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Stafford Beer
Summary
Anthony Stafford Beer (25 September 1926 – 23 August 2002) was a British theorist, consultant and professor at the Manchester Business School. He is best known for his work in the fields of operational research and management cybernetics.
Beer was born in Putney, London in 1927. His father was William John Beer, chief statistician at Lloyd's Register of Shipping. His mother was Doris Ethel Beer, who was born on the same day as his father. At age 17 he was expelled from Whitgift School and enrolled for a degree in philosophy at University College London. But in 1944 he left to join the army, first as Gunner in the Royal Artillery, but he soon received a commission first in the Royal Fusiliers, and then as a company commander in the 9th Gurkha Rifles. He saw service in India and stayed there until 1947. Upon returning to England he was assigned to the Human factors Branch of Operations research at the War Office. In 1949, he was demobilised, having reached the rank of captain.
He dropped the use of his first name "Anthony" when he was about twenty-one and persuaded his brother, Ian Beer, to sign a statement that he would not use the name Stafford which he also was given.
In 1956 he joined United Steel and persuaded the management to fund an operational research group, the Department of Operations Research and Cybernetics, which he headed. This was based in Cybor House, and they installed a Ferranti Pegasus computer, the first in the world dedicated to management cybernetics.
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 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.
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