Celebrating Interns
PlastiCert has been providing interns with work experience activities for nearly 20 years. We have watched them graduate and go on to do wonderful and exciting things. PlastiCert is proud to have contributed to their learning experience and establishing a foundation for their growth.
Technically we provide internships year round. With the Composite Materials Engineering program located nearby at Winona State University, we have students that work around their class schedule, contributing a few hours a week to work on projects and activities that help both them and us.
In the summer though, we have students on site full time. They are working a number of projects and activities that give them experience in an injection molding environment and us an energetic and eager set of skills to apply to things we rarely find the time to get to.
This summer we have Carter Mathison and Reilly Gapinski applying their skills and talent to our wish list of projects.
Carter was already on staff before the summer started, he has been working around his class schedule and now is full time for the summer. He is a junior in the Composite Materials Engineering (CME) program at Winona State. He hails from a nearby town and graduated from St. Charles High School where his favorite class was a tie between Properties of Materials and Engineering Graphics and Design. Upon graduation he will be the first engineer in his family. He chose engineering because he loved math and science in school. He saw both of those elements within the CME program when he researched it. He also likes the idea of designing and creating new things. He is a sports lover, so is hoping to apply his CME Engineering degree working on designing sports equipment used in baseball, hockey, and bicycling. When asked what he liked most about interning at PlastiCert, he says he is amazed with the people. They were all very welcoming right from his start. Everyday he learns something new which is what he wanted for his internship.
Reilly started after Spring Semester let out and is the first intern we have had from the Plastics Engineering program at University of Wisconsin -Stout. In Fall he will return there to start his Senior year. Reilly is from the Twin Cities suburb of Lakeville and attended Apple Valley High School. There he had always liked problem solving and science classes. His father is also in engineering as a Lead Planning Engineer at a telecom company. As a result he chose engineering and UW Stout, picking Mechanical Engineering. After hearing about and then seeing their Plastics Engineering program and more importantly their plastics lab, he switched in his freshman year to PE. He has come to enjoy the injection molding aspect of plastics and is taking delight in his time working on the high precision parts molded here at PlastiCert. So far he is thinking he would like to stay working in injection molding upon graduation. He has enjoyed his time here at PlastiCert due to the wide range of experiences and activities he has been assigned to. From working production issues, to desk work on criteria and documentation used on the floor by operators. He has helped bring new equipment acquisitions online (ready to be used on the production floor) and has been firsthand with facility improvements.
PlastiCert appreciates being able to get to know both of these fine young men. Like a lengthy line of interns before them, we hope we have given them a good exposure to how a smaller injection molding company can provide a highly technical and career satisfying environment for its coworkers. (AND OUR CUSTOMERS BENEFIT FROM ALL THAT AS WELL!!!)