Benjamin Mellman

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Building and construction have always been Ben's hobbies. In high school, Ben dug a backyard pond in his mother's garden for Mother's Day. The next year, he made it even bigger. In college, his projects progressed to numerous chicken coops, another pond, large landscaping and garden projects, custom woodworking, and various home remodeling and addition projects. 

After graduating from the University of Maryland College Park with degrees in Mechanical Engineering and Aerospace Engineering, Ben moved to Los Angeles to work for NASA at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory where he worked on numerous Mars Rover projects and the Europa Clipper project. After 6 years in Los Angeles, Ben moved back home to Maryland to continue NASA work at various contracting companies. At Blue Origin and Honeybee Robotics, Ben singlehandedly invented the very first Dust Tolerant Connector (DTC) "DAEDALUS" (Dust Adapted Electrical Docking Assemblies, Links and Utility Sockets) that complies with NASA's Artemis Lunar Mission Requirements and has numerous patents pending for his novel DTC designs. During this same time, at home Ben performed remodels and landscaping at his home and at the homes of family members.

After 10 years in the spaceflight industry, Ben and his wife had their son. It was then that Ben decided, for many reasons, to become a "recovering engineer," leaving the spaceflight industry to spend time with his family, build up their off-the-grid homestead, design and patent his novel sailboat rigging hardware designs, and pursue bringing quality home building to people as his career.

Leveraging a breadth and depth of experience—in engineering design, botany, horticulture and biology—Ben combines structural, aesthetic, and functional design elements to realize his clients' dreams.