Internship Introduction
As MBA students in the full-time, 20-month program, we are required to complete an internship during the summer. This internship is a very important piece of our MBA experience. For many students in the MBA program, their internship is their first opportunity to have “MBA Level” experience in their chosen field. When in interviews for our future jobs, it is very important for us to be able to discuss the real world applications of our school teachings. These experiences often come from our summer internships.
It is important to note the difference of an “internship” and an “MBA level internship”. A basic internship, usually occurs during undergraduate studies and many times involves very low level activities (filing, phones, paperwork, etc). MBA level internships often involve some sort of higher level project and job shadowing of higher level employees.
Due to the economy this year, it was very difficult for MBA students to find high quality internships. I had not originally planned on interning for Pelco and was pursuing an internship with the consulting organization Gallup, based out of Omaha, Nebraska. I passed multiple interview rounds before eventually finding out that Gallup did not think they were going to have consulting interns that summer.
Needing an internship and having exhausted nearly all of my leads I went back home to Fresno, CA to visit my parents. During my trip home, I went to the local gym as I normally do. After one of my workouts, I went into the sauna to relax. While sitting in the sauna, I struck up a conversation with a man sitting across from me. When I asked him what he did, he told me he was the Senior VP of Human Resources for Pelco, the biggest company in the area! I was incredibly excited... I had just met the #1 person I would have wanted to meet in the entire central valley. After a brief chat about my background and interests, I obtained his contact information. That contact info eventually led to an interview and an internship offer.
Company Profile and Overview
Pelco is the world leader in video security camera solutions. Pelco’s products include both the actual cameras themselves and the video systems needed to run the overall systems. If you have seen the movie Ocean’s Eleven, the scene where Andy Garcia’s character Terry Benedict walks into the main security office that ran the casino through hundreds of cameras and monitors, you have seen an example of the technology Pelco sells.
Pelco designs, produces and sells its cameras all over the world. From its corporate headquarters in Clovis, CA Pelco manages the entire value chain of its products. Meaning that Pelco conducts its research and development, testing, fabrication, production, shipping and all support activities from the same location. In today’s business world, this is very rare. With the popularity of outsourcing rising, Pelco’s strategy of operations makes it unique in its industry.
Pelco dominates the upper-end video security market. Their clients include many government agencies, large corporations and foreign governments. Pelco cameras protect places such as the White House, the Pentagon, the Statue of Liberty, the Great Wall of China, the Sydney Opera House, Fort Knoxx, various Olympics locations, the offices of Homeland Security, Buckingham Palace, the Capital Building and most major airports around the world.
Pelco was founded in 1957, and was run as a privately held company until October 2008, when it was acquired by the French giant, Schneider Electric. To put it in perspective, Pelco has approximately 2,500 employees and does 400 million in annual sales while Schneider Electric has 114,000 employees and does 18 billion in annual sales. Pelco is currently in a state of transition, changing the organization from a family run type of business into a competitive global company. Pelco competes with Bosch, Panasonic, Siemens, Axis and Samsung in the industry. For those of you that would like to find out more about this amazing company, check them out at Pelco.com.
My Project
At Pelco, I was given a specific project to work on throughout the summer. My project involved, obtaining a business network analysis software program, conducting surveys in various departments and analyzing the results. The steps to my project project consisted of:
1. Research and select software needed for project
2. Present my recommendation for software to VP of HR
3. Create and fulfill a Request For Proposal for the software
4. Create “Pitch Presentation” for department VPs
5. Meet with the five VPs involved and gain support from upper management
6. Present to involved departments informing them of the project
7. Complete training on software conducted by its creator
8. Brainstorm questions to be used in the survey, meeting with VPs to get input on the questions to include in the survey
9. Complete final questions list and submit to our outside consultant for approval
10. Write a survey to be used by each department
11. Administer the distribution and completion of the survey
12. Take data and convert into digital format through data entry
13. Work with consultant to input digital data into the software program
14. Run various analytic functions to turn data into workflow information
15. Present findings to department VPs
16. Distribute Survey to VPs on the findings
17. Review project and tool, looking for improvements to be made
18. Cross train other members of staff to be able to conduct surveys and utilize the tool in various functions beneficial to the organization
My Exposure
While my project was both a challenging and exciting part of my internship, my biggest takeaway from my internship was the amazing exposure I had to various HR topics. During my internship, I gained firsthand experience in all of the following areas:
Executive coaching, the initiation of a mentoring program, business continuation planning, employee discipline issues, strategic business partner meetings, hiring process of various engineering positions, exit interviews, employee relations issues, performance reviews, management of poor performers, compensation strategy and negotiations, employee bonus restructuring, web recruiting video, safety meetings, discrimination issues meetings, key potentials career development planning, fund selection and review of employee 401k plans, handling of dangerous employees, succession planning, employee terminations, paid time off benefits issues, morale boosting employee events and the opening of a China-based manufacturing plant.
Being exposed to this vast list of of topics gave me great experience in the world of human resources. Gaining this real world experience in my professional field was a life changing experience. It is one thing to read about concepts and strategies in our textbooks, but seeing them put into action confirmed that human resources is the field that I want to pursue.
David Whitehorn (Far Right in Picture)
I was incredibly fortunate to be able to meet David Whitehorn, the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Pelco. For the first time in my life, I was able to meet and interact with someone who has done exactly what I want to accomplish in my career. David and I met every other week where he sat down with me to plan out exactly what I wanted to do with my career. He explained to me what I needed to do to accomplish my goals.
David Whitehorn is an HR visionary. He is well respected by both his peers and subordinates. His vast knowledge from both his previous time with Raytheon and his international experience was invaluable to me during our mentoring meetings. He has lived in several foreign countries and speaks many languages including French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic. David spent a considerable amount of time in the Middle East living in Saudi. He earned his MBA from Boston University. David has become a very important mentor to me in my life.
Nora Barber (Right of Me in Picture)
If David Whitehorn is the “visionary”.... Nora Barber is the “in the trenches” point person on many of the most important HR projects at the company. Nora is the Sr Human Resources Manager for Pelco. Nora was a key part of what made my internship an amazing experience. Throughout the summer, Nora consistently went out of her way to expose me to everything she could. She often took time out of her incredibly busy days to show me something she was working on, invite me to attend a meeting or even just share her perspectives on different HR issues.
Nora is a vital piece of the HR puzzle at Pelco. She provides the day-to-day leadership needed to run the human resources operations of the company. I saw on a daily basis, people coming to her from many different departments seeking her knowledge, perspective and expertise. In addition to her tremendous workload, she was selected to work on what Pelco calls a “PM1 Project”. In this project, Nora and an international team from various Schneider Electric companies around the world attempt to solve a critical business issue and present their findings to the company executives. During the initiation of this project, she travelled to China to meet her team and will present their results in Paris this fall. She recently decided to pursue her MBA and I wish her the best of luck in her studies. I was very impressed with Nora both personally and professionally, and I hope to have the chance to learn from her in the future once again.
Jennifer Herrera (Left of Me in Picture)
Throughout my entire internship, I spent more time with Jennifer than I did anyone else in the company. Jennifer Herrera is an HR Business Partner for Pelco and also holds the title of Corporate Staffing Manager. Before she worked at Pelco, Jennifer had more than 8 years of HR experience working in southern CA for the companies SAIC, Sempra and the ICW Group. I spent pretty much every day with Jennifer this summer. Through the course of the summer we became very close friends, going to lunch almost every day.
Seeing firsthand how Jennifer handled the day to day operations of an HR professional was important to my experience. It always amazed me how Jennifer always had the “pulse” of the organization. She was always up to date on what was happening in the organization at all levels. Her ability to form interpersonal relationships with various people in the company was very impressive to me. Many times, I saw other people at Pelco go out of their way to help Jennifer and this is a testament to her ability to work well with others. Her organizational ability and communication skills make her a valued asset to the Pelco company.
Future Possibilities
One of the exciting aspects of working for Pelco was knowing that they are owned by a much larger global company. During my many mentoring sessions with David, it became very clear to me that if I want to achieve my long-term professional goals, that I will have to have experience working overseas and further developing my international business skills. This means living and working abroad, learning languages and cultures, and developing a more global view. With Pelco’s parent company, Schneider Electric... I might get the chance to do just that!
While nothing in the world of business is guaranteed, was told that I may have a future opportunity with Schneider Electric or even Pelco itself! I was very excited to learn about a program of Schneider Electric’s called Marco Polo. The program is designed to provide high-potential employees with international experience across various business functions. This summer, I was able to go to dinner with Yvette Stortz, Head of Recruiting for Schneider North America to learn more about the program. The opportunity of working overseas with a global business giant like Schneider Electric is very exciting to me.
Impact On My Life
Before my internship experience... part of me slightly doubted the value of an internship. There was a huge “pain-in-the-ass” factor of researching companies, applying to many, hearing back from almost none, interviewing and hearing over and over, “we’re just not having interns due to the economy”. Add to it that all of this internship searching was during the most intense academic program I have ever been in, and it became quite stressful at times. Then factor in relocating my life back home to take a summer internship without pay... you get the picture.
But now, after having had my experience... it’s hard to even begin to tell you how wrong I was. Without a doubt, the most important and valuable takeaway I will have from my MBA experience is my summer internship with Pelco. It was more important than all of our textbooks, our financial models and possibly even more important than the amazing network we establish. To a student debating between the 20 month program (with internship) and the 15 month program (without internship) I would highly recommend the 20 month program.
My internship confirmed both exactly what my long term career goal is and how I’m going to get there. Before my internship, I was a student of ideas. I had ideas about what I thought I liked and what I thought I’d be good at. Now, I am a student with purpose working towards specific goals I know are in line with my bigger life plan. I am now more confident in both what I want to do with my life and my choice to pursue my MBA. My summer internship at Pelco, along with my MBA are the two most defining life transitions I have ever had. I am incredibly appreciative to all of the wonderful people at Pelco that helped make that happen.
Complete Amazing Summer Internship.... Check!
