Benedick with one of MR-ProFun’s Chinese partners during their management of China Telecom China Mobile Pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. IMAGE PROVIDED
Industrial engineering alumnus shapes the landscape of the attraction industry
5/8/2019
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Working on something as monumental as the Apollo spacecraft would be the peak of almost anyone’s career, but for Penn State alumnus Jim Benedick, it was only the beginning. With more than 50 years of experience in the industry, he has worked for companies and on projects that most could only dream of.
York County native Benedick graduated in 1966 with a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering, craving the excitement and creativity that the field offered.
“I came to Penn State, at first majoring in mechanical engineering, but eventually switched to industrial engineering, because I didn’t want to be stuck behind a drawing board,” Benedick said. “I wanted something different.”
After numerous recruiting field trips during his time at the University Park campus, Benedick accepted a position with North American Aviation (NAA), where he used his skills to work on projects that were literally out of this world.
“I spent a year working on the S2 booster for the Saturn rocket and then another year working on the Apollo 1 spacecraft,” he said. “I like to tell people I helped put a man on the moon … me and about a million other people.”
As groundbreaking as the work with NAA was, Benedick knew there was more for him. He began looking for other jobs that would be just as exciting as putting a man on the moon. After seeing an ad in the Los Angeles Times and completing four rounds of interviews, he found what he was looking for at one of the most magical places on Earth: Disneyland.
Being an industrial engineer at Disneyland is just as exciting as it sounds; Benedick described how they would study every aspect of the park such as the capacities of rides and attractions, queue lines for food and merchandise stands, and the ever-important restrooms. Throughout his ten years there, he became chief industrial engineer and served as area manager for the Main Street, Adventureland, Frontierland, and Tomorrowland sectors.
“When I first moved out here (Southern California), one of the first things I did was go to Disneyland,” said Benedick. “I loved Disneyland, so this was the perfect job and opportunity for me.”
Following his time at Disneyland, Benedick spent his next years working on a plethora of different projects throughout North America. He served as the vice president of operations for the 1982 World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee, doing consulting work for a total of five World’s Fairs, and was the president of the DuQuoin State Fair in Illinois.
Benedick ended up back in Southern California, however, where he would finish his long, illustrious career. He became a partner at management consulting and operational management firm MR-ProFun, the end result of a merger between the firm’s Management Resources and ProFun Management Group, Inc. While most may not be familiar with the name MR-ProFun, almost everyone is familiar with their work.
“We’ve been involved with major, world-renowned projects such as the 9/11 Memorial Museum, the Museum of Natural History in New York, and Ferrari World, which is the largest indoor theme park in the world,” Benedick explained.
The firm operates in four distinct sectors, completing projects all over the world. Their previous work ranged from commercial attractions, such as MahaNakhon Observation Deck in Bangkok and Yas WaterWorld in Abu Dhabi, to cultural attractions, including the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach and the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, to corporate attractions, like Warner Bros. Studio Tour: The Making of Harry Potter in London and the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, and to exposition and events, namely the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the 2012 Olympics in London.
“My professional life has been quite exciting,” Benedick said. “I’ve been through more than 150 different airports around the world and visited 45 different countries for business.”
This exciting lifestyle has been something that Benedick has been chasing for as long as he can remember, always being drawn to the thrill of the industry.
“As a kid, I was always attracted to carnivals,” he described. “I would save every nickel, dime, and penny I had in order to go to the York Fair, and that passion for these kinds of activities has driven my career. As far as the business goes, it’s much more fun when you’re dealing with other people having fun. I wanted to work in the service industry to help make people’s lives more enjoyable, and that’s what I’ve done.”
This passion and commitment to other’s enjoyment is what has kept Benedick in the industry for over 40 years, and these decades of prolific experience have taught him lessons that have been crucial to his success.
“Preparation and opportunity are key,” Benedick said. “You have to be prepared for whatever you want to get into but know that even the best preparation will never be enough; you’re going to have to learn as you go. Then, you have to go where the opportunity is and just take it on.”
He continued, “You’re not going to have all the answers when you graduate, but you’ll have all the tools needed to solve almost any problem. Don’t be above listening to the people around you and learning from them, because that is paramount to achieving your goals.”
Susan Steadman, member of the Service Enterprise Engineering (SEE 360) Advisory Board, recently met Benedick while out in Southern California and said, “Jim is such a great example of an industrial engineer who has used his training and talents in a large number of settings, including some traditional manufacturing and many service-related environments. It’s neat to see that Penn State industrial engineers (IE) were some of the early ‘service’ engineers and now there are so many more IEs who are working in these fields. Jim’s experiences and stories are fascinating and he’s just a wealth of knowledge! He was a pioneer in the entertainment area as it relates to IE applications.”
Benedick, along with his brother, Jeff Benedick, have created the Benedick Family Scholarship Fund at Penn State to benefit students in both the College of Engineering and the College of Health and Human Development.
With over 80 percent of the U.S. economy in the service sector, the mission of SEE 360 is to contribute to engineering the 21st century economy. This includes developing teaching resources such as textbooks and case studies that apply engineering techniques toward solving problems in service industries, introducing students to opportunities for engineering in labor-intensive service industries and partnering with businesses to allow students to develop solutions that optimize service. For more information, visit see360.psu.edu.
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Benedick with the character Goofy at Disneyland. IMAGE PROVIDED
Benedick at the Great Pyramids in Egypt while working on the Susan Mubarak Family Park in Cairo. IMAGE PROVIDED
