{"id":761,"date":"2022-03-25T10:58:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-25T10:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/?p=761"},"modified":"2022-03-28T14:43:05","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T14:43:05","slug":"employee-spotlight-gene-bendien","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/","title":{"rendered":"Employee Spotlight: Gene Bendien"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/SGS3.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/SGS3.jpg\" alt=\"Combustion engineering team\" class=\"wp-image-762\" width=\"462\" height=\"281\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Pictured: Steve Ogonek, Gene Bendien, Saroj Dahal<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>We recently had a chance to speak with one of our experienced sales team members, Gene Bendien. He spoke to us about his career, experiences, and gave some advice for aspiring combustion engineers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m actually not an engineer, I don\u2019t have an engineering degree. However, I\u2019ve been working with combustion systems since 1972. I\u2019ve been on both sides of the business; as a seller, and as a buyer. I started out working for a company in downtown Chicago that sold drying equipment to places like coal prep plants. I also worked at a company that built big furnaces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Before that, I had worked for Keebler in their engineering department. I\u2019ve also worked in Indianapolis for 10 years, and another 10 in Birmingham selling burners. In 2013 I retired from a burner manufacturer and that\u2019s when Steve called me and asked me to come aboard at Olstr\u00e4d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Probably the biggest challenge I faced coming to Olstr\u00e4d has been selling foreign made parts in the U.S.A. People in the U.S.A. want to buy American-made products, and they tend to be brand loyal, too. However, the Italian manufacturers we\u2019re partnered with make really high quality products. They have excellent aluminum castings, solid coils, low amps, etc. The delivery times are great as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My favorite part about working at Olstr\u00e4d is the people. If you don\u2019t like the people you work with, it\u2019s tough to do a good job. But I also love combustion\u2014 no two plants are the same, it\u2019s different every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That means you really need solid fundamentals if you\u2019re going to work in combustion. It\u2019s different now for young people. Before, people used to work on their own equipment\u2014tractors, car engines, that sort of thing. They developed a natural sense for how combustion processes worked. Nowadays, people don\u2019t work on their engines so much. So if you\u2019re an aspiring combustion engineer, make sure you really learn the fundamentals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We recently had a chance to speak with one of our experienced sales team members, Gene Bendien. He spoke to us about his career, experiences, and gave some advice for aspiring combustion engineers. \u201cI\u2019m actually not an engineer, I don\u2019t have an engineering degree. However, I\u2019ve been working with combustion systems since 1972. I\u2019ve been <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-combustion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Employee Spotlight: Gene Bendien - Combustion 911 employee spotlight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"We recently spoke with veteran sales team member Gene Bendien about his career, experiences, and advice for aspiring engineers.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"b-olstrad\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"b-olstrad\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/65f917e4b2ad5b4feb720af326b6803e\"},\"headline\":\"Employee Spotlight: Gene Bendien\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-03-25T10:58:00+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-03-28T14:43:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/\"},\"wordCount\":348,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/SGS3.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"combustion\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.combustion911.com\/blog\/uncategorized\/employee-spotlight-gene-bendien\/\",\"name\":\"Employee Spotlight: Gene Bendien - 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