Robert Beyster

Founded SAIC on in 1969. It was the largest employee-owned research and engineering firm in the U.S., then went public in 2006. SAIC was split into two separate companies in fiscal 2013. Beyster built SAIC from a tiny scientific consulting firm to a multibillion-dollar defense and technology powerhouse. Along the way, the Detroit native became a pillar of San Diego's technology community, and passionate admirer of the America's Cup and all things nautical. Five years after Beyster left SAIC, the company moved its headquarters to Virginia in 2009, prompted by a desire to be near Washington D.C., source of much of its federal business. Beyster was born in Detroit in 1924 to John F. and Lillian E. Beyster, and he grew up in Grosse Ile, Michigan. When the United States entered World War II, Beyster enlisted in the Navy. He was sent to the University of Michigan, where he was enrolled in the V12 Officer Training Program. Commissioned as an ensign, he eventually served on a destroyer based in Norfolk, Virginia before leaving the service six months later. Beyster received a B.S.E. in engineering and physics in 1945, a master’s degree in physics in 1947, and a doctorate in physics in 1950—all from the University of Michigan. In the 1950s, Beyster followed many of his college associates to New Mexico to work as a research physicist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he met his wife-to-be, Betty. The couple were married in Austin, Texas in September 1955. In 1957, Beyster joined General Atomic in La Jolla as chairman of the Accelerator Physics Department, where his research on neutron thermalization led him to coauthor the book Slow Neutron Scattering and Thermalization. In 1969, Beyster raised money to start SAIC by investing the proceeds from selling stock he had received from General Atomic, combined with funds raised from the early employees. Beyster is is survived by his wife of 59 years, Betty, of La Jolla; daughter Mary Ann of La Jolla; sons Jim of San Diego and Mark of Las Vegas; two grandchildren; one great-grandchild; and a sister, Virginia.