Ben Louwerse

Background

About Ben Louwerse

I began my mechanical engineering education after spending some time working primarily in the forest industry in British Columbia and Alberta. This work allowed me to develop a wide range of skills, including: • Hazard assessment and mitigation: As a trained dangerous tree assessor and dangerous tree faller, I was responsible for conducting site assessments, developing safe-work objectives, communicating known hazards, and mitigating hazards either through hazard removal, or implementing safe work objectives • Leadership: Ensuring the safety of the personnel working in my team, as well as maintaining crew cohesion, dealing with inter-personnel conflicts, establishing realistic objectives, developing a plan of action, and communicating objectives clearly • Project management: While the role of Incident Command is a different title, the responsibilities are still very similar: o Sizing-up of incidents or projects in the context of emergency-response o Recognition, assessment, and mitigation of risks o Establishing safe objectives and contingency plans o Assessing resources required, submitting a resource request, making the resources actually available work o Engaging stakeholders (Affected landowners, media, the general public, first-nations, permit-holders, contractors, and affected industries) o Tracking associated costs and being mindful of the need for fiscal responsibility o Development of a demobilization plan for the end of the project, including the order in which resources are released, equipment recovery, and development of a rehabilitation plan Through the course of my education in mechanical engineering, I have developed further skills: • Communication: As a student in engineering, a member of the Mechanical Engineering Students Association board of directors, and a Wildland Firefighting instructor, I have had to present material in front of large groups of people on many occasions and have grown comfortable doing so. • Design: Through the design projects, as well as my own personal projects I have gained competency at the design process, from problem definition, ideation, design development, analysis, prototyping, and testing. I have used both SolidWorks and AutoCad Inventor extensively and, to a lesser extent, ANSYS, Simulink and MatLab.