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Charles I Beck, Ph.D. Stratecon   Education Work experience Expertise Professional activities and affiliations Contact details

CHARLES I (CHOLLY) BECK consults to food ingredient and food processing companies when they are contemplating a new product, technology, or business. He does this based upon a highly diverse academic, employment, and consulting career.

Start with a science and math-based high school curriculum,

add a Masters in Chemical Engineering in 1961 from Cornell University,

flavor with food science courses at the Illinois Institute of Technology and Northwestern University while serving in the rations development unit of the U.S. Army,

and complete with a Ph.D. in Agricultural Chemistry in 1967 from the Food Science Department of the University of California at Davis.

Early life: family hardware store, a barrel-plater production shop, and then four summer jobs during college: two with Air Reduction Chemical Company (NJ and KY) and two with Maxwell House Coffee in NJ.

Begin a traditional corporate life: 1967 - first professional position in food research with General Mills, Inc. in Minneapolis; in 1970 move to join G. D. Searle for an opportunity to build and manage his own group in food and ingredient research.

Thrive on leading edge developments and pioneer foods, ingredients, and technologies, while employers vacillate from enthusiasm to something less sanguine. Move from G. D. Searle (IL), to Kitchens of Sara Lee (IL), to R. J. Reynolds Industries (NC), where Dr. Beck was president of RJR Technical Co.

Launch his own consulting practice in Winston-Salem in 1987 following the arrival and departure of the Barbarians at the Gate, thus avoiding the cyclic employment of large corporations, boredom of a routine job, and snows of the northern tier.

During employment, his positions went from laboratory research, where much glass was broken, to laboratory and project management at which Dr. Beck excelled, to technology transfer and business development.

Consulting in Stratecon, Dr. Beck is able to draw on experiences in all of these sectors:

Because Cholly also knows what he doesn't know, and because he is a team player, he founded a network of experienced complementary food professionals in the US and internationally.
Stratecon International Consultants is routinely listed in the "Annual Guide to Food Industry Services" (March issue of Food Technology), on the website of the Institute of Food Technologists ( www.ift.org), and its members attend the IFT Annual Meeting & Expo.

Cholly is a Member of IFT and has served as chairman of the Chicago and Carolina/Virginia (now Dogwood) Sections. Further, he had served for many years and chaired the "New Products & Technologies Subcommittee", has just completed a term on the "Industrial Achievement Awards Committee", and has participated in, or directed, three IFT Short Courses (e.g. Food Product Development - Based on Experience; Nov 06).

He is also a Member of other professional groups: American Association of Cereal Chemists, American Chemical Society, and has been a Member of American Oil Chemists Society, Licensing Executives Society, Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals, Council for Entrepreneurial Development, and Piedmont Entrepreneurs Network.
Currently, he is actively involved with the Piedmont Angel Network, and serves on the Board of his congregation.