Heald was president of Armour Institute of Technology from 1937 to 1940, at which time it became the Illinois Institute of Technology (IIT); he served as its president until 1952. He is credited with bringing architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe to Chicago in 1938 to direct IIT's architecture program. He led a team that investigated the idea of a research institute on the west coast and made proposals that would result in the creation of SRI International.
