Ben ideates, strategizes, and executes.  He is passionate about helping organizations and individuals to achieve their goals and maximize their potential through critical thinking, innovative problem-solving, and personalized training and development.

Over the course of his nearly 20-year career, Ben has gained an understanding of the challenges faced by a wide range of organizations.  He has worked on the East Coast and on the West Coast, in for-profit corporate America and in non-profit local organizations, on basketball courts and in office buildings, in a small community college and in large state agencies.  Through these varied experiences, Ben has gained different styles of problem-solving skills and a unique perspective.  Regardless of their size or mission, Ben recognizes the importance for all organizations to achieve overall efficiency through successful organizational design, and he knows how to help an organization of any size or typeset the pace for sustainable growth through effective business strategy.

Ben holds a Bachelor of Psychology degree from SUNY University at Albany and a Master of Educational Psychology degree from The College of St. Rose, which together laid the foundation for successfully teaching and training others.  For 10 seasons, Ben applied his teaching and training abilities to coaching basketball teams.  He was a Division I assistant coach when he was only 20 years old.  He worked alongside and coached against some of the best college coaches in the game, which taught him how to evaluate his own team, analyze the competition, and effectively formulate and communicate strategies for success.  His coaching accomplishments include winning Peach Jam going undefeated for that entire season, winning 20 straight games and being ranked third nationally in Division I junior colleges, coaching French Montana’s team in Rucker, making it to the Continental Basketball Association finals, and winning 20 games as a Division I Basketball Coach.  Ben then joined a leading coaching consulting firm where he worked for a year as a consultant and Director of Operations for Adidas, working with two of the most powerful men in college basketball.  Ben was offered the chance to coach basketball for esteemed Division I teams, but turned them down to pursue other opportunities.  

Over the past 10 years, Ben created and has led The Thomas Academy, a non-profit organization he created that facilitates a successful transition to college for minority youth from economically disadvantaged homes.  This is New York’s first Post Graduate basketball program, and it has defeated established Division I junior college teams with budgets nearly 15 times as large as its own.  The Thomas Academy teaches the power of hard work combined with a positive mindset, values Ben learned at a young age as he forged his own path from living in a small upstate NY town to playing in Division I soccer stadiums.

Beyond his basketball experience, Ben’s drive to help others achieve their goals is evidenced by the 2.5 years he worked as a social worker; the 3 years he taught marketing as a continuing educational instructor at Columbia-Greene Community College; and the 6 years he worked as an Employment Counselor at the New York State Department of Labor (DOL), in which he helped thousands of job seekers.  While he worked at DOL, Ben also served in a training consultant role.  He developed, facilitated, and led training sessions for DOL employees across the state, offering fresh insights on continual development, emotional intelligence, and how job seekers can leverage social media to secure employment.  He also served as the Department’s main presenter at numerous conferences and job fairs.

For the past 7 years, Ben has focused on helping teams achieve their goals in his role as a Senior Administrative Analyst within the New York State Department of Health, where he has gained an awareness and understanding of a wide range of health policies and issues.  The Health Department is a massive state agency.  Not only does it have the largest operating budget of any agency in the state; the Department’s budget is comparable to the entire budget of counties such as Chile, Cuba, and Ireland.  While working with the Department, Ben has built solutions that led to the expansion of the scope of services of the Department, created tools to measure department-wide performance, and built adaptable teams.  He has created operational work plans, found root causes and resolutions to persistent issues, and led performance improvement workshops and kaizen projects to help teams improve their business processes.  His work has increased and maximized productivity within and outside of his division, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ben’s expertise in designing strategy and improving performance–combined with the skills he has gained through his diverse work experience–can help your organization or business to improve, as well.  Contact Ben today to schedule a consultation.