A civilian waiter in Ten Forward aboard the USS Enterprise-D, on easy terms with senior and junior officers alike, who appears in the 2370 episode Lower Decks.
Ben is played by Bruce Beatty in Lower Decks, a seventh-season episode of The Next Generation told from the point of view of four junior officers awaiting their crew evaluations. As a civilian he stands outside the chain of command and passes freely between the two worlds of the ship.
He is a friend to Sam Lavelle, Sito Jaxa, Taurik and Alyssa Ogawa, sits in on their poker game and then cheerfully joins the senior officers' game the same night. He passes on gossip and nudges Lavelle into striking up a conversation with Commander Riker.
At the end, after Sito is lost on a covert mission into Cardassian space, Ben steers a reluctant Worf over to grieve with her friends rather than alone.