, consulting for the governments of Mexico, Uruguay and Venezuela.

In the mid 1970s, Beer renounced material possessions and moved to mid-Wales where he lived in an almost austere style, developing strong interests in poetry and art. In the 1980s he established a second home on the west side of downtown Toronto and lived part of the year in both residences. Beer kept active with work in his field.

Beer was a visiting professor at almost 30 universities and received honorary doctorates from the University of Leeds, the University of St. Gallen, the University of Sunderland and the University of Valladolid. He was president of the World Organization of Systems and Cybernetics. And he received awards from the Royal Swedish Academy for Engineering Sciences in 1958, from the United Kingdom Systems Society, the Cybernetics Society, the American Society for Cybernetics, and the Operations Research Society of America.

He was married twice, in 1947 to Cynthia Hannaway and in 1968 to Sallie Steadman. His partner for the last twenty years of his life was Dr Allenna Leonard, a fellow cybernetician. Beer had five sons and three daughters, one of whom is Vanilla Beer, an artist and essayist. Stafford Beer died in Toronto in 2002 at the age of 75 years after a considerable period of ill-health.