#intointernships

Our final Into Internships article this week features Kathryn Weast, our Public Relations Director, who spent her summer as the Document Publisher Intern and Reprographics Support at CH2M HILL, an international engineering firm. Kathryn was serving out of the Milwaukee, WI office.

            Since its founding in 1946, CH2M HILL has been “building a better and more sustainable planet—delivering challenging projects that improve communities across the globe”. It is no wonder as to why Kathryn chose such a reputable establishment to spend her sweet summer time with this year.

            When asked about what her favorite part of the internship entailed, she replied “I loved working with clients and different team members internationally.” She shared that there was one week that she was working with clients from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Colorado, Hawaii, Alaska, and New York daily.

            CH2M HILL actually just won one of its most recent bids which included some of Kathryn’s finest work. This multi-billion dollar proposal for a pipeline on the Northern slope of Alaska was one of the major projects Kathryn worked on over the summer. She was in charge of résumé development and assisting in writing the executive summary for the proposal and overall editing and formatting of the proposal.

            Some challenging moments did arise throughout the internship as expected, however, and Kathryn stated that “learning how printing and binding works at a large company was the most challenging part. Working in reprographics,” which Kathryn shared is like an in-office Kinkos, “is a very fast-paced job, with little room for error, so excelling in that area was mandatory. It was very demanding, but once each job was done it was great to feel like I actually contributed to the success of the team.”

Aric Blank, when not working hard as our Visual Promotions Committee Chair or making pizzas at our local Toppers, can be heard tweeting loud and proud about his sports teams (and sometimes trash talking members who have differing favorite teams). It is no wonder that with the abundance of sports teams in our area, Aric chose to complete an internship this summer with the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters.

The Wisconsin Rapids Rafters are a minor league baseball team that are members of the Summer Collegiate Northwoods League and play 35 home games from late May - August.  The Rafters internships run from the middle of May through the middle of August. Every summer the Rafters hire 6-7 full-time interns to help fill vital roles within the team's front office.

Aric got the opportunity to fill two of these internship roles over the summer, serving as one of the marketing interns as well as the operations intern. He shared that the internships are “mostly team work based. Marketing is the only department that has more than one person in the actual “Internship.” There are three of us that are marketing interns here.”

His responsibilities throughout the summer included: setting up player interviews with reporters, writing game day scripts, and the on field promotions.

"Writing game day scripts and finding the people to do it can be challenging at times. Making sure the people you choose are in the correct spots for the on field promotions can be frustrating too. But if everything goes as planned the operation can be smooth,” Aric added about the difficulties of his position.

Aric also got the chance to network with many players from around the nation that have bright futures in baseball. In addition, he was heavily involved in the sports field and got to meet other sports greats including members of The Green Bay Packers. Even though Aric is a Vikings fan, he is all smiles in this picture with Green Bay Cornerback, Jarrett Bush.

Organization is an additional aspect that Aric shared was crucial to his success with The Rafters, “At this job you have to be organized or you will not be as successful. I already came in a pretty organized individual but this made me focus more on that aspect which will eventually pay off for me in the future.”

Although getting to be at the ballpark daily and the fast-paced sports setting was perfect for Aric’s interests, he said his favorite part of the summer internship was, “Entertaining the fans on the wireless microphone during games,” because he could really be himself and give the fans a fun experience while at Witter Field.

When it comes to picking guest speakers and field trips for our chapter, it never fails that we have at least one sports related event and one of the people we can thank for that is our very talented Treasurer, Ainae Soetaert.

Ainae spent her summer as the Ticket and Sales Intern for the Wisconsin Woodchucks baseball team. Ainae was given this role to gain more experience during the summer and she was put in charge of the retail stands all around the park.

The Wisconsin Woodchucks are an American baseball team that plays in the Northwoods League, a collegiate summer baseball league. They play their home games at Athletic Park in Wausau, Wisconsin.

The internship with the Woodchucks allowed Ainae the chance to get her foot in the door in the sports public relations field and also showed her the opportunities that sales and marketing for sports have in addition to the community relations aspects she also got to work with this summer.

Ainae said her position was definitely team-based because, “You have to work together to make sure everyone is on the same page.”

“I have learned how to deal with a lot of different people at the same time.  Everyone has their own agenda and personality that they bring to the team,” she added.”

Although there was some down time on game days because as Ainae explained, a lot of the work is done during the off-season, sports public relations is very fast-paced. During her internship, Ainae got the chance to not only see some of the best ball players in the state, but she also got to do many different promotional aspects for the team, including travelling to local events with mascot, Woody Woodchuck to get the Chucks name out in the community to promote ticket sales and game attendance.

Since the internship, Ainae is more motivated than ever to pursue a career in sports public relations, but not before helping our chapter feature more sports events during this semester—Admirals Hockey game anyone?

When it comes to leadership, our newly elected vice president, Sam Umentum, is no stranger. In fact, this summer at his internship with University Directories, he was made team leader. With this role, Sam leads two meetings a day discussing progress, doing paper work and overseeing and sharing ideas. Sam’s role this summer was helping to create the UWSP directory. Outside of his leadership demands, Sam also is responsible for going to businesses around the community to get them to invest in advertising in the consumer guide section at the back.

Sam said that one of the most challenging aspects of the internship has been, “getting a hold of the right person I need to speak with.”

He added, “Businesses tend to make you jump through a lot of hoops in order to speak with the correct decision maker, especially corporates.”

In addition he shared that another challenge was the ups and downs of the job sharing, “Sometimes you can go several days without making a sale but maintaining a positive attitude is crucial. “

Besides being given the team leader role, Sam was flown to North Carolina for nine days of training at the beginning of the summer, with all expenses paid. He also got the chance to do business with some of the most powerful and influential people in the community.

Through all of the experience, Sam says, “The amount of skills that I have improved on is ridiculous. This has been a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

Adding, “The one skill that I’ve really improved on is communication. Every day I communicate to business owners in various ways and look to persuade them to investing their money with the campus directory. I can tell already I am more confident, professional, and persuasive in communication.” His experience this summer has also revealed the possibilities of putting his skills into a career in sales in the future. Although he is not sure this is the route he wants to go, the internship has shown him that it is a viable option.

Sam’s positive attitude is what he shares for other interns looking at working in sales.

“NEVER GIVE UP!” he said, “Sales is a tough trade to get in to and 90% of the time you will hear the answer no. You have to learn to overcome the objections, show the value, and stay positive.  If you do all that and stay persistent you will see success. “

This week’s Into Internships article is featuring the work of our wonderful secretary, Abby Lipp. Abby is the Communications and Special Events Coordinator for the American Diabetes Association of Wisconsin. This internship is based in Madison, Wisconsin.

Abby says her favorite part about working as an intern for this well-known nonprofit is, “I am not only gaining skills through my internship but I am also making a difference since the event I am helping to plan raises awareness about diabetes.”

The event that Abby’s internship is designed to help plan is the Step Out: Walk to Stop Diabetes . The annual event is signature fundraising walk of the American Diabetes Association. Formerly Step Out: Walk to Fight Diabetes and America’s Walk for Diabetes, the event has been taking place for more than 20 years and has raised more than $175,000,000 to Stop Diabetes! More than 120,000 participants from 120 walk events across the country came together last year to raise over $24 million.

This year’s walk in Madison will be held on August 25th at Olin Park. The event has raised over 34,235.00 so far for the American Diabetes Association. Abby’s internship is mostly individual work, as everyone in the office is assigned to their own projects that come together to pull off such a large event.

She says that some days she will go almost two hours without talking to anyone in the office. As with most nonprofit work, Abby shared that getting the hang of working at her internship was a bit intimidating. She said, “Working for a non-profit organization can be difficult because you take a lot of time contacting businesses for donations, which can be uncomfortable at first.”

Luckily, Abby has gotten used to hearing “No” from people and donors which is one of the more difficult aspects of nonprofit work. We hope to utilize Abby’s experience with nonprofit public relations this year in our chapter, especially when it comes to brainstorming for ideas in how to reach out and volunteer with our area’s many nonprofit organizations. It will be extremely beneficial to know firsthand what kind of help nonprofit organizations like and need for when we reach out into our communities.

There is an additional Step Out event in Milwaukee that will be held on October 19th at Schlitz Park.