APTIM Launches STRIVE Intern Program

Seven interns from across the country spent their summer gaining real world experience through project work, goal setting, evaluations, meetings, and presentations, culminating with a group presentation to APTIM’s Executive Leadership Team. The interns learned about APTIM’s diverse portfolio as they joined a variety of departments, including Environmental, Electrical, Graphic Design, Information Technology (IT), Fuels, and Energy/Resiliency.

Led by Holly Castello as the STRIVE Coordinator, each intern also had a supervisor and a mentor to guide them through their projects. The group of interns met virtually each week to discuss their work and learn about the others’ projects and attended biweekly “Coffee Talks” where an APTIM professional met virtually with the interns to describe their role and perform project deep dives. The STRIVE Program was named with APTIM’s Thrive Mentoring Program in mind, which aims to promote professional and personal development and growth through sustained relationships between mentors and mentees.

“It was really positive; great for both the interns and APTIM,” Castello said of the program. Not only did it give the interns great career experience, but “the interns brought a fresh perspective, so it was very refreshing for APTIM.” You could see this success at the culmination of the program, when the interns presented on their individual experiences, suggestions for the program itself, and pitched a group initiative idea to APTIM Leadership that ties into environmental and energy solutions, combining resiliency, sustainability, compliance, and more.

The STRIVE Intern Program also allowed APTIM’s safety culture and collaborative spirit to shine, as our foundation of safety and collaboration were in focus throughout the program. The interns were encouraged to work together in “The Collaborative Way” by being for each other, speaking straight, showing appreciation, and honoring commitments.

The authors of this article were lucky enough to be involved in the pilot as an intern and supervisor, and Emma Honis will continue on with APTIM during the school year. She has been involved with projects such as integrating innovative field tools across multiple programs from retail compliance to site assessment and remediation, performing environmental sampling, and assisting with operations and maintenance (O&M) of a groundwater remediation system and development of groundwater isoconcentration contour maps under the supervision of a Professional Engineer.

We look forward to what the future holds for all our interns and for the growth of APTIM’s STRIVE Intern Program.