2015 Board Candidate – Western District Vice President
Bio
Ben Bergeson is a product development manager within Ultradent Dental Products’s Research and Development Group in the Salt Lake Valley. He leads a strong team of researchers and development engineers producing new and innovative products to improve oral care globally. Bergeson has managed this department for seven years and has developed a new design thinking and product development process for the company that encompasses early design research to late phase engineering.
During his time at Ultradent, Bergeson has helped develop the IDEA winning Valo LED Curing Light. The first in its field, it allowed unprecedented access in the oral cavity and delivered the broad-spectrum wavelengths of light that polymerize any dental material. With the ergonomics of the clinician in mind, the low profile head enables the device to access areas other newer designs cannot reach.
Bergeson is excited about using his design knowledge to help improve quality of life conditions. He is currently with organizations such as AAMI, +Acumen and the Human Centered Design Project. Bergeson also hopes to develop his home water reclamation concept into a viable alternative for residential water recycling. He loves to be part of any idea the helps promote genuine optimism among people, even if it’s just for plain fun and excitement.
Before his commitment to Ultradent, Bergeson worked in the package engineering industry for companies such as Black and Decker and Mattel. He holds a degree industrial design from Brigham Young University, where he also taught at one time as an adjunct professor.
During his free time Bergeson hikes American Fork canyon by his house, bike Zion National Park and explore the beautiful surroundings that Utah has to offer. He also enjoys playing the guitar; he was an original member of the band the Aquabats. He currently resides in the quiet town of Cedar Hills, Utah with his wife and three daughters.
Statement of Candidacy
Just a few words of why I have considering running:
I love industrial design because it offers me the unique position to not only communicate great ideas through sketching, but also to research and define requirements before I implement solutions. Don’t get me wrong, if I couldn’t do the “design” as part of my job I probably wouldn’t be here. But I really do enjoy the research side…discovering unmet customer needs, watching taped videos of processes over and over to find those subtle nuances or interviewing users to see what makes them tick. All of this work that is done to help define the problem to be solved.
After a few years of completing projects with my company it became apparent to me that the process of defining and capturing requirements as a front end or “pre-development” of the product development process is vital to every project. It is the most critical task because once the concept has been defined, then most of the direction of the project will have been set in stone.
So, I found myself contemplating this amazing role industrial designers have within this framework and put it up against how the career might be viewed within certain organizations. I asked the question of some of my fellow colleagues, “What is your perceived value the ID team member brings?” I was a little disappointed. We aren’t not quite considered “technical,” just “artistic.”
So I would like to take up a charge, why can’t industrial designers be responsible for not just the problem solving or “sketching” part of the process, but take the responsibility for the all of this amazing upfront work? (Which is commonly missing from most companies doing development work anyway).
I believe any designer can become more proficient in the pre-development process with some basic training, but this is not always available or in some situations even offered. We need to increase our training in areas such as psychology, anthropology and research processes. Let’s bridge the gap.
I would love to see IDSA fill this responsibility within the organization by being a champion in furthering our education as designers by organizing continuing education programs for experienced designers and also to broaden current degreed programs.
If I could have this opportunity, I would like to make this our focus throughout the term.
