Prior
to working for NOAA, Ben was a seasonal Ranger-Naturalist
with the National Park Service for three years while pursuing
a B.S. degree in conservation and resource management at the
University of Maryland.
After
obtaining an M.S. in water resources management from the University
of Michigan in 1974, Ben came to work for the Office of Coastal Zone
Management (now the Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management)
through a two-year exchange program from the Great Lakes Basin Commission.
He worked in coastal management for 25 years filling different positions
and responsibilities, all of which have given him the opportunity
for extensive travel around the U.S. and the world while holding the
"best" job in the Federal government.
His positions
have included working on regional management teams in the Pacific
and Great Lakes states, as the NEPA Compliance Coordinator and the
Natural Hazards and Technical Assistance Coordinator, a Senior Policy
Analyst, and an International Affairs Specialist in which he spent
three years developing a bi-national Red Sea Marine Peace Park as
part of the peace process between Israel and Jordan and helped to
start up the International Coral Reef Initiative.
Ben has
served on a number of interagency committees including wetlands evaluations,
flood plain management, hurricane preparedness, as a member of Presidential
declared disaster teams, on the Presidents Task Force on Outer Continental
Shelf Oil and Gas Leasing and Exploration, and as a member of the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change where he coauthored a common
methodology for conducting vulnerability assessments to future accelerated
sea-level rise impacts related to potential climate change scenarios.
This allowed him to travel extensively throughout the Pacific Islands
to provide technical and financial assistance in their conduct of
climate change studies.
During
his career, he has written 14 major environmental impact statements
on the approval of state CZM programs, marine sanctuaries, and estuarine
research reserves, which taught him early on to take a camera with
him whenever he was on assignment and focus mostly on pictures depicting
the problem areas to be addressed (i.e., damage to coral, coastal
development and shoreline erosion, etc.). Nonetheless, his favorite
pictures are sunsets whenever he can capture one. Ben is currently
a senior advisor in the Office of Sustainable Development and Intergovernmental
Affairs and his pictures now tend to focus on "fishy" aquaculture
activities. His main avocation of 34+ years has been serving in the
U.S. Army Reserve with exciting assignments in Special Operation Forces
and now as a Chief Warrant Officer All-Source Intelligence Analyst
which is more to his liking sitting in front of a computer instead
of parachuting out of helicopters and sleeping in the woods during
the weekends.
His
biggest reward working for NOAA was when he as able to represent
NOAA and the Department of Commerce at the Naval War College
during the 1983-84 Centennial Year celebration in Newport,
R.I. While academically challenging (14 papers and 14 exams),
it was a year full of great experiences for the family. In
a word, working for NOAA is the "best!"
