People
Ray Berumen: Mastering the Technology of Fishing
By Bruce E. Phillips
May 24, 2003, 10:36

Ray Berumen, production and engineering manager at Orvis, combines his love for the outdoors with his commitment to engineering.

Growing up in Pueblo, Colo., Ray Berumen learned to love the outdoors, becoming an accomplished angler with a flair for fly-fishing.

Today, he combines his engineering and management skills to build state-of-the art fly-fishing rods for The Orvis Company, Inc. in Manchester, Vt. ( http://www.orvis.com ), where he is manager of production and engineering.

What does advanced technology have to do with fly-fishing rods? Quite a lot, it turns out.

"Fly rods evolve through materials," Berumen recently told Hispanic Engineer Online.

Today, fly rod-makers use aerospace industry materials, he says, a graphite composite that is lighter and stronger than traditional bamboo rods, costs less to manufacturer, and performs and holds up better under heavy use.

Berumen says fly fishermen want consistent "castability," a measure of a rod's inherent quality, that the angler can rely on in all climates.

"The pursuit in the industry is for more repeatable angling performance, offered in a variety of different actions and line weights. Castability is only one measure of quality in a rod, and we can build in better performance and consistency with graphite," he says.

His search for better processes and materials is ongoing.

"We're now looking into the use of hybrid materials using the tougher characteristics of thermoplastics," he says, "which will be stronger than traditional graphite composites but won't change shape in extreme temperatures."

Berumen grew up wanting to understand how things work, and this early fascination led him to Colorado State University-Pueblo, where he received his B.Sc. in industrial engineering in 1993. He immediately went to work in the field of process control engineering, working for the next few years for a packaged foods manufacturer, an industrial processing equipment manufacturer, and, finally, as a reliability and maintainability project engineer and manager for the Allied Signal Air Force Satellite Control Network in Colorado Springs, Colo.

He sensed a growing desire to improve both the quality of his life as well as the potential of his work, and this led him to Orvis in 1998, where he worked initially as a process engineer, researching new materials and developing new fly rods. Using composite materials and processes he had gained experience with in the aerospace industry, he designed products with improved structural integrity, resulting in lower field defects and improved field reliability. His efforts resulted in development of award-winning carbon fiber rods that are unique in both their materials and manufacturing processes.

Berumen wanted to do more than engineer products, however. He wanted to help manage their production as well. This goal led him to pursue an M.B.A. degree in technology management, which he received from the University of Phoenix in 1999. Not long after that, in February 2001, he was promoted to production and engineering manager, where he supervises three manufacturing shifts and manages new product development.

An avid conservationist, Berumen is involved with work to protect Vermont's streams and rivers. His hobbies include rod building, fly tying, and basic entomology. When not fishing, he enjoys wing shooting, sporting clays, and duck hunting.