Our dear colleague William (Bill) B. Beyers (1940-2022) died on February 1st. Those attending RESER conferences from the 1990s will have fond memories of Bill. These include his insightful presentations on producer services and regional economic development as well as his enthusiasm for discussing all things about services. He was very supportive of early career scholars and provided constructive feedback on their conference presentations and took time out to engage in supportive discussions with them during the conference. Bill was very much a positive addition to any conference he attended. RESER awarded Bill a Lifetime Achievement award for his contributions to service-related research at the conference held in Gothenburg in 2010. Metka Stare , one of our past president told us that she was privileged and honored to hand him over the plaque on behalf of the RESER Council.
Bill had very many talents. Despite undertaking a formidable amount of cutting-edge research, Bill was also an excellent PhD supervisor and teacher. He retired in 2010 but continued to teach until 2015 and remained extremely research active with ongoing consultancy projects based around Washington State’s Input-Output model and economic studies of creative industries. Bill had many interests including working in his garden, his dogs, and travel linked to his longstanding interest in the arts. When Bill attended a RESER conference, often with his wife Margi, they would take the time to visit galleries and attend art events. Before attending a conference, Bill would have identified the best restaurants and places to visit, and this included thinking about the routes for his daily morning run.
But obviously, we will miss also the researcher.
William (Bill) B. Beyers, eminent economic geographer, regional scientist, and service scholar, was a pioneer in input-output modeling, research on producer services and on the economic impacts of the creative economy including arts and cultural organizations and sports. Bill’s research and teaching had a major impact on shaping the research agenda on regional economies and producer services as well as supporting the ongoing transformation of the economy of the Pacific Northwest.
Following his undergraduate degree in geography at the University of Washington, which he completed in 1958, and a PhD in 1967, Bill developed an academic career at the University of Washington. Bill had the unusual distinction of having served his entire academic career at a single institution, the University of Washington. He held another record that very few academics would be able to match – he taught a module on the Pacific Northwest that he initiated whilst a graduate student and he taught this module for 50 years.
There are many different approaches to shaping an academic career. For Bill this included balancing the publication of a highly influential legacy of research and publications with significant impact on the economy of the Pacific Northwest. This latter set of impacts revolved around the development and application of Input-Output models to unravel economic impacts and this included studies of the impacts of arts and cultural organisations on the Central Puget Sound regional economy. Bill played a critical role in the development and application of the Washington State Input-Output models. He was the primary author of some of these models including the 2002 and 2007 models and worked on the 2012 model. In 2021, Bill received a commendation letter from the State Governor that applauded Bill’s “important contributions, … technical skill and diligence” for his work on the state Input-Output tables.
Bill’s impact research also included one of his most important service research projects. This research was undertaken in 1985 for the Central Puget Sound Economic Development District, Seattle, and explored “The Service Economy: Export of Services in the Central Puget Sound Region”. This was Bill’s first piece of service research, and this led to his 1985 journal paper on “Export of Services in Post-industrial Society” (Papers of the Regional Science Association). From this moment, Bill continued to produce a stream of papers that explored various aspects of the Puget Sound and North American service economy. There are many important papers here including his paper published in 1996 on “Explaining the demand for Producer Services” (Papers of the Regional Science Association) and his work on producer services in rural locations. The latter led to an important paper with an intriguing title – “Lone Eagles and High Fliers in the Rural Producer Services” (Rural Development Perspectives, 1996). Perhaps one of his last service papers was published in Service Industries Journal in 2013 on “Evidence on service productivity change from input-output models”.
The Reser council thanks John R. Bryson, University of Birmingham, past RESER Vice president to have written some elements of Bill Beyers’biography. All of us have very pleasant and interesting souvenirs of Bill and his wife Maggie. We will continue to read his books and papers. Rest in peace dear Bill!
