Mr. Perea joined the Northwest Arkansas National Airport in 2023 as Director of Construction after 14 years on the Aviation Team with Garver where he last held the position of regional leader of the Airport Design Center assisting in projects across Arkansas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and Mississippi. During his tenure at Garver, Ben held a variety of roles beginning with project engineer and then project manager where he led design and managed construction on multiple airport projects in Arkansas and Oklahoma, and he led design on several projects at XNA as well. He has served as a design manager for over $500M of improvements at airports like Dallas Love Field, New Orleans International, Little Rock National, and Grand Junction Regional. He earned a BS in Applied Math from the University of Central Arkansas as well as both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. He is a licensed professional engineer.