David L. Beamer, '65
Tell us a bit about your career and what you’re doing now.
Right after Ohio State my first job was at Cape Canaveral, which was great fun and a great experience, in preparation for the Saturn V launch program. It was perfect and exciting. I spent my whole career in technology sales and marketing, and general management positions. I ended up as chief operating officer of Legato Systems, which was acquired by EMC; so I retired from EMC as senior vice president of Legato Operations.
What contribution and/or achievements are you most proud of?
I was fortunate to be a part of teams and organizations in the technology field where we grew businesses; we delivered, I think, great products and services to our customers; and provided opportunities for lots of good people. As I look back on all that time and technology, it was a wonderful and exciting place to be. I frankly feel especially blessed in that throughout my career, no one really ever told me what it was I had to do on a particular day, but rather here are the objectives, and here are the expected results. So, go deliver, find the results, but as I think about it, it was a great blessing to not have somebody assigning a specific task and activities for the day. It was great.
What is your favorite memory from your time at Ohio State?
It is a great memory turning in the blue book at the end of the final exam. The friends, the challenging professors. As I remember my freshman calculus class, a German professor running calculus that day for freshmen engineering students said take a look at the guy on your right and the guy on your left, in six weeks they won’t be here. Which was one way of saying, two-thirds of you guys are either going to switch majors or not make it. I won’t forget that line. I remember Coach Hayes and the great times in the Horseshoe. I lived in the Horseshoe. I lived in the stadium scholarship dormitory, which back in the ‘60s was indeed housed in the Horseshoe. Those were some great times with my pals.
What are you doing now?
I’m happily involved in some volunteer work and encouraging various projects around remembering September 11th. Our son was Todd Beamer, on Flight 93 in Pennsylvania, the young man who said “Let’s Roll!” He and the other 39 people had a chance to fight back that day on September 11. I’m still involved in some September 11 memorial projects.
These days we also have the opportunity to salute and thank the young men and women who continue to fight on in the conflict, some of whom have devastating injuries. So we spend some time making those rounds, which is important to us.
The other thing that is keeping us busy is we have eight grandchildren. They are all, of course, super, beautiful and smart, so we have fun with them.