On January 31, 2005, Kyle Beste scored 30 points against Augsburg without attempting a three-pointer. Nine baskets. Twelve free throws. Thirty-nine minutes on the floor. Carleton won 78-65, and its senior forward finished with seven rebounds, four assists and three steals. It was a busy evening in Minneapolis for someone whose eventual working life would involve rather different kinds of numbers.
Beste is now chief executive officer of Clarion Home Services Group, a collection of residential heating, cooling, plumbing and electrical businesses. His career has taken him through watches, consumer services and commercial building systems. Before any of those jobs, there was Carleton basketball: four seasons, four trips to the conference playoffs, and a place in the college's athletic Hall of Fame twenty years after graduation.
The executive title is the present tense. The basketball years supply the opening scene. They also contain a pleasing detail for anyone tired of biographies that make every accomplishment sound solitary: even on a night when Beste scored thirty, someone else was collecting fifteen rebounds. That was Dan Forkrud. There were five Carleton players on the floor, and the final score belonged to all of them.
A forward with more than one column
Beste came to Carleton from St. Louis Park, Minnesota, and played from 2001 to 2005. As a freshman he appeared in all 26 games and earned a place on the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference's All-First Year team. Anthony Baquero, another Carleton freshman, received the same recognition. The program was developing a group, with more than one name worth remembering.
In his sophomore season, Beste moved into the starting lineup full time. He averaged 14.8 points and made the All-MIAC First Team. The following season brought 12.3 points per game and an honorable mention. The progression included a lower scoring average before the substantial jump of his senior year. A career, even one later commemorated in a Hall of Fame, need not draw a perfectly straight line.
One December evening in 2003, Beste and Tanner Schieck each scored 17 points in a 62-50 win at St. Olaf. Carleton's defense forced 17 turnovers. A nine-point run in the second half helped break a three-game losing streak against the college's crosstown rival. Even the rivalry had an appropriately local prize: the Goat Trophy, which St. Olaf had taken by sweeping the previous season's meetings.
The win was only half the business required to reclaim the Goat. Carleton still needed to beat St. Olaf in their next meeting. The arrangement had a useful sense of proportion. Win a game, enjoy the evening, then attend to the next game. A trophy with a barnyard name somehow makes the arithmetic more memorable.
In February 2004, Beste scored a season-high 20 points at Hamline as Carleton secured another playoff berth with a 69-63 victory. Forkrud contributed 18 points and a career-high 15 rebounds. When Hamline pulled close in the second half, a Forkrud three-pointer and a Beste layup extended Carleton's lead. The account of the game gives the two plays equal billing.
Thirty points, and a season that ended anyway
Beste's senior season began with three losses in Hawaii. Carleton lost at Hawaii Hilo, Chaminade and Hawaii Pacific, the last two by three points each. By January, the schedule contained a different sort of result: an 81-75 win at Gustavus Adolphus in which Beste scored 31, his highest total of the season. January also brought that thirty-point performance at Augsburg.
The regular season had close defeats as well as emphatic victories. St. Thomas won a January meeting by one point. Bethel won the regular-season finale by two. A few possessions could separate a good evening from a frustrating one, and the season's results preserve both. There is no need to tidy the losses away to make the career interesting.
In the conference playoff quarterfinal against Macalester, Beste and freshman Tommy Drake each scored 19. Forkrud added 17 points and twelve rebounds. Drake supplied a key steal and two free throws in the final thirty seconds, and Carleton won 81-77. The senior scorer and the first-year player finished level in points; the late interventions came from the freshman.
Two days later, Beste scored thirty against St. Thomas. Carleton lost 81-75, ending its season at 17-10. His final college game produced one of his largest scoring totals, and still the team went home. The ending gives the story its proper shape: individual performance matters, and the scoreboard keeps its own counsel.
Over that final season, Beste scored 528 points. He also recorded 144 rebounds, 62 assists, 45 steals and fourteen blocks. Those contributions brought team MVP recognition and places on both the All-MIAC First Team and the conference's five-player All-Defensive Team. Across four seasons he accumulated 1,445 points, 124 steals and fifty blocks, without missing a game.
Next came a different kind of watch
After Carleton, Beste's education included the University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business from 2010 to 2012. He served as class president and received a Student Leadership & Service Award. His professional history includes Boston Consulting Group, followed by roles in consumer businesses. By March 2017, he was Fossil Group's senior director of wearables.
Fossil was preparing to bring Android Wear 2.0 to its Q Wander, Q Marshal and Q Founder touchscreen watches. Beste spoke about bringing technology together with fashion, keeping watchmaking traditions in view while developing smaller hardware. His remarks concerned an object people wear, look at and choose for reasons that extend beyond its software.
He also explained the reach of a company with stores, concessions and wholesale distribution around the world. Android's international presence mattered to that audience. Partnering with Android Wear gave Fossil a way to serve users of both Android phones and iPhones. The product discussion joined design choices to distribution and compatibility: the watch had to suit its owner and work with the phone already in that owner's pocket.
“merging fashion and technology”
Kyle Beste, discussing Fossil's wearables in 2017
Beste later worked at Life Time, including senior operations responsibilities, before an operating adviser role at Atlantic Street Capital Advisors. The sequence placed him in consulting, a consumer product company, a service business and an investment firm's operating network. Those are different settings for management, with different products and different people delivering them.
A headquarters measured in square feet
By May 2025, Beste was CEO of ACIS, Air Conditioning Innovative Solutions. The Texas company provided commercial and industrial HVAC services. Its work also included plumbing, electrical services and building automation. The move from wearable devices to buildings was substantial in physical terms alone: a watch sits on a wrist; a building's systems occupy rather more space.
That spring, ACIS announced a headquarters relocation to Allen, Texas. The plan involved a twelve-year lease on 33,000 square feet at 121 Tech Park, with space for more than 150 office and field employees. The site lay near the intersection of US 75 and State Highway 121. ACIS anticipated moving into the new headquarters during the third quarter of 2025.
Beste described Allen's business environment as supporting the company's long-term vision. The announcement placed that ambition beside concrete commitments: a location, floor area, employee capacity and a lease term. Twelve years is a consequential number to put next to a plan. It carries the discussion beyond the next quarter's presentation.
The local names on a national map
At Clarion, Beste now leads a platform serving residential HVAC, plumbing and electrical businesses. Its portfolio includes Allen Service in Colorado, Burton in Nebraska, Blue Dot in Kansas, and Mr. Holland's Home Services in Wisconsin. The names remain rooted in their own markets, even while they belong to a wider group.
Clarion offers partners shared call-center, legal, finance and back-office support, alongside recruiting, sales, marketing and technology resources. Its partnership model includes shared ownership and profit-sharing opportunities. For a local business owner, that is an arrangement involving both the familiar company customers recognize and the resources available behind it.
Beste works alongside founder and president Mark Evans, executive chairman Steve Stagner, and leaders responsible for operations, finance, development, people and marketing. The organization distributes responsibilities across several roles. Residential service itself is delivered locally, by businesses whose names appear beside towns and cities on Clarion's map.
In June 2025, Carleton welcomed Beste into its 'C' Club Hall of Fame. Twenty years separated his graduation from that recognition. The college honored a player who scored, defended and remained in the lineup through four seasons. Today his name appears on another team list, beside Clarion's chief executive title. The settings have changed; both chapters are worth keeping in the picture.