Student Spotlight: Ben Bailet - Working Through COVID

Meet Ben Bailet, a rising CU Boulder senior studying Management and Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business and a Sales and Business Development Intern at a Saber Astronautics. Ben grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico and was a competitive soccer player and a big snowboarder. The mountains were definitely a selling point of CU Boulder for Ben, and when he first visited CU Boulder, he was amazed by the entrepreneurial community. 

Ben first learned about the Leeds Entrepreneurship program and saw Pearl Street with all of the great startups during his campus tour. This seemed like a great opportunity and an innovative community to Ben. He could not wait to attend school in Boulder! Ben committed to CU Boulder upon returning to his hotel that day.

COVID Implications

This fall, Ben made the tough decision to withdraw for the semester and focus on his career; saving money, working in industry, and gaining real-world experience.  Ben took advantage of the opportunity to continue his summer internship into the fall. He works as a Sales and Business Development Intern at a company called Saber Astronautics. 

“It has been a really great experience to take a break from school and apply what I have been learning into a real word scenario.”

Saber Astronautics is a software company in the aerospace industry. They provide a variety of applications for satellites and utilize machine learning. With a passion for space and exploration, he was extremely interested when he saw the internship posted on Handshake. In his role, he focuses on business model development and customer discovery. He draws from his classes at CU Boulder when deciding how to frame problems and what issues need to be addressed and identified.

He recently worked on the initiative, Quest for Blue, that tied nicely into his entrepreneurial background. Quest for Blue is a space competition initiative to get college students to use the software and understand space mission planning. Students are challenged to come up with a business case that uses a satellite to support their space mission. He has also shifted towards working on business development through NASA grants and Airforce grants to develop new satellite technology. 

Plans After Graduation

Space is an attractive industry to Ben, but he is still open to a career in other industries. Ben shares his motto throughout college,

“Go out and eliminate things through deciding what you don’t like. I've always been eager to take initiative and seek out leadership roles to get as involved as possible in the things I am interested in. I think putting yourself out there and taking risks is key to being successful.” 

For Ben, that started at CU Boulder when he got involved in the Startup Club where he was an executive member. He was also president of his fraternity and worked as a Peer Advisor and event coordinator in the Pre-Business RAP. Interested in an industry focused on renewable and sustainable living, Ben is excited to see what the future holds!