Alumni Directory

Ben Kern

Owner/Founder
Kern Consulting LLC

School Information

School: The Ohio State University

College Major: Business

 Years at College Works: 2009-2016

Career Information

Working For: Kern Consulting LLC

Title: Owner/Founder

Industry: Software

Brief Description of Duties / Responsibilities:

I run a boutique consulting / software development firm where I help small / medium size organizations map out and streamline their internal workflows and then often design/build custom software stacks to manage those workflows.

What Has Been Your Proudest Accomplishment Post-CWP?

Launching my own business and clearing well over six figures in my first year.

College Works Career Impact

In one sentence, what has CW meant to you?

College Works Painting taught me the real meaning of integrity and work ethic.

How did your CW experience impact your career? Immediately after graduation? Now?

College Works Painting certainly was a cornerstone for me. It led me into a managerial role, which led to me to learning new software tools, which led me to launch my own company.

What do you want to tell your clients about what it meant to work with them and how it has helped you get to where you are today?

Mike Barr. I still say his reference letter was the best in College Works Painting history. I think the year was ’08 or ’09.

What was the greatest lesson you learned from your CW experience?

In life, no one is going to do anything for you. You have to create your own success

How have the friendships and networks you built during CW affected you?

Unfortunately, I’ve lost touch with most of my cwp contacts.

Advice

What advice do you have for potential CW participants? Current CW participants?

“Get close with you Dm/Vp. They are the ones who distribute marketing leads (at least in my time) Pay your painters what they are worth.”

Many college students struggle to choose between an internship specific to their target industry or doing CW. What advice would you give them on this subject if they wanted to enter your career field?

College Works Painting is still relevant from a leadership / managerial standpoint. For my field specifically that’s half the equation. The rest is getting exposure/practice/experience actually using various software tools.

What’s your best advice for someone interested in entering your career field?

Codeless/low code software tools/solutions are the future and are far more cost effective today than building in house. Larger and larger companies are seeing this and now there is already a huge gap in the labor market for people who have experience with various codeless/low code software development tools. I’m willing to hire someone for 80k/yr and still struggling because of the skill gap. P.s. it’s not rocket surgery either… I learned these tools myself through YouTube mostly.