Greenfire welcomed three summer interns – Hunter Szymborski, Alex Sanchez, and Ava Johnson. Each were assigned to a team to learn processes, skills, and form meaningful professional relationships.
Hunter Szymborski – a returning intern – is a Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) senior, currently pursuing a degree in Construction Management. To help him sharpen his skills in the industry, Szymborski brings a strong sense of accountability, teamwork and time management that he gained through his extensive work-life balance. Outside of schoolwork, this includes sports, EMT work, and Army ROTC experience, alongside his last Greenfire internship.
Within the weeks he’s been here, Szymborski learned quite a bit. One of those things is effective planning, especially around the unexpected. “I think it’s more of the aspect of, ‘don’t expect something that’s going to happen the way you want it to happen,” he says. “But more or less have a bunch of different contingency plans or different ways to think about it.”
Alex Sanchez is another MSOE student, a junior, who is pursuing a Construction Management degree. Communication, collaboration, and leadership skills, including relevant external experience and insight, are all things that Sanchez brings to the construction team. With a great drive to learn, Alex has been exposed to more “hands-on” experiences and expanded upon important knowledge and skills in the field.
“Construction management is a career that is very oriented around experience out on a jobsite,’ says Alex. “So being able to act like a sponge and absorb knowledge from some of the best in the industry has been very important to me.”
Sanchez said that he became more familiar with software programs (Bluebeam, Procore and MS Project) and has a greater appreciation for good organization and communication since coming on board.
Ava Johnson is a junior at Marquette University, studying Journalism and Advertising. Last summer, Johnson joined Potawatomi Ventures (PV)’s marketing team, learning the basics of marketing. Johnson brought collaboration, strong communication, and an extra layer of creativity to the team. Skills like photography and graphic design are developing, while her writing skills have gotten stronger.
“An internship gives you a peek behind the curtain before you actually get on stage,” she says. “It allows you to expand your knowledge and skills in whatever industry you’re in, building your network, and strengthen those connections. It also shows you what that industry is like and helps you plan for your future, which I found to be very helpful within the past couple of years.”
A good internship can look like many different things. So can a bad one. To outline future programs, we asked each intern what a good and bad internship looked like and from there, a short list of qualities formed.
Good internships encourage active learning, and mentorship resources to be employed as much as possible. From there, trust is fostered and those relationships strengthen as programs progress. Good communication, hands-on work, and collaboration add value to programs like these, and can bring those professional relationships into closer personal circles.
Sanchez adds that, “having good mentors around me who also make work enjoyable while also being able to pass down their years of knowledge is what makes an internship good to me.”
Szymborski, Sanchez, and Johnson walk away from their internships with positive experiences, mentors, and a promising future. As they do, they carry new connections, stronger bonds, and a new industry perspective.
Greenfire continuously accepts applications for internships on our careers page. If you know someone that is interested, have them apply today.
By Ava Johnson, marketing & business development intern
