Ben Zietlow, with over 11 years of professional GIS and transportation planning experience, is Quetica’s Route Optimization Practice Leader. Mr. Zietlow works with public and private organizations and agencies to implement route network planning and optimizing solutions to improve operational efficiency and reduce costs. He has extensive experience working on national, statewide, and local level transportation and optimization efforts. Prior to joining Quetica, Mr. Zietlow spent five years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison serving as Geoeconomist for the National Center for Freight and Infrastructure Research & Education (CFIRE) and the Mid-America Freight Coalition (MAFC) where he provided freight transportation research, policy analysis, and technical support to CFIRE and the ten states of the MAFC. Mr. Zietlow received his Bachelor of Science in Economics and Bachelor of Science in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin – La Crosse and his Master of Science in Geographic Information Science from St. Mary’s University of Minnesota.

Mr. Zietlow speaks about fleet route optimization and management at national events and conventions around the nation. In 2022, he presented the paper, “Optimizing Winter Maintenance Operations with Stacked Technology Solutions” during the XVI World Winter Service and Road Resilience Congress- Adapting to a Changing World, hosted by Calgary. The paper discusses a winter operations support framework that integrates route optimization, winter operations event management, fleet telematics, and performance measurement/management into a single solution stack. The stacked, or integrated, framework supports agencies’ iterative, end-to-end process of planning, operations, and continuous improvement.