User:HRShami/Ron Beckman draft

Ronald H. Beckman is an American industrial designer. He was vice-president of the design firm George Nelson and Co., director of the Research and Design Institute, and an Associate Professor at Syracuse University.

In 1967 Beckman received the first graphic design grant awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) to advance highway communication and safety.

Early life and education
Beckman was born in Buffalo, New York in 1931. He received a Bachelors of Industrial Design from Pratt Institute in 1953.

Career
In 1954, Beckman joined the U.S. Army Intelligence: Transportation Corps and Transportation Research and Development Command (TRADCOM). He left TRADCOM in 1956. The same year he graduated from Yale University's School of Architecture and Design and joined George Nelson/Gordon Chadwick architects as a designer. Over the next four years, he worked at Home Style Foundation Experimental House, Rek-O-Kut Corporation and General Electric Major Appliances.

In 1959, he he graduated with Master of Industrial Design from the Pratt and The New School. Beckman joined George Nelson and Co. as vice president and design director in 1962. In 1966, he left George Nelson and Co. to join Research and Design Institute (REDE) as the executive director. There he worked with Smithsonian National Air and Space Museu, National Endowment for the Arts, and Educational Facility Laboratories. He became president of REDE in 1976 and served in this position until 1983, when he joined Cornell University as an Associate Professor of Design and Environmental Analysis.

Beckman left Cornell University in 1993 to join Syracuse University as Associate Professor, becoming Emeritus Professor in 2004.