[1][6] After his earning his degree, he worked for Cornell Aeronautical Laboratory in Buffalo, New York where he met and married his wife, Eleanore Woods.
[7] He was CEO, chairman, and president of Formac (Washington Iron Works) in Seattle, a company that made large engines and logging equipment.
[6] In 1975, Beals was recruited by the conglomerate American Machine and Foundry (AMF), where he was hired to oversee engineering of new products for Harley-Davidson.
[5] At the time Beals was hired, Harley-Davidson was struggling with quality control issues and sales of its motorcycles had decreased significantly, losing market share mostly to Japanese imports.
[5] After touring several Japanese motorcycle plants, Beals concluded that Harley-Davidson's problems were not foreign imports, but rather the company's own mismanagement.