People You Should Know in Hopkins: Bill Beard

Bill Beard

Title: CEO of The Beard Group, a Hopkins-based development company.

Time in job: 20 years

Time in Hopkins: Lives in Edina but first Hopkins project started 18 years ago

Why you should know him: The Beard Group just for the much-anticipated Marketplace and Main project. Beard is also the past chair of the Minnesota Children’s Museum and sat on the board of the Crisis Nursery and Minnesota Peace Foundation in Minneapolis.

Family: Has a wife, Barb

Favorite thing about Hopkins: “It’s a real community, and there’s an identifiable town center. You’d be hard-pressed to say ‘where is downtown.’”

Favorite Hopkins activity: Either sit on the patio at Big Ten Restaurant or go to a movie at on Two-Buck Night.