Week 2 Ryann McDowell

During my second week at Kroger, we had an Executive Walk, I learned new tasks like Product Date Management, we had a District Meeting, I got a professional headshot taken, had a presentation about leadership, and did daily tasks. It was a busy week leading up to the store walk that took place on Wednesday, then we headed into the holiday weekend, so it was a crazy week. I observed a lot and learned how to handle stressful situations in the store.

Interesting happenings, situations, tasks:

​With an Executive Walk, a high up Leader comes in and walks the store. They are looking for specific things, but they are looking at the overall state of the store. Kate, the VP of Merchandising came in and did our Executive Walk. The week leading up to the walk was stressful, because we needed the store to be in its best state. I helped with keeping the deli stocked and kept up, as well as liquor and floral. On the morning of the walk, Danae, Constance, myself, and Courtney all teamed up and stocked produce since the truck arrived at 8:45am and the walk was supposed to be around 10. Moreover, the same day as the walk, we had a District Meeting. Our District Leader, Bridget, usually holds the meeting, but she was participating in the store walks. I watched with Danae and took notes. One thing I liked that was mentioned was earning your ticket to the morning huddles. Everyday, we hold a morning huddle with the Department Leaders, and sometimes they have not finished what is needed by 9am. Someone mentioned that we should incentivize them by saying you cannot attend the meeting until your daily count is done, for example. We are considering implementing this in our store. Something fun that we did this week was get professional headshots taken. I am grateful the company did this for us, so we can have something to use for Kroger and in the future. On this day, we also had a Leading Our Way presentation with Scott Bell. Below I will discuss what I learned.

Interesting new learnings:

​ Going into the presentation with Scott, I was not sure what to expect. It turned out to be one of the best presentations I have ever attended. To give Scott praise, he was a great presenter and made the content super engaging. To sum up what I learned, as Leaders, we are responsible to lead by example. What we do is what the associates will do. When we greet every customer that is within 6ft, our associates will pick up on that and do the same—so we can be friendly. Being friendly is a crucial aspect of working at Kroger. We are responsible for being Fresh, Full, and Friendly. Scott did a good job with teaching us Our Purpose and Promise and our Core Values. Our Core Values are Honesty, Respect, Inclusion, Safety, Diversity, and Integrity. The way to remember this is “HR is darn important.” During this presentation, we discussed different types of leadership. There is the cheerleader, absentee, dictator, and Our Way. Our way is the preferred way, bur we often run into people that fall under the dictator role. To really make us understand this, Scott said we were doing a group activity. Myself and another intern, Jalil, were selected to be the leaders to build a tower out of trinkets. Scott pulled us aside and said one of us has to be the dictator and the other has to be Leading Our Way. I decided to be the dictator, because I have a stronger personality compared to Jalil. I was extremely uncomfortable doing this, but I knew it was a good way to understand why being a dictator is frowned upon. The catch of the activity was that the participants were not aware that Jalil and I were playing roles. So, my members immediately shut down and did not like working with me, and ultimately our tower was not as good as the other group. It was a great experience and I learned so much.

Interesting industry news:

​Something interesting in the industry currently is that we are struggling to get grapes in. In an email I received, they stated that “The import grapes season finished earlier than expected and the start of the Mexico grapes crop has been delayed by at least 2-3 weeks due to unfavorable weather in the growing regions.  This has created a gap in supply that the industry has not experienced in several decades.” So, we have no grapes and it is a problem. We had to take grapes off of our Pickup option so we wouldn’t mess with our numbers for Pickup subs/scratches. 

Career related articles: https://www.thepacker.com/news/produce-crops/mexican-grape-output-may-dip-2023-usda-report-says

Week One

My Internship at SiteOne landscape supply began two weeks ago, and so far has been nice. I have learned a lot about how a wholesale operation works, and how things like bidding, and price adjustments work as well. SiteOne is where local contractors can go to get the materials and supplies they need for daily jobs, usually in bulk quantities. Because of this there are repeat customers everyday and the managers I work under have personal relationships with each of them. I have been able to meet these people and my managers have not been shy about introducing me when they get the chance. I have mainly had the responsibilities of shipping and receiving either transfers to or from other SiteOne branches, or processing shipments from manufacturers. This is something I would say that I am starting to understand well, and it has taught me how important communication between branches is for the greater success of not only the company but the success of the region in which ten or twelve neighboring branches reside.

To end my second week my manager and I planted a small garden in a raised planter just outside the store as a staff garden.We planted a couple kinds of peppers, peppermint, marigolds, and nightshades.

Week 1 – Carter Pickering

Week 1 at Farmer’s Keeper was one for the books for sure! My first day at Farmer’s Keeper was Monday, May 15th so by the time the blog is posted I’ll have two weeks at my internship under my belt.  Farmer’s Keeper is a commodity brokerage firm based out of Chicago, and we sell services to farmers to capture them better prices for their grain. It is a start up company with only have been in business for three years now, and with a staff of four full time employees. This is my second summer at Farmer’s Keeper, so the first week was like a walk down memory lane. We moved offices from last year, and literally we are just across the street. All the same guys from last summer are still working away; Nick Tsiolis, the founder and CEO, and Jack Luke and Jeremy the three sales representatives for the company. There’s a new face in the office, her name is Romesa and she is also an intern however she is focusing more on the marketing side of the company. My first day went well, I gathered all the websites and spreadsheets and other tools I’ll need for the summer. I was given the task of prospecting for my first few days, which includes searching public subsidy databases, and pulling the names of farmer’s to add into our system. We use Hubspot as a customer relation management software to keep all of our accounts organized. I enjoy prospecting but it can get very repetitive. My boss thought it was a good idea to start the summer off with a morale booster, so the staff went to a White Sox baseball game. This was a great way to end the first week and catch up with all my coworkers and get ready for the summer of hard work.

From left to right, Nick, Jeremy, Luke, and Jack, and myself.

Week 1 – Valerio De Sanctis

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Week 1 – Grant Geiger

My internship started at Bischer Farms in Ruth, MI the week after I got out of school. The farm is a cash crop operation that farms sugar beets, wheat, edible beans, corn, and oats. Additionally, they raise their corn and oats for their feedlot herd where they raise primarily colored cattle along with holsteins. During my internship, I will be working at their farm and additionally trucking various products and working for their various businesses, The farm also owns a tiling, concrete, trucking, and landscaping business while they farm. This week, I was working for their tile operation and hauled tile top from Ohio to Michigan on a 52-foot flatbed trailer. I found it interesting because I learned how they merge a tile “main” with the typical lateral tile in the field to help promote water flow.

I learned that the sector’s cattle market is very strong and cattle prices are at an all time high from years past. Additionally, the costs are also high so their breakeven price is about the same but just on a larger scale of money. The sector itself is very volatile and reacts strongly to market factors such as trading and weather related occurrences, I find the sector very interesting and something I could see myself getting behind in the future.

My goals this summer include learning about all the different businesses this internship has to offer and becoming one of their most dependable and hardworking employees. I won’t find that to hard to achieve considering I am very fascinated in everything this internship has to offer this far. My coworkers are also very dependable and fun to work with which makes the internship that much better.

I hauled cattle to JBS Foods in Plainwell, MI for the farm to take to market. I hauled 37 holstein steers to the plant and drove about 500 miles to the location. The cattle were great to haul and I look forward to hauling more in the future.

Week 1 – Kerrigan Lynch: Walther Farms

Walther Farms in Cass City, MI has a little over 1,000 acres of potato fields. This week, it was my job to go to each field and conduct seed piece decay digs. Depending on the acreage of the field, about 2-3 digs are done per field. Majority of fields are 2 digs, but there are some that take 4-5 digs to get an accurate reading of the whole field. To do these, all you need is an iPad, CropTrak, gloves, and a shovel. CropTrak is the software Walther Farms uses to keep track of their crops. This software is used in every state that Walther Farms has locations in! It is relatively simple to use and can even give you directions to each field that you need to go to! There is a “Seed Piece Decay” portion and you have to fill out which pieces, of the ten you dig up, are not rotted blind, not rotted peeping, not rotted sprouted, slightly rotted blind, slightly rotted peeping, slightly rotted sprouted, and so on. These go up to severely rotted pieces. With this, you have to note the precise location of your dig in the field, and a location description. This is pretty straight forward. Along with doing these digs, I put out stakes for pulling petiole samples later on when we have plants! On the stake, we write the field number/identification and the variety of seed in the field. Doing this in both Cass City and in Hemlock fields has been quite a task, but as of now, I only have two small fields left! We also had a pig roast for having such an awesome harvest last year and to thank our H2A guys for all that they do. That was nice and I loved meeting individuals from corporate. Overall, my first week was full of activities and I have learned so much! I am really looking forward to finishing my seed decay digs, soil samples, and getting chemicals ready for the plane next week!

Week 1 Stephen Stocchiero

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Week 1 – Sny

This summer I am working as an operation management intern at Cargill Protein – Eggs in Mason City, IA. This week has been a lot of new experiences and meeting new people. The majority of the week was spent on orientation, safety training, and tours of the facility. During the first two weeks they are having me spend a day with each department to understand what they do and why they do it that way. My first day on the factory floor (Tuesday) was in the with the was liquid department where they put liquid eggs in cartons. The next department I spent time with (Wednesday) was the raw department where they receive, pasteurize, and send the eggs to different parts of the facility. Thursday and Friday they had me do more safety training before I went into the departments that have more moving parts and work directly with the egg. This weekend was the North Iowa Band Festival so Cargill had the other interns and I decorate the float for the parade as well as walk in the parade on Saturday morning. The theme of the parade this year was All American. This was a fun experience because we got to be on the news and throw candy at children.

Week 1 – Dustin Koopman

For my Summer internship I am working at Sunnybrook Country Club in Grandville, Michigan. Sunnybrook is part of the RedWater Restaurants with locations all across West Michigan. For my first couple of weeks, I have been part of a team who helps prepare and/or take down tables, chairs, food or any other items required for the venue. While I’m not working at the venue, I am helping my manager by taking calls from incoming customers, making inventory sheets and placing orders for food, drinks, or other accessories necessary for venues. This picture above is our ballroom where our main events take place. This is a picture from our Mother’s Day Event (5/14) where we hosted 2,000+ people throughout the ballrooms and restaurant. I am very excited to be working with Sunnybrook Country Club! My co-workers and manager help make this job easier and a great time!

Week 1 Cooper Martin

For my summer internship I am working with Barton Malow in Lansing at the Ultium 3 battery plant. Barton Malow is building an EV battery plant for GM. For my first week I have been preparing schedules and running meetings for the following days plans. I also have walked around the site taking 360 degree pictures of the entire site so managers and contractors can view the progress online. The sheer size of this project is mind blowing. As you can see in the picture there is heavy machinery and cars in the building which look very small. This picture only shows about 1/6 of the building. With so much going on, managing the flow of work is very important. Soon I will be taking over meetings for roofing and siding on the project which will create a plan and a timeline for the work to be completed. I am very excited to be working on this project and to help as much as I can.