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Internships help develop work force
(Patriot-News, The (Harrisburg, PA) Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Dec. 27--Ryan Kopenhaver said he's getting an excellent education as an industrial technology major at Millersville University, but his time as an intern with Phoenix Contact in Lower Swatara Twp. is really confirming his decision to follow a career in computer-assisted design.
"I love what I'm doing right now," said Kopenhaver, 22, of Hanover. "I could see myself doing this stuff for a long time."
Kopenhaver's supervisor, Garrett Schmidt, Phoenix Contact's product manager for wireless, said he is so impressed that he hopes to find more hours for the talented future engineer to work.
More midstate businesses are seeing internships as powerful work force development tools and are less likely to trim them, even in a recession, area business leaders said.
The state, by contrast, is not filling internships. Gov. Ed Rendell has imposed a general hiring freeze, and internships aren't going to be filled, state officials said.
The state expects to save $13 million by not filling about 2,300 college-level and 400 school-to-work positions for high school students, said Mia DeVane, a spokeswoman with the state Office of Administration. However, school-to-work might continue with unpaid internships, she said. The college-level internships pay $10.99 an hour, while the school-to-work internships pay $7.75 hourly.
Interns are valuable, and cutting internships undermines Pennsylvania's efforts to halt the "brain drain" of skilled, young workers, but hard choices had to be made, said Chuck Ardo, a spokesman for Rendell.
"There are a number of people in the administration who entered through the internship program, and it saddens us to not have that opportunity open to others," he said.
Midstate businesses are keeping internship programs at full strength or paring only slightly. The Harrisburg Regional Chamber of Commerce is retaining its fall, spring and summer internship post.
"We feel it's very important to educate the next generation of workers and allow them to get an education in the real world," said Nicole M. Keiner, communications and marketing director. "We have not scaled back at all."
Tyco Electronics Ltd. announced cuts this month of up to 200 workers from its 4,600-worker local cohort. The firm's departments operate internships independently, and one office, the information technology department, cut its internships and similar positions from 24 this year to 16 next year.
"We dialed it back a little bit based on the economy," said Dan Wiest, director of IT strategic planning and analysis. But the company retained an internship corps to cultivate talent for itself -- "It's kind of a try-before-you-buy situation," Wiest said -- and to build relationships with people headed elsewhere in the industry.
Phoenix Contact considers internships "an important part of our strategy... to be in the face of younger students," said Larry Wasser, vice president of operations at Phoenix Contact.
Phoenix Contact has cut its internships for technical school students from three positions to two, said communications director Lisa Leader. Internships for four-year college students remain steady at 17, and "there's no indication that we need to scale back," she said.
Many Phoenix Contact interns are offered jobs because they've proven their knowledge and their work ethics, Wasser said.
Wasser also is chairman of the Technology Council of Central Pennsylvania's work force development initiative and its intern-placement program, TechQuest. TechQuest has 22 interns in place and 16 openings to fill, said Kelly Lewis, the council's president and CEO.
Mike True, internship coordinator at Messiah College, finished placing spring interns in mid-October and said he hasn't seen business demand fall.
Many college internship coordinators report that employers are suspending their programs or cutting back, he said, but businesses themselves are seeing internships as investments in the future.
"I've often said we're in the golden age of internships," True said. "More and more employers are coming to the realization that it's part of a work force development issue. They think, 'Hopefully, students will like it and remain here following graduation.'"
Federal law prohibits using interns to fill the spots of laid-off employees, True said.
Many high-tech businesses were inspired by law firms, which have traditionally paid their interns and offered jobs to those who succeed, Lewis said.
The Harrisburg law firm of McNees Wallace and Nurick is not making changes.
"We actually increased the number of interns last summer, and we're holding the number at seven," attorney Jennifer Will said. "It's our intention, when we bring someone on as a summer associate, as long as they meet our standards, we will offer them full employment at the end of the summer."
The state's hiring freeze also includes the suspension of two training initiatives.
The Pennsylvania Management Associate and the Human Resource Management Trainee programs hire graduate-degree holders just out of school to rotate through agencies for a year and learn about state government.
Jay Gasdaska, director of labor relations in the Office of Administration, was a program management associate in 1989. Program participants get "a very realistic view of the commonwealth," Gasdaska said.
"They realize state government wasn't the place to look for a lucrative career," he said. "It was a career you were interested in."
Many program alumni remain in state government, he said, so they're disappointed but realistic about the need to suspend the initiatives.
"It's unfortunate in light of the budget situation we're in, the constraints and the cost savings we have to manage right now," he said. "It was expected, almost. It's certainly unfortunate."
Businesses that focus on cultivating workers through internships are thinking beyond the recession, Lewis said.
"Long-term, these companies are going to survive this slowdown, and they'll be better positioned for growth, he said. "Our goal is to help companies grow, and our goal is to have a vibrant paid internship system."
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Copyright (c) 2008, The Patriot-News, Harrisburg, Pa.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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