General note: this page is a continuing work in progress. It will be updated whenever relevant, and I will probably also add some extra information every now and then, mostly to add some detail.
Last update: April 30, 2014
My name is Ben Hählen.
I was born on April 24, 1983 in Rotterdam.
I have two elder brothers, Serge (1976) and Marc (1978).
I am married to Evelien, since March 30th, 2013.
Until the age of 20, I have lived in Berkel & Rodenrijs, a small town just north of Rotterdam.
I graduated high school in 2001, and obtained my HAVO diploma.
Not knowing during my last year of high school what I should study afterwards, I decided to apply for the Rotary Youth Exchange Program. I got accepted to go, and so I went off to St. Catharines, Canada for my exchange.
From the bottom of my heart, I can say that this was one of the best years of my life, and one that I will never forget.
Contributing to this were my three host-families, my newly made friends, and, last but certainly not least, the other exchange students that were in my district (7090).On July 13, 2006, I graduated from the International Business and Management Studies program at the Haagse Hogeschool, which made me a Bachelor of Business Administration.
From September 2006 until July 2008, I studied at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam. The intention was to complete the Pre-Master of International Business Administration, after which I could go onto the Business Information Management Master. Unfortunately, this did not turn out the way it planned, so I decided to stop studying and try to find a job.
From September 2008 until January 2014 I worked at Capgemini as an Oracle Consultant, focusing mostly on the Midldeware and infrastructure parts.
As of February 2014, I am working at Xebia, and am now focusing to learn about Puppet, XL Deploy, XL Platform, and other tools related to Continuous Integration.
Having been an active member of Rotex (organisation of Rotary Exchange Students that are back in their home country) since September 2002, I thought it was time to get active in a Rotary-like organisation. Luckily for me, there is the “youth version” of Rotary: Rotaract. After having attended the Christmas benefit gala in December 2006, I attended my first meeting at the Rotaract Club of Scheveningen on the 3rd of January, 2007, and was voted into the club on March 14th, 2007. Starting in the 2007/2008 season, I became treasurer of the club, and remained so until I quit being at Rotaract in 2012.