Making an Impact: Ben Was

By Chuck Cascio, author and former South Lakes teacher

Ben Was

When Ben Was, a 1994 graduate of South Lakes High School who grew up in Reston, recalls his years at Terraset Elementary, his enthusiasm provides a strong indicator of where his career was headed.

“I have fond memories of the solar-panel school, learning underground and playing at recess on top of the building’s earthen roof, with the library skylights beaming light into the book space within," Ben says. "I remember the excitement of the Terraset community raising funds through bake sales, business donations and community sweat to produce an elaborate new wooden school playground."

His early interest in his elementary school’s construction, combined with a father who was a home builder and a mother who was a Realtor, made it no surprise that Ben became a professional home remodeler who has worked on approximately 1,200 area homes. But Ben’s youthful fascination with development was not limited to construction.

In high school, Ben’s focus turned to earth science, inspired by South Lakes teacher John Pruess, who "took us to the Culpeper quarry to see newly found dinosaur footprints and to make plaster casts of them," Ben says. "I have those casts to this day. Mr. Pruess had other extra-credit field trips with various earth science themes that I always attended. I was fascinated with how all of these earth systems interplay."

Ben enrolled as a geology major at Arizona State University. "By the time I took my first college geology class, I was hooked by the field trips visiting cinder volcanoes, exploring mollusk and marine fossils in the middle of the Mogollon Rim desert rock outcroppings and studying the Grand Canyon stratigraphy," he says.

After graduating from ASU, Ben returned to Reston, taking a job at the U.S. Geological Survey’s Earth Science Information Center. He taught earth science and geology programs, led tours of the map printing facility, managed the USGS visitors center and provided audiovisual support for USGS presentations and programs. "It was an amazing experience with great exposure to how the government viewed the natural sciences, but the adventure to travel and explore the natural world took over, and I was off to Hawaii to climb the world’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa, with another Reston buddy." His next stop was Colorado "for a few years, where I played in the mountains and learned land surveying. Summit County was quite a place to search for property corners and lay out new homes."

Ben’s interest in construction then emerged strongly, and he took a job at Wren Homes, his father’s design-build construction company in Rocky River, Ohio, where he learned construction management from the ground floor up. "I was given a ton of opportunities to learn house framing, all forms of carpentry, and was exposed to all of the trades. I was fortunate to be taught hands-on by old-time construction pros. I also learned construction project management and coordination because I had more access to the ins and outs of running a business with it being my dad’s company."

Then it was back to geology in Temecula, Calif., where Ben "monitored petroleum spills at gas stations’ underground tanks leaking into the water table, which was rewarding." By 2004, he realized, "I was spending more gas driving to these remediation sites than we were actually cleaning from the underground water layers, which seemed counterintuitive." He was ready for his next adventure when, coincidentally, "a Reston childhood friend, Mike Sass, called to see if I was interested in moving to Reston to start a remodeling and residential renovation company."

Ben returned to Reston and formed Seneca Remodeling, which operated for almost 20 years before he realized, "My interests had shifted; I had lost my desire to run a small construction company." He now works in project management for a high-end custom home builder, though he does "take on small repair projects like fixing longtime friend Ben Moore’s coffee roaster that seems to need a repair every few years, or helping loyal clients on projects they might need advice on."

Ben and his wife, Brittain, also a South Lakes graduate, have two sons, ages 14 and 12, so their lives are busy. However, Ben is intensely focused on an emerging professional goal "to empower the less-skilled construction worker. The U.S. does not have the next generation of construction workers being trained and developed. Programs to educate the mechanical trades exist and have apprentice programs, but skilled training for tile setters, carpenters, masons, painters and others doesn’t exist, and it needs to. These workers finish the project details, and they require skilled training to become professionals so their careers can develop and they can support the needs of their families."