Interns of Monroe County: Swiss Valley Associates
Kiera Saksa is a Junior at River High School. She was interested in learning more about engineering. This past spring, she completed an internship at Swiss Valley Associates (SVA) and was able to work with their staff to learn more about the career pathway.
Matt Brake is a mechanical engineer at SVA. His father, Bill Brake, started the business as Brake Engineering. Both Matt and his brother Doug have followed in their father’s footsteps and work at SVA today. Matt wanted to host a high school intern to help engage the area youth and show them that they have options to stay in the community. He also realized that having interns allows him to connect with potential future employees.
Vanessa Templeton is also a mechanical engineer at SVA. She’s from West Virginia and wishes that she had an opportunity like Kiera’s when she was younger. She enjoyed working with Kiera and sees how high school internships can fight the negative connotation often associated with today’s youth.
Shawnee Daniels came to SVA when someone shared the company’s job posting for an administrative assistant with her. She was looking for something that would allow her to stay in the community. She loves working with SVA because it is so family-oriented. In fact, not only is SVA a family business with a family feel, but Shawnee and Kiera realized that they had a family connection in common once Kiera started interning there.
Working with Matt, Vanessa, and Shawnee allowed Kiera to try a variety of new things and experience engineering in a tangible way. She was able to be on-site for the Wetzel County Commissioners building and be a part of the process overseeing the job. She had the opportunity to read a request for qualifications and submit a statement of qualifications for a job. She worked on the AutoCAD engineering software and had a design approved. She grew her network of connections to include Monroe County Engineer Amy Zwick through her internship and was offered a summer job with the Monroe County Engineer’s Office as a result.
The SVA staff reflected on the importance of internships and how they can show kids what they can do and help them create a plan for their future. It worked for Kiera. Now she is certain that she wants to study mechanical engineering and plans to do so at Wheeling University. She enjoyed her internship and recommends that every student have one. She shared that others in her class saw what she was able to do and would like to do an internship as well. She hopes that Switzerland of Ohio Local School District is able to grow the internship program so that more students can be a part of it.
BB2C would like to thank Sandy Doudna, Swiss Hills Switzerland of Ohio Local School Career Pathways Specialist, for allowing us to share high school intern stories from the district.