ControlTek Summer Internship Program Mirrors Future Real World for Teens

Recently hired and new Senior Manufacturing Engineer, Neal Haarberg said that it was “ControlTek's family-run and service oriented culture” that inspired his move to our team this summer. His sentiment was clearly evident on his first day in June as we were in the midst of our 2nd paid Summer Internship program. All interns were age 16 or older and kids of current ControlTek employees . The overall experience was a huge success. Employees were extremely grateful for the educational and paid summer job their sons and daughters received, while everyone else thoroughly enjoyed the additional camaraderie of having extended families around for the summer. The extra assistance was highly welcomed too! A win-win situation all around.

The ultimate goal was to provide a first-hand experience of processes they will face when obtaining and maintaining a “real job”. Here's what they did...

All interns were required to go through the normal hiring process, including resumé submission and application completion. The kids benefited by going through the standard ControlTek Orientation, getting their first peek into the specific responsibilities and expectations that will accompany work as a professional. They were detailed on assumed daily preparedness, including how to call in sick, minimizing and alerting for tardiness, handling workplace problems, safety training, and how to work with a supervisor. Each intern was assigned to either the Material Handling or Production Assembly departments. They performed basic assignments that involved counting parts and preparing kits.

The end result and overall experience for us exceeded our expectations. All of us at ControlTek really enjoyed our time mentoring the teens and we even learned a bit ourselves! We truly look forward to next year. And who knows? Maybe we're mentoring future ControlTek Senior Manufacturing Engineers!