Spring 2005
Banking on the U
Banker Richard Beeson (political science ’76) says he’s still reaping dividends from his CLA education. What’s more, he’s enhancing the communities that neighbor the U.
Passion often exhibits itself at an early age. But Richard Beeson’s childhood love of Gopher football is perhaps unparalleled: He attended countless games with his father as a youngster, sold programs in the old Memorial Stadium, and vividly recalls Minnesota’s competition in the Rose Bowl in 1962, when he was just nine. “I always had a connection to the U,” says Beeson.
Today, Beeson works in a community that has an equally strong tie to the U: St. Anthony Park, a leafy residential neighborhood that abuts the St. Paul campus. For more than a century, this sleepy corner of St. Paul has been home to U of M professors, administrators, and staff. In fact, the community bank where Beeson serves as president, Park Midway Bank (formerly St. Anthony Park Bank), was founded in 1917 by a group of U professors and still serves a fair number of students, Beeson says. A particular point of pride is his bank’s arranging a $1 million construction loan for one of the U’s most recent and most promising initiatives, the University Enterprise Laboratories.
Of course, as a banker in a community that serves the St. Paul campus, Beeson is wise to be a U booster. But his bonds to the U are deeper and more heartfelt than might be expected, in part because they are personal. He earned a degree in political science from the U, and his wife of 22 years, Marydon, was educated as a dental hygienist at the U. Their daughter, Meredith, is now a sophomore in CLA and works part-time for the U of M Foundation.
Broadening vistas
Beeson worked in the office of a state senator and then as a loan officer with the Minnesota Housing Finance Agency before joining staff of the St. Paul Department of Planning and Economic Development in 1978, under the direction of mayor George Latimer. There, he slogged through the details of neighborhood revitalization and housing programs, and helped lay the groundwork for much of the riverfront renewal that has come to the city today. “We bought, cleared, and financed the purchase of all that rustbelt property along the downtown [St. Paul] riverfront,” Beeson recalls.
But after 10 years with the city, Beeson decided it was time for a different challenge. He still wanted to contribute to development of the urban landscape, but, newly armed with an M.B.A., he wanted to do it from a business rather than government perspective. Offered a post as vice president of St. Anthony Park Bank, he jumped at the chance. “I had a desire to continue improving the city … yet at the same time, to do it in a business context where I had independence and the ability to run the business as I saw fit.
“My education at the U and my work for the city gave me a much broader view of the world than I ever would have had if I’d just gone straight into banking. Banking can be narrow and rules driven and task focused. But someone at the bank needs to have a broad, strategic view.” That person, now bank president, is Beeson.
Community banking, Beeson says, isn’t completely different from urban development and planning: “Both jobs require weighing risks and rewards. Both involve contact with people and analysis of situations.”
Growing assets, investing in communities
Under Beeson’s watch, St. Anthony Park Bank has grown substantially. Its $40 million in assets have swollen to $200 million. Its roster of employees has doubled, to 35. And 1,500 small businesses rely on the bank to handle their money. Beeson is proud of the bank’s year-old $25 million social-responsibility fund, which offers low-interest loans to nonprofits, affordable-housing developers, and community-service projects.
“Many of us give to charitable organizations,” Beeson says. “But pooling money in the social responsibility fund means there ’s an even greater impact.”
Beeson also serves as chair of the St. Paul Chamber of Commerce, and he’s eager to use that position to rally support among businesses for public education. “I’m disappointed with the level of support that the U has gotten from the Legislature,” he says. And he’s interested in developing a transit corridor between downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul along University Avenue—a project that would ultimately benefit the U.
Balancing the ledger
Although a political science education might not seem the most direct route to a job in banking, it was the perfect start for Beeson, who got involved in political campaigns shortly after graduating from the U.
“I was trained to be a political scientist, not a hack commentator,” Beeson says. “You have to understand the science of what is really going on in order to rise above the noise level and accomplish something.”
Bankers are generally wary of outstanding debts. But Beeson says he owes an enormous debt to the U—and he doesn’t mean tuition, which he paid off long ago. “My education trained me to have a good experience with the city, which trained me to have a good experience in banking,” he says. “The values and perspectives that I built in college were so strong they just carried me.”