3M’s Jay Beecroft is a training directors’ training director. Though his official title— di¬rector of education, training and development— accurately mirrors his lack of personal pretension, it tells next to nothing of his successful 28-year reign as 3M’s top trainer.
Beecroft joined 3M in 1948 as a sales rep and, like so many, became a trainer almost by accident. In Beecroft’s case, the accident was named Bill Gove. Though now a nationally known speaker/trainer, Gove was 3M’s manager of business develop-ment when he met and was impressed by the ex-Army-Air-Corps-pilot-turned-sales rep, Jay Beecroft. Continue reading