#PeopleFirst Friday: Luke Bennett

With a dad in the Air Force, it would make sense for Creative Services Manager Luke Bennett to have lived in plenty of unique places growing up. But, rather than moving from place-to-place, for 15 years, Bennett and his family were proud to call Alaska home.

“With the military, there are always a lot of opportunities to be transferred and move other places, but every time my dad’s time would come up, he would say ‘Hey, we love it here. We understand if we have to move – that’s part of the gig. It just never came up.” Bennett recalled. “We had great friends and a great community there. I absolutely loved growing up in Alaska.”

It was one of those Alaska friends who introduced Bennett to the sport that would be an integral part of his formative years – hockey.

“When I was about five, I met a kid who was my same age. His dad had grown up playing hockey, and he asked me if I wanted to play street hockey, and I had no idea what that was.” Bennett said. “I ended up getting invited to my first college hockey game with their family, and I fell in love with the sport right then and there. It was literally months later that my parents were signing me up. Had we not moved there, I have no idea if I ever would have started playing.”

Bennett progressed through the youth hockey ranks as a Forward, eventually going on to play “Juniors” in Montana and Michigan for a two-year period between high school and college. While his attempt to the “walk on” as a non-scholarship player to the Robert Morris University hockey team was unsuccessful, he did play four years of hockey for the Colonials’ “club” team, noting that he had more fun playing club hockey than he probably would have ever playing for the varsity team.

Earning the Captain’s “C” on his jersey for many years that he played, Bennett’s time playing hockey was integral in establishing his leadership style and the way he conducts himself to this day.

“Learning a lot of different leadership styles, even as a young kid, makes such an impression on you,” Bennett said. “It impacted me early on to be a leader by example. If I ever expected people to follow me or what I was saying, I had to be able to show that too, on the ice. I’m never going to be the loudest person in the room, but I can always make sure that I’ll be one of the hardest working.”

“That mentality shaped me a lot, and I think I owe a lot of it to hockey.”