Placing a Wager on the Future

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In my youth I had the privilege of attending the United States Merchant Marine Academy at Kings Point, NY. The Academy trains young men and women for careers in the maritime industry. To graduate you needed one year of sea going experience prior to sitting for and obtaining a US Coast Guard license. The academy sends two cadets out on a US flag merchant ship for one year. During my sea year, not only did I get to see the world, but I also got invaluable experience in engineering, how to work with others and learned time management. It was a great time and I have always considered my sea year a life defining experience. 

Fast-forward 15 years. When we started Engineered Software, we decided that whenever possible we would attempt to hire interns. When we first started out the decision was based on cost, but as time went on we saw it as an excellent opportunity for employee development. Over the years, we have lost count of the total number of interns we have employed but if I were to guess, it would be over 50. 

The first two interns helped enter our first round of pump curves; and they entered over 600 pump curves in four months, for the next 10 years we employed many interns to enter pump performance data. Our next intern was a business student from The Evergreen State College in Olympia, WA. Shortly after he was hired we had a need to teach 120 sales people how to use our PUMP-FLO. Since we needed three people to run the class, we asked our new intern, a college junior if he would like to go to Ft. Lauderdale for a week in January. Needless to say he said yes, did a great job for us and said he had a great time. Not surprisingly after that, for the next two years we had no problem getting the best Evergreen students applying for our internships.
 
Another particularly memorable intern, or should I say two, were degreed mechanical engineers that were going back to school to get a civil engineering degree from St. Martins College in Lacey. These two engineers happened to be identical twins… and did I mention that they were women? I’m guessing this is highly uncommon.

After six months, Jacqueline and Kathleen Byron (we called them J&K around the office) finished their internship and we made them a job offer upon graduation. They accepted and became the second and third engineers of our company. They worked on technical support, developing the engineering program interface, program documentation and software testing. They worked for us for 15 years before starting their own engineering firm.  We have had additional engineering interns over the years that have helped in software validations, development of program help file, and other technical publications.

When we had the need for a marketing intern we went to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma WA. Justin Johnson joined us as an intern for 6 months and did a fantastic job developing marketing material, updating our Website, and managing the customer list. Before graduation we made him an offer and he accepted becoming our first Marketing Manager. He continue to do a great job creating press releases, getting articles picked up in technical magazines, and developing an effective direct marketing program. One day he came into my office and wanted to discuss some ideas he had on marketing PUMP-FLO. I asked him to give us a presentation on his ideas. The next day he gave us a presentation outlining a business plan; complete with project cost, revenue projections and a schedule. In his five years with us, he did a great job of building our PUMP-FLO.com product line, and brought in over new 40 pump manufacturers. 

We have had approximately 15 -20 interns in our software development group. They came from a variety of local colleges and universities including St. Martins University, Pacific Lutheran University, University of Puget Sound, The Evergreen State College, University of Seattle, and South Puget Sound Community College. They joined us with solid programming knowledge and unbridled enthusiasm. Each new intern got assigned a project and a mentor and then we let them go to work. Working with their mentor they gain some real world experience working on commercial products. 

Four members of our current programming staff started out as Engineered Software interns. Jeff Trimble from the University of Puget Sound has been with us since 1997, Zack Vawter from St. Martins University has been with us since 2004, Jennifer Dres from South Puget Sound Community College has been with us since 2008, and Heinrich Hoza just graduated last year from St. Martins University. Each has made major contributions to our company both as interns and as full time employees. Many of the new initiatives that we have started in our software development and testing processes are a result of their suggestions and efforts in making it happen.

Now here is why we continue to hire interns. As mentioned earlier, many of the interns we have hired we have brought on-board as full time employees. We look at it as a winning situation for both parties. Our interns get a paying internship and more importantly real life experience that is sometimes difficult to obtain otherwise. And we get to work with the next generation of professionals. We often refer to an internship as an extended job interview.

Not only do the internships help train the students, but they also help train our full time employees on how to hire and manage people. Each intern position goes through the same hiring process as a full time employee. This helps our team gain experience in developing a job description, reviewing the applicants, and conducting the interviews.

You may be wondering what some of our past interns are doing now. Many of them keep in touch, we know that two went on to get their Doctorate degrees, and four of them went on to start their own businesses. Many of the programmers went on to work for Microsoft, the US Government, and other large and small software companies in the Northwest. Of our engineers, many went on to get advanced degrees, work for Boeing, and work for the Naval Shipyard in Bremerton, WA. They all were hard working individuals that were grateful of the opportunity to gain some work experience in our small company. But I would say that we were the big winners because we got to work with some of the best young minds out there that were dedicated in showing us the skills they acquired and what they could accomplish.

Now here is my suggestion for you. If your company doesn’t hire interns see what you can do to start up an internship program. If your company does employ interns, bring one into your group. They bring in a fresh objective, ask lots of questions to keep you thinking, and they are truly interested in doing a good job and gaining real world work experiences. Let me know what advice you can share about getting the most out of your internship programs. What benefits have you or your company gained by having interns. Maybe you have been an intern and had an experience (good or bad) that you’d like to share? I am interested in your stories.

I would love it if you left a comment or even sent me an email to blogger @ eng-software.com. Also, we are currently welcoming guest bloggers. If you are interested, just send me a message about becoming a guest blogger, and what you would like to write about. Thanks!