Advertising pioneer George Beach to be honored

The interview was winding down, and longtime advertising executive George Beach had begun to relax a little.

So, laughing, he showed off the cool trick he can do with his arm.

Because rheumatoid arthritis has completely destroyed the joint in his right elbow, Beach can pick up his right forearm with his left hand and fling his arm around in a complete circle - something that would be anatomically impossible for most of us.

That trick, of course, is not why the African American Chamber of Commerce is honoring him tonight.

But it does say something about Beach's life.

"The things that have been my nemeses have been my successes," said Beach, 72, in his office in his company, located in a Center City brownstone decorated with Beach's paintings and African art.

Beach is the founder of Beach Creative Communications, the longest-surviving African American advertising agency in the nation.

He has been in business 50 years, and that's the reason for the kudos from the chamber at its function tonight at the Park Hyatt at the Bellevue.

"We admire him because he has overcome tremendous challenges as any African American would have starting in the 1950s, and he has survived several periods of economic challenges over the years," said executive director Kim Johnson.

Beach's nemeses are two:

When Beach started out in the advertising business, he faced one nemesis - racial discrimination - because, he said, advertising was traditionally a field for white people, mostly men, although that has changed somewhat over time.

The other nemesis explains the arm trick, which would be unsettling if it weren't for Beach's personality and the way he makes people feel comfortable around him.

When Beach was 30, pushing hard to make it as an artist, graphic designer and advertising man, doctors gave him a wrenching diagnosis - rheumatoid arthritis.

"It was devastating," Beach said. "I was just on my way with my career, just bought a house, started a family, and the thought of being crippled for life wasn't beautiful."

He purchased a fax machine, figuring he could conduct business from his bedroom. He was going to get fitted for a wheelchair.

"I wasn't supposed to walk again," he said. "The pain I had was excruciating."

He took massive amounts of every kind of painkiller he could find, even as his hands became more and more gnarled, and he finally could no longer paint.

These days, new drugs have taken away most of the pain. Beach can paint again, with a special brace to hold up his joint-less right arm. The company marketing the drug that gives him relief uses him as a marketing icon, asking him to speak at meetings to inspire the sales troops.

As for the African American part, that, too, has turned out to be an element of Beach's longevity in the advertising business.

When Beach started in advertising, he said, marketers were not that interested in reaching out to the African American market. That has changed, putting Beach and the owners of other agencies in a unique position to connect companies like Beach client Aetna Inc. to African Americans looking for health insurance.

"In the past, there was more of a broad-brush approach, but now there's more targeting," he said. "As our society has changed and blacks have changed because of our increasing impact, we have become more of a target for marketing purposes."

He estimates that two-thirds of his company's revenue over the years has come from marketing initiatives directed at African Americans.

These days, Beach finds himself energized by the election of Barack Obama. A lifelong Republican, which he described as the party for businesspeople like himself, he changed his registration to Democratic to vote for Obama.

He had changed registration once before to vote for Wilson Goode for mayor of Philadelphia.

"This time is forever. I feel so committed to Obama's spirit," Beach said.

Beach's parents moved to Philadelphia from Harlem when Beach was 10. Even before he graduated from Simon Gratz High School, he showed an early talent for art. His Gratz teachers arranged for him to receive a scholarship at what is now the University of the Arts, where he majored in advertising design.

He had an early internship in one of the city's agencies and worked for others before going on to start his own business in 1958.

He married Mary, an opera singer. They eventually moved to Awbury Arboretum in Germantown, where they still live. He has two sons - the oldest teaches in California, and the youngest, Matthew, 39, is officially the president of the Beach firm, as of last month.

But it's a tough time to make a transition.

"Advertising and marketing are the first things to go in this economy," Matt Beach said, as his father posed for pictures for a photographer.

It's hard for the son to always be in the shadow, Matt Beach said. Can he get his father to stop calling him "son" in the office? "It is exhausting working with a parent sometimes," Matt Beach said.

Beach, the father, is feeling the strain, too. "He's a tough boss on me," Beach said. "I don't know if it is something I did to him in his younger years, but he's a taskmaster.

"Still," he said, "if a young man can work with his dad for 10 years, and we're still buddies, I've given him his space."