Navy SEAL – Andrew Bensch

Former Navy SEAL Andrew Bensch, who is now enrolled at Wharton, contacted me in February. The five year veteran of SEAL Team 7 came into the studio needing photos for his new start-up, nobrick LLC.

After about 10 minutes of prep, Andrew commented on my massive American flag I have hanging in the studio. I told him it was a Valley Forge (apparently they make the finest flags in the USA) and from there we connected. There was something familiar about Andrew but I couldn’t put my finger on it yet. It was cold that day, he said he was looking to move back to San Diego eventually. I told him I had lived in San Diego years ago and worked at the Naval Air Station in Coronado. That’s when he told me his story, he was stationed in Coronado while in the Navy. Andrew was on the teams. He was a Navy SEAL.

I became friends with a few former Navy SEALs who I ended up working with when I lived in San Diego. I was doing a six moth contract job at the NAS North Island base in Coronado. North Island shares the same stretch of beach as the Naval Special Warfare Center, the place where prospective sailors attempt to earn the trident that only Navy SEALs wear. Every sailor wanting to become a SEAL must make it through a grueling, albeit soul crushing six month program known as BUDs (Basic Underwater Demolition). At work, I used to watch these guys train. It would give me anxiety just watching the absolute misery these young men were being put through. I remember asking my friend who was a retired SEAL, ” Hey Chez, what does it really take to be a SEAL?” His reply with his surf bleached hair blowing around, ” You just gotta be motivated dude. That’s it, they just want guys who are going to put out…” Andrew was one of those guys, he made it.

The former Wall Streeter, turned Navy SEAL, turned Wharton student, now partners his start-up No Brick LLC. The company turns less than profitable hotel square footage into a fiscal dream. You can check out what they have done locally on the ground floor of the Loew’s Hotel in Center City Philadelphia.

Something tells me his company will be uber successful. There’s something about team guys that whatever they end up doing after they get out, there always successful. Maybe it’s their motivation, maybe it’s their unwillingness to ever utter the word “can’t”, or maybe it’s their dedication to the mission, whatever mission it is. They have a saying during BUDs training, “It pays to be a winner…”, and this guy clearly was…