While our program is in high gear over the summer, we recruit and welcome interns throughout the year. Most of our interns find us at college career fairs or through word-of-mouth, but we also visit some schools for employer information sessions and advertise in college career centers.
We receive hundreds of applications every year. Why are so many people interested in an internship with HRG?
Gaining real-world, hands-on experience
Interns at HRG work on projects alongside our full-time staff, completing real-world tasks for our clients.
Tanner Bolton and David Taglieri accepted internships in our York office. One of their primary tasks was to assist with bridge inspections throughout York County. They were on site, making notes, recording data, and taking pictures of bridge conditions alongside seasoned professionals and certified bridge safety inspectors.
“I really enjoyed going out for a bridge inspection and being able to do hands-on work,” Tanner said. “These experiences helped me better understand the inspection process”
Tanner and David also learned about bridge analysis, too, assisting with reports about the bridges they inspected, which will eventually be submitted to HRG clients.
“HRG is a truly professional company, and you will be thrown into the deep end right off of the bat,” David said. “As a result, you learn quickly and take part in important engineering processes immediately.”
Khanh Vo served as an intern in our Pittsburgh office, and he, too, enjoyed being in the field: “My favorite project would have to be conducting traffic counts for a local school. I also had the opportunity to work on plan sheets independently early in my internship.”
Learning and discovering a variety of tasks
Internships at HRG are very flexible. We provide services related to municipal engineering, water quality, water and wastewater treatment, roadway and bridge design, and land development site design to our clients. Many of our projects incorporate more than one of these service areas, so interns get the opportunity to experience the full range of services that go into infrastructure design and construction.
Human resources generalist Bryttani Lynch thinks this is important, particularly for college students who are still in the early stages of their studies. “While the seniors we bring in should have an idea of the specific discipline they want to pursue, freshman and sophomore interns are still figuring that out.” At HRG, they get the chance to explore many possible career options.
This was a life-changing experience for Colton Seagrist, a member of our Water & Wastewater Group in Lewisburg. Colton served an internship at HRG over the summer after his first year of college. At the time, he was enrolled in a two-year surveying program, but his wide-ranging experience at HRG inspired him to pursue a civil engineering technology degree instead. “HRG and my immediate coworkers have been the biggest influence in my career path,” he says. Colton was asked to stay with the company when he returned to class, and he did.
This is nothing new. Like Colton, several members of HRG’s full time staff began their career as interns here. Kyle Firm is one of them, but HRG was not his first internship experience. “I had an internship at another firm before coming to HRG, but I was only given experience in one area: the testing and inspection of concrete.” That changed when he joined the HRG team. “Even though I was assigned to the water/wastewater group, I was asked to perform tasks for all groups in the office,” he says. “I got to work on land development, civil, and transportation projects, as well.”
This broad-ranging experience was one of the primary reasons Kyle was happy to accept a full-time position with HRG after graduation, but it wasn’t the only one.
Making connections – professional and personal
“HRG provides its interns with a great atmosphere to gain as much experience as possible, but it also allows you to have fun while doing it,” Kyle says. “The relationships I built with my fellow co-workers were a large part of the reason why I chose to continue with HRG after graduation.”
Former interns Tanner Bolton, Jonathan Robinson, and Khanh Vo all praise the warmth of the staff they work with here at HRG.
“All of the staff are very friendly,” Tanner says. “I always felt comfortable to ask questions when I needed help.”
“It was a wonderful experience working at HRG,” Jonathan echoed. “Every employee is very kind and a pleasure to work with.”
“It sounds generic, but it’s true,” Khanh affirmed. “Everyone in the office welcomes you like family, and there are always plenty of fun and engaging projects to work on.”
Of course, personal relationships are not the end goal of an internship; it’s professional relationships that people are seeking to build. An internship is one of the first steps a college student takes to grow their professional network, which is so crucial to finding jobs throughout their career.
Interns at HRG have the opportunity to meet and learn from people at all levels of the organization – all the way to the top. Company president Jason Fralick is very passionate about attracting talent to the firm, so he plays an active role at every stage.
David Taglieri said he first heard about an internship with HRG when Jason presented to one of his classes at Penn State: “He challenged our class to be the first to email him for an internship opportunity.”
Jason knows that internships are just as beneficial to our company as they are to the college student. He says interns help us increase productivity and expose us to new perspectives. The internship itself is a great way for both HRG and the student to find out if they’re a good fit for each other. “In a way, it’s an extended interview process,” he says. “The intern can integrate into the HRG culture and operations. In turn, we can evaluate the best organizational fit and developmental needs to place the intern in a permanent position upon graduation.”
Interns at HRG will get the opportunity to network with professionals inside and outside the organization. Pittsburgh intern Mike Vrabel spent an entire week on site at a residential development project in Middlesex Township and got to know workers involved in the roadway construction and storm sewer installation.
Sharing ideas and being heard
Some companies have a strict hierarchal structure. The lines between management and employees are clearly drawn and never crossed. We are not like that at HRG. Our culture is open, and everyone is encouraged to contribute wherever they can. Our IDEA program is a reflection of that.
Interns work in groups and brainstorm ideas for new programs or improvements at HRG. They talk to people across the organization to gather feedback and research potential solutions. Then they work up a plan with milestones and budgetary considerations, and they present that plan to a panel of company leaders, including the CEO. Several of these initiatives have been implemented.
The IDEA program provides an opportunity for interns to connect with people across all areas of the company and learn about how HRG operates at a very detailed level. It also gives them firsthand experience with advanced skills in proposal writing, planning, and presenting that are critical for progressing a career in this industry. Through the IDEA program, interns learn to think deeply and critically about a problem from all angles and work through the practicality of potential solutions in a real-world setting. They also learn that everyone’s ideas matter at HRG: regardless of position or pay grade. It’s a great immersion in our employee-centered culture.
Making an impact in the community
HRG is a full service firm with a broad range of clients in the public and private sector, but the heart of our work has always been helping local communities maintain or improve quality of life. This is what motivated many of our full time team members to consider engineering, surveying and environmental science as a career. Our interns are similarly motivated.
“My goal in life is to serve others and make an impact on the lives of those around me,” Jonathan Robinson said. “As a civil engineer, I have the ability to practically help many people through multiple platforms. My work at HRG has been very rewarding.”
Securing full-time employment and a long-term home for your career
Many of our interns are offered staff positions upon graduation. Some never leave.
Our company president Jason Fralick began his life at HRG as an intern, and so did several other company leaders, including assistant vice presidents Jim Feath and Cory Salmon, transportation group manager Darren Myer, civil group manager Ben Gilberti, and team leader Matt Cichy.
Anyone who takes an internship at HRG could be a future leader of the firm, and we have no doubt they will be leaders in the industry, thanks, in part, to the diverse experience and learning opportunities they gain during their time here.
