Archives West Finding Aid

Theodore (Ted) R. Beck was born in Seattle in 1926. The son of an Icelandic father and Danish mother, Beck briefly lived in Denmark after his mother died but soon moved back to Seattle after his father remarried. Beck attended the University of Washington and developed a life-long passion for hiking. He became a member of the Seattle Mountaineers in 1947. He met his wife, Ruth, through the Skandia Folkdance Club and married in 1951.

Beck's Ph.D. degree was in Chemical Engineering, which led Beck and his wife to move to Delaware from 1952 to 1954 and Northern California from 1954 to 1961. In 1961, Beck relocated to Seattle to begin working for Boeing Aerospace and, 3 years later, for Boeing Scientific Research Laboratory. In 1975, Beck formed his own company, Electrochemical Technology Corporation, based in Seattle. The company ceased operations in 1996, when Beck retired.

Beck was close friends with Harvey Manning, a well-known authority on hiking in the Northwest. In 1968, Beck, Manning, and two other hikers formed the Elderly Birdwatchers Hiking and Griping Society. The society took a two-week hiking trip every year until Manning's death in 2006.