"Tampa Airport visionary George Bean dead at 79"

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Tampa Airport visionary George Bean dead at 79
The Associated Press


TAMPA, Fla. - George Bean, the workaholic executive who built Tampa
International Airport and then ran it for 25 years, has died. He was 79.

Friends remember him as a chain-smoking, no-nonsense administrator who ran
the airport he called "my baby" with an iron fist, issuing edicts banning
everything from popcorn sales and curbside parking to chewing gum. Bean died
Tuesday of natural causes, his family said.

"He was a very demanding individual; he was looking for perfection," said
Louis Miller, who took over as the airport's executive director when Bean
retired in 1996. "He wanted things done right, and done right the first
time. But he was also willing to listen to various points of view."

When Tampa International opened in 1971, no one doubted that Bean was its
driving force. And during his years at the helm, he left his mark on
everything.

Fearing damage to the airport's new carpeting, Bean banned chewing gum,
telling passengers not to chew it and airport shops not to sell it. For 30
years, no one did.

He also didn't like rental-car shuttle buses or people standing outside the
terminal to smoke. He subjected cabbies to a laundry list of rules banning
body odor and collarless shirts and demanding that they "communicate
effectively" in English.

"It put us on the map nationally," former Tampa Mayor Dick Greco said.
"People started talking about Tampa."

Raised in Worcester, Mass., Bean joined the Army Air Corps a year after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, hoping to become a pilot.

Banned from the cockpit by colorblindness, he ended up a radioman and
gunner, flying 50 combat missions on a B-24 Liberator based in Italy.

Back home after the war, he applied for a job with Northeast Airlines and
worked his way up to manager of Worcester's tiny airport.

Bean was named director of the Tampa airport in 1964 and his job was to get
it constructed.

By opening day, April 15, 1971, the tab for the airport had reached a
then-astronomical $83 million. The night before the grand opening, Bean
recounted in an interview with the Tampa Tribune he still wasn't sure its
trendsetting shuttle system would work.

His reaction to a potential disastrous breakdown was classic Bean.

"The thought crossed my mind: `First of all, I'll get fired. But the city's
stuck with it. So I went to sleep."

The airport's hub-and- spoke layout was soon copied elsewhere, including
Orlando International Airport.


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