Benton Jackson

Benton Jackson

Benton Jackson seated on a wooden stool, smiling, in a charcoal T-shirt

I fix what's broken between a business and its customers.

Systems, reporting, websites and marketing, through HIGHSPUR.

See the workDownload resume (PDF)

Systems
over
guesswork.

About

Supply chain graduate who moved from running business processes to building the systems behind them.

At Collins Aerospace I turned a monthly SAP compliance report into a view the director could pull up on demand. At Thermal Shop I managed 28 contractor accounts and helped write the requirements for the CRM the company now runs on. Through HIGHSPUR I build websites, lead tools and the workflows around them for small businesses, beginning with the owner's own account of how the business works.

Most of my work is translation. I spend time with the people doing the job, document what they need, direct AI-assisted development to build it, and test the result against that specification. Operations, systems and marketing are three views of the same problem, and I work across all three. Iowa State's M.S. in Information Systems starts in January 2027.

My personality
Predictive Index

Predictive Index profile

Captain

My Predictive Index behavioral assessment places me in the Captain profile. In practice that means I step into leadership naturally, set a direction and move people toward a result, quickly and without needing every step mapped out first.

  • Taking charge: strongly toward taking the lead

  • Working with people: moderately toward working through people

  • Pace: strongly toward a fast pace

  • Structure: moderately toward flexible

  • What I bring

    • Takes charge and drives change, including questioning how things have always been done.
    • Stays effective under time pressure and across several priorities at once.
    • Builds cohesion and brings energy to a team.
    • Adapts quickly when plans, priorities or the organization shift.
    • Picks up new information fast and keeps attention on the outcome.

  • How I work

    At pace, and toward results. Variety and change energize me, I handle pressure well, and I would rather keep several things moving than wait on one. In an ambiguous situation I act on what I know and adjust as I learn more.

  • How I lead

    Leadership comes naturally to me. On a team I tend to be the one who sets the direction, takes ownership of the outcome and keeps everyone moving toward it. My style is motivating and collaborative: I build cohesion, hand off detail readily and keep my own attention on the bigger picture.

  • How I work with people

    Direct and sociable. I communicate actively and say what I think, and I enjoy working a problem through with the people around me.

  • How I decide

    Quickly, with the goal in view. I'm comfortable making a call before every detail is settled, and I'm prepared to make a hard one when the result depends on it.

  • What drives me

    Challenge, variety and seeing results. I'm self-motivated and achievement-oriented, and I do my best work with independence, room to change how things get done, and a goal worth pushing for. Highly repetitive or rigidly procedural work suits me less.

  • Working with me

    • Expect directness and pace. Tell me when a situation calls for more time or a softer approach.
    • Bring me in early on problems that need solving or processes that need changing.
    • Precision-heavy work goes best with a checklist or a detail-minded partner alongside me.

Summarized in my own words from my Predictive Index Behavioral Assessment and Manager Development Chart, November 2025.

DISC Profile

DISC style

Decisive and interactive

My DISC assessment scores me equally high on Decisive and Interactive, at 67 each. I make decisions with confidence and I reach them with people: I'm comfortable taking the lead and just as comfortable building agreement around it.

DISCExtrovertIntrovertTaskPeople
NaturalAdaptive, how I adjust at work
StyleNaturalAdaptive
D · Decisivehow I approach problems and decisions6763
I · Interactivehow I work with people6774
S · Stabilizinghow I pace my work4617
C · Cautioushow I approach standards and process4628

  • What I bring

    • Getting new projects and initiatives off the ground.
    • Building trust and rapport quickly with new clients, teams and stakeholders.
    • Clear direction paired with real buy-in, so a team understands the goal and wants to reach it.
    • Ambitious goals, pursued alongside the people doing the work.

  • Where I do my best work

    In roles with variety and room to improve how things are done, where responsibility comes with the authority to act on it, and where there is steady opportunity to learn and grow.

  • What drives me

    Leading and owning outcomes is my strongest motivator, followed by understanding how things work, the independence to find a better approach, and work that pays off for the business.

  • Working with me

    • I communicate directly and appreciate the same. A clear goal and the key facts up front help me move quickly.
    • I welcome a different view on the approach, and I adjust quickly when there's a better way.
    • I work best when I'm part of the decision, and I make sure decisions get closed out so the team can keep moving.

Summarized in my own words from my Innermetrix DISC Plus Profile, October 2026.

Selected work

All work

Resume

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Experience

  1. Sep 2026 – Present

    HIGHSPUR LLC

    Founder and Digital Solutions Consultant

    Sioux City, IA

    • Run each client engagement from discovery interviews and requirements through scoping, build, revisions and delivery.
    • Leading a website redesign for a commercial building-products client: information architecture, UX, SEO-informed page design, photography and marketing collateral.
    • Direct AI-assisted development (OpenAI Codex, Claude Code, GitHub) that turns written requirements into working software, then test it against the spec before a client sees it.
    More on the client work
    How an engagement runs
    Every project starts with interviews. I ask how the business actually makes money, who its customers are and what those customers ask before they buy, then write that up as a specification the client can read and correct. Design and development follow the specification, and I test the result against it before handover.
    What I deliver
    Information architecture and UX, page design informed by search behavior, original photography and image optimization, copy, and the print and social collateral that goes with a launch: flyers, catalogs, business cards and apparel graphics.
    Construction lead intelligence
    An internal tool that collects construction records across a large rural territory, links them to related property and project records, identifies the builder on each job and structures the result for prospecting. Built for the trades my clients sell into.
    Systems mapping
    Requirements and data mapping for continuity across project management, field photography, task and calendar systems, so the same job carries one identity through every tool a small contractor uses. Specification work, not a deployed integration.
    Tools I work in
    OpenAI Codex, Claude Code and GitHub for development. Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, Figma and Canva for design. Wix and Squarespace when a client needs to keep editing the site themselves.
    The brand as a proving ground
    HIGHSPUR sells a fragrance and apparel line under its own name. I built the identity, packaging, product photography, store and campaign for it, which means clients can see the full stack of work before they commission any of it.

  2. Jan 2026 – Aug 2026

    Thermal Shop

    Account Manager and Systems Specialist

    Cedar Rapids, IA

    • Owned 28 repeat contractor accounts worth roughly $1M a year, about 15% of company revenue.
    • Mapped the lead-to-estimate-to-scheduling process, defined requirements for an internal CRM, directed an AI-assisted build, wrote the acceptance tests and handed it to the technology team; it is now used by nine people.
    • Built an Excel estimating model that cut quote preparation from about an hour to roughly ten minutes.
    More on the accounts and the systems
    The accounts
    Twenty-eight repeat contractors buying across three product lines: gutters, shelving and insulation. I was the single point of contact for quoting, installation scheduling, pre-install preparation and whatever came up afterward.
    Building-code questions
    Contractors called me with code questions before they called an inspector. Whether acoustical caulking was required around poly in a Cedar Falls air-barrier assembly. Whether batt insulation had to cover spray foam on a Waterloo basement walkout wall, which depends on whether the covering is read as structural or as a fire barrier. I researched each one and came back with the answer in writing.
    The estimating model
    Product names came into the shelving library inconsistently, so exact-match lookups failed on the entries that mattered. I built the aggregation on SUMPRODUCT with the input normalized as it is read, then rounded quantities up to whole units, so a salesperson could paste in a messy list and get a usable count. Quote preparation went from about an hour to roughly ten minutes.
    Where the lead tool started
    Cold calling was producing little, so I researched how construction records are published across Cedar Rapids jurisdictions and wrote the build specification for a tool that would find new construction and remodel work early. That specification is what later became Batterboard.
    Marketing
    Launched a service landing page with on-page SEO and an internal linking plan, and set up the home development environment the CRM work was built and tested in.

  3. Jun 2025 – Jan 2026

    RTX | Collins Aerospace

    Internal Product Support Analyst, Customer Support Services

    Cedar Rapids, IA

    • Developed an SAP export-classification reporting tool for the department director that flagged unclassified parts before shipment. It earned a department award.
    • Designed auto-updating Excel scorecards from SAP extracts that ranked 200+ high-value assemblies for daily escalation decisions.
    • Automated recurring SAP BI/BW report pulls with VBA, wrote the team guide and trained a senior analyst on it.
    More on the programs and reporting
    What I tracked
    More than 200 high-value defense parts in work, each one moving through quote request, receipt, routing to a service center, quoting, purchase order review, payment, technical completion, customs readiness and a customer return date. The service centers were in France, Mexicali, Atlanta and Cedar Rapids, so a part in trouble was rarely in the same building as the person who needed to know.
    Export classification
    A director-level project mapping global trade and classification changes to the programs and parts they affected. I built the reporting behind it in SAP and Power Query, and a notification process that told program teams which parts had changed and what it meant for repair movement, export readiness and customs clearance, while there was still time to act. The documentation trail covered DSP-5, DSP-83 and ITAR records.
    Obsolescence analysis
    Compiled and analyzed component obsolescence for 77 top-level assemblies using SAP, BI/BW, PDM, SmartSearch, Accuris and bill-of-material reviews, then updated the tracking dashboard so the analysis stayed current instead of being rebuilt each quarter.
    Scorecards
    Program data lived across separate sheets and had to be reread by hand before every escalation meeting. I built Excel and VBA scorecards that pulled from SAP extracts and ranked parts by age, urgency and customer return date, so the daily decision was reading a list rather than assembling one.
    Documentation and handover
    Wrote the department's beginner's guide to obsolescence reporting and trained an analyst on the reporting workflows, regulated documentation practices and SAP tracking once the process was repeatable.

  4. 2017 – Present

    Customer-facing experience

    Service and professional roles

    Iowa

    • Held a customer-facing role every year since 2017, including alongside full-time professional work.
    • Served and bartended through college, then kept working nights and weekends after starting full time at Collins Aerospace; learned to read a room quickly and resolve problems before they reached a manager.
    • Applied the same standard to professional customers: defense sustainment programs at Collins, 28 contractor accounts at Thermal Shop, and small-business clients through HIGHSPUR.
    Nine years of continuous customer-facing work, 2017 to present

    1. Founder, client work

      HIGHSPUR, 2026 – now

      Discovery interviews through delivery on every engagement.

    2. Account Manager

      Thermal Shop, 2026

      Single point of contact for 28 contractor accounts.

    3. Customer Support Services

      Collins Aerospace, 2025 – 2026

      Supported defense sustainment programs through quotes, repairs and shipments.

    4. Server

      Black Sheep Social Club, 2025 – 2026

      Served nights and weekends alongside full-time professional work.

    5. Server & Bartender

      Jethro's BBQ, 2022 – 2025

      Banquets and events up to 600 guests; tip averages above 22%.

    6. Bartender & Manager

      The Crankshaft, 2023 – 2024

      Ran front of house: staffing, inventory, ordering and closing.

    7. Server & Bartender

      Old Chicago, 2021 – 2024

      Promoted to bartender in about six months; built a base of regulars.

    8. Customer Service & Shift Lead

      Scheels, 2018 – 2021

      Promoted from cashier within four months.

    9. Team Lead

      A&W, 2017 – 2021

      First job, and first time leading a shift.