MEWC
FMWC
TAC
EEO
introduction:
Ben Breed thought he was pretty good at Excel.
He had been a teaching assistant for an Excel intensive course and knew the material well. He had just completed Oz du Soleil’s Advanced Formulas course and loved every second of it. He was, by any reasonable measure, well ahead of most students when it came to spreadsheets.
Then he found MECC. And everything he thought he knew became the starting point for something much bigger.
What followed was a journey that took him from his very first competition to leading a team from The University of Texas at Austin all the way to the Team Semi-Finals at the 2025 MECC Championships in Las Vegas. The gates, as Ben puts it, were wide open.
A professor, an Email, and a website that changed so much
Ben did not stumble across MECC by accident. He found it the way a lot of the best things are found – through someone who knew exactly where to point him.
After finishing Oz du Soleil’s Advanced Formulas course, Ben was buzzing. He sent an email to his professor, Clint Tuttle, raving about how much he had enjoyed the material and asking if there was anywhere else he could find more of that kind of challenge.
Clint’s reply was simple: have you heard about MECC?
Ben took one look at the website. That was enough.
“I knew it was my kind of thing, and the rest was history.”
the moment the gates opened
Before MECC, Ben had a solid grasp of what Excel could do. Joining MECC showed him just how far that could go.
His first competition was eye-opening. He sat down with another student and a professor to attempt a case for the very first time. A few minutes in, the three of them were exchanging glances – the kind that said we are all discovering something new here at the same time.
But what struck Ben most was not where he was starting. It was seeing what was possible at the top end – cases being solved at a level he had never imagined, in ways he had never considered.
“It created an aspirational goal that I immediately was totally, totally excited to chase.”
That sense of possibility is what kept him coming back.
*Image courtesy of Alyssia Menezes*
the secret sauce
Ask Ben about his preparation and he will ask you if you really want to know the secret sauce.
His method is deceptively simple: complete a case, then watch the walkthrough. His favorite person to learn from is Diarmuid Early, whose walkthroughs he describes as high level and an incredible way to grow.
“I love coming up with my solution and then just watching him use something way more clever, using functions I had never heard of and methods I had never seen before.”
The value is not just in watching better solutions. It is in the repetition. Case after case, walkthrough after walkthrough, Ben started building what he calls an intuition – a feel for when to use certain approaches, how to set up data, which tools belong in which situations. That intuition is something no tutorial alone can teach. It comes from doing the work, watching others do it differently, and growing with every attempt.
The – means the student competed in both levels and scored above the Varsity median, so their Junior Varsity result is not shown.
from no program to the semi-finals
Of everything Ben has experienced through MECC, one moment sits above the rest without question.
The year before, there was no program. No team, no structure, no history to build on. Ben helped change that. And when the time came, he helped lead a team from The University of Texas at Austin to Las Vegas to compete at the MECC Championships in 2025 – a team that went on to reach the Team Semi-Finals.
“From having no program the year before to being able to qualify, and ultimately make it into the semi-finals, was such a tremendously cool thing to be able to be a part of.”
It is the kind of achievement that says something not just about the competitors, but about the person who built the environment that made it possible.
*Image courtesy of Alyssia Menezes*
what mecc actually changes
Something interesting happens when you spend enough time with MECC. Your Excel skills grow in ways that show up everywhere else.
Ben has noticed it in every spreadsheet task he encounters outside of competition. Things that once felt unfamiliar now feel approachable – often handled in a creative or efficient way that MECC helped him develop.
“Every other place I’ve encountered Excel, the task at hand is always something I feel capable of doing.”
He also knows a lot more functions now. But the deeper change is the confidence – the comfort of knowing that whatever a spreadsheet asks of you, you have the toolkit to handle it.
what mecc gives that nothing else does
Ben’s answer here is practical and, in his own words, only slightly facetious.
“Where else are you gonna get swag like that?”
On a more serious note, what genuinely stands out to him is the path MECC creates from beginner to advanced user. No other environment he has found offers that kind of progression – where someone can start from wherever they are and grow, through cases and community, into a genuinely skilled Excel practitioner.
Add to that a community of enthusiastic Excel learners willing to teach, answer questions, and challenge each other, and you have something rare.
For Ben personally, the biggest benefit is the learning. The competitions are fun. But the feeling of taking something learned in a case and using it in the real world – or better yet, showing it off in front of friends – is what makes it worth it.
his message to anyone still on the fence
Ben does not waste time with a formal pitch.
“Hey, you, yeah you, come here. Listen up. Just try it, just give it a go, mess around with one, see if you like it. If you don’t, no worries, leave it behind. Plenty of wonders in the world.”
“And if you do – hey, good news. There’s a whole community of people who also love doing this thing. You might be able to learn from them, compete with them, become one of the best.”
“Isn’t that awesome?”
Watch the Full Interview
Hear more about Ben Breed’s story and his journey from curious beginner to helping lead his university team at the MECC.