Background
Ben has more than 15 years of research, project management, quality auditing and consulting experience. During his career, he has gained experience in such fields as the aerospace, automotive, manufacturing and medical device industries.
Ben's background includes considerable experience in the aerospace arena. He spent 26 years on active duty in the Air Force, the last ten of which were in aircraft and component development activities. He served as a developmental engineer on such programs as the F-117A, B-2, F-22 and A-12. As a project manager and lead engineer, he developed concepts, wrote detailed technical specifications for product design and product acceptance testing and led design reviews. He also developed flight test plans and wrote interface control documents. Ben has vast experience with the U.S. Government contracting process.
Ben has also held the position of Lead Auditor with ITS Interek Services and has audited for several other registrars. He has conducted more than 150 documentation review, pre-assessment, assessment and surveillance audits to ISO 9000, QS-9000, TL 9000 and AS9000 requirements.
Upon leaving the Air Force, Ben pursued a career as a quality professional by becoming a lead auditor - a status which he held for a number of years - and worked for several quality system registrars. He has conducted more than 150-documentation review, pre-assessment, assessment and surveillance audits against a variety of standards in the basic ISO 9000, automotive, telecommunications, medical devices and aerospace arenas. He has led over 25 certification assessment teams. He stayed active in the aerospace arena with auditing activities, including leading the certification and surveillance audits of such companies as Rohr Industries, TRW Components, Turbine Engine Components-Textron, Parker-Hannifin (Gas Turbine Fuel Systems Division) and Spacecraft Components.
Specialties
Ben also has a strong background in consulting, training and business system implementation activities. He has worked with and prepared companies to achieve certification to ISO 9000, telecommunications, automotive and aerospace standards and to achieve certification for medical devices. He has worked with companies to obtain CE mark certification for products to allow their sale in the European market. In helping companies, Ben developed and provided quality system training, led internal auditor workshops and developed and implemented business system documentation.
He also has considerable expertise in the financial services arena. He worked with a Fortune 50 financial services company for several years to implement an effective business system at the home office and at over 40 field locations in the US and Canada. He worked with a wide diversity of functions within the organization, including an insurance company. He developed and integrated the organization's basic business system and the entire internal auditing process, trained and mentored all the auditors and led the organization through ISO 9001 certification.
While Ben continues to audit, train and provide consulting services to a variety of quality management system standards, he more recently also assumed duties as the Aerospace Subject Matter Expert for SAI Global in North America, leading the development team that produced SAI Global's RABQSA Certified Aerospace training courses.
Credentials
Ben has a Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from the University of Texas at Austin and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering degree from the Air Force Institute of Technology. He is internationally certified as an instructor for all of the SAI Global AS9100 aerospace courses.
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