President, Leatherman Tool Portland, Ore.Benjamin Rivera had three job offers after graduation and turned down the most lucrative one to work for Leatherman Tool. To this day, he doesn’t regret the decision.“It sounds cliché, but I believe I’m successful because I do what I love. I get up every day and get excited to go to work. That’s my definition of success,” he said.
Today, Rivera is the president of Leatherman, the flagship multi-purpose tool company that has more than $100 million in annual revenue and more than 500 employees in the Portland area. During his 20 plus years in helping to build the company, he has achieved many noteworthy accomplishments, including more than 100 U.S. patents for his work as a product design engineer. In addition, his design for the WAVE Leatherman tool is part of the permanent collection within the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
As a mechanical engineering student at Oregon State, Rivera’s social network was equally important to academics. He developed a circle of friends who later became professional peers. Close mentorship from Professor James Welty further developed his people skills and enabled him to become a well-rounded professional. As a result, he’s had the opportunity to pursue many different facets of engineering, from management to intellectual property. “Engineering is a great profession because you can become so many things,” he said. “There’s a lot of flexibility and opportunity.”
Degrees
- B.S. Mechanical Engineering, 1990