Rebecca Bennett

Rebecca Bennett (born Rebecca Reid in 1983) has worked in various brewmaster positions at Anheuser-Busch InBev, most recently as a senior quality manager in Baldwinsville, New York. She also held the assistant brewmaster post (2015–2018) at the Baldwinsville facility and previously was a product development specialist (2010–2015) and group manager (2005–2010 at the St. Louis, Missouri, facility. She graduated from Purdue University with a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering in 2005. Education Rebecca Bennett was born in 1983 to Vickie and Christopher Reid; she and her brother, Timothy, grew up in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Bennett's father was an electrical engineer, and as a high school student she learned about a Women in Engineering outreach program, something that increased her awareness of her father's work and made that a plausible career for her. In her freshman year at Purdue, Bennett learned more about the versatility of chemical engineering and spent two summers at Eastman Chemical, working on chemicals used in plastics and gas-collection systems. Those internships showed her that she didn't want to work for large chemical companies and caused her to question her major; she met staff from Anheuser-Busch at Purdue's Industrial Roundtable and it shifted how she thought about her career possibilities. Pete Kraemer, a fifth-generation brew master at Anheuser-Busch, was a guest lecturer in one of her classes, and that experience showed her that her schoolwork was applicable to making beer. Work at Anheuser-Busch She graduated in May 2005 and was working for Anheuser-Busch in June. Before joining Anheuser-Busch, Bennett said she "always liked beer, but I honestly didn't know a lot about it when I got here." She learned quickly, working first as a production supervisor at the main brewery (2005), a member of the innovation group (2010), and head of the pilot brewery (2013). Unlike Pete Kraemer, Bennett didn't grow up in a house where beer or brewing were prevalent, but her science background was helpful. In her work at the pilot brewery, Bennett experimented with new beers in a scaled-down replica of the main brewery; each batch of beer is 10 barrels and most of the 500 recipes she and her team brewed each year never moved beyond the experimental stage. She liked being able to combine her STEM studies with management, marketing, and tasting.