Friendship may be its own reward, but it can roll in with some very cool perks. Just ask Roger Beit ’79. This spring, the real estate investment executive stepped in fast to help a friend – and earned his company a ride with NASCAR.

The starting line for Beit’s story is Connecticut. He grew up in Middletown and, as a high school student, took a bookkeeping course that showed he was pretty good with numbers. So when a friend recommended Bentley as a good place to study accounting, Beit was interested.

“I had to go to a community college first, to get my grades up,” says Beit, who would hit the books even harder upon enrolling as an Accountancy major. “I found my stride at Bentley.” 

He took the CPA exam soon after graduating – and earned the gold medal for highest score among aspiring accountants who sat for the exam in Massachusetts that year.

“I studied all the time,” he says. “My goal was to win that gold medal.”

Beit went on to join the Hartford office of accounting powerhouse Coopers & Lybrand. After five years, a different field beckoned.

“I saw all these people being successful in real estate,” says the alumnus and father of two, who lives in South Glastonbury with wife Sondra. “So I gave it a try.”

Beit began constructing real estate deals on an occasional basis and, after several years, felt ready to put his accounting career firmly in the rear-view mirror. In 1992, he and a partner, Mark Paley, started Harvest Investments LLC, which now manages multifamily properties in five states.

Offer Accepted

The company’s tale took a turn -- actually, a few hard left-hand turns -- this past spring. In April, Beit heard from an old friend, Tom Logano: fellow son of Middletown, former business owner, and early supporter of Harvest Investments. His son, Joey Logano, just happens to be one of the hottest young drivers in NASCAR.

“Tom called me, as a joke, and said, ‘Hey, my son needs a sponsor for the Nashville 300. “You want to do it?’” says Beit. “I thought about it for two seconds and said, ‘Sure.’”

In less than a week, the Harvest Investments logo was sitting on the hood of Logano’s popular No. 20 car. The black and gold Toyota of the Joe Gibbs Racing team took Logano to the pole in Nashville, where he would finish fourth.

Driving Interest

While the NASCAR sponsorship was a one-race deal, Beit is thrilled with the exposure for his company. In addition to the 50,000 fans on hand in Nashville, thousands more watched the broadcast on ESPN, among them some possible leads for Harvest.

“There are a couple of potential investors who just love cars,” he says. “They took a sharper look at us after seeing that car drive around the track.”

One person who didn’t see the race? Beit himself, who was on a family vacation in Florida. “I would’ve been shot,” he says with a laugh.

A return to NASCAR down the road is a possibility, Beit says. But either way, the sponsorship decision is one he’d make again -- even faster than a stock car.

“It was fun. Plus, for all the things Tom’s done for us, it was the least I could do.”