Ben is someone who feels right at home in the grey zone between IT and OT. He started out as an OT specialist, became an IT specialist, and has been responsible for multiple OT-IT integration projects. Combine that with experience in functional analysis and business architecture, and you quickly understand why he’s the perfect translator between the shop floor and the server room.
Ben has always been a tinkerer. When he buys something new, he takes it apart immediately and only reads the manual if he gets stuck. This desire to know how everything works naturally led him to study Electromechanics with a specialisation in Measurement and Control Technology.
He started his career on the OT side, doing electrical and PLC maintenance for a large consumer goods company. When management introduced a new MES application with no local owner, Ben volunteered to figure it out. As always, he started by taking it apart and figuring it out from there. Quite the challenge, but one he gladly took on.
When his division was later sold to another corporation, the original IT department stayed behind. Instead of OT, Ben suddenly had to step up and handle everything from purchasing laptops to managing local networks. This detour into traditional IT gave him a unique advantage, as he now understood both worlds. He even convinced the company to bring the factory's OT network under IT management, making sure that both sides communicated properly and respected each other's needs. As you can imagine, hearing this piqued our interest.
Over the next few years, Ben took on various roles as a functional analyst and business architect at organisations like imec and other major multinationals. He specialised in reworking legacy MES landscapes. He sat down with operators, mapped their needs, and translated those requirements to IT vendors so they could build systems people would actually use.
Ben already knew the Coretecs team quite well. He actually hired us for an integration project at his previous company! He was a big believer in the Unified Namespace (UNS) concept, viewing platforms like Ignition as the perfect "spider in the web" to connect legacy servers with modern architectures. He is currently helping a major pharmaceutical client upgrade their entire MES platform across a massive facility.
Outside of work, Ben stays busy with hands-on projects. He recently finished a major home renovation where he did most of the work himself. He is also an avid 3D printer and loves teaching his kids how to turn their imagination into physical objects. When he needs a break from tinkering, he likes to go mountain biking with his brother.
