Robert Beck, the second dean of Cornell University’s School of Hotel Administration, has died from a stroke. He was 91. Many considered Beck a pioneer in the industry, as he helped accelerate guest arrivals and check-outs worldwide, urged the industry into a customer service bent, and became a proponent of computerized reservation and billing systems.
In 1962, in his second year as dean, Beck established a Cornell research committee and advisory council that studied how punch card and key tape technologies could be used to create centralized data processing systems for hotels. Beck pushed for efficiency when Cornell partnered with technology giant IBM to list hotel functions, such as guest registration, that computers could perform better and more efficiently than the ledger systems. Two years later, Cornell’s Statler Inn received the latest mainframe computer so that the school could develop an online accounting package for hotels.
Beck was predeceased by his wife Mary (Jan) Murray Beck in 1999. He is survived by his daughters Susan Warner, Janyce Beck (Cornell ’70), and Robin MacRae, as well as seven grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.
