Since August 2014, I have been an intern with Courtney Strong, Inc., utilizing a number of skills from undergraduate school, graduate school at Bard CEP, and gaining new skills on the job.
The Internship
Courtney Strong, Inc., is a marketing communications firm based in Kingston, NY, and Washington, D.C. Since its founding in 2006, it has been a leader in clean energy and higher education marketing, having clients such as the following: New York State Energy Research & Development Authority (NYSERDA), the Institute for Building Technology & Safety, the George Washington University, SUNY Orange, SUNY Ulster, the town of Red Hook, the center for Resource solutions, and the Solar Energy Consortium.
The internship was initially planned to be focused on a life cycle assessment (LCA) project that Courtney Strong, Inc. had been invited to propose for an aquaponics company. My role was to conduct research, outreach, and looking for partners & potential funding, as well as working on the project proposal.
I also took on additional tasks, such as researching municipal officials in the towns of the Mid-Hudson region and NYSERDA renewable energy contractors, with a focus on those providing service in the Mid-Hudson, so that Courtney Strong, Inc. could add contact information for these entities to facilitate outreach on opportunities available through NYSERDA (funding for energy efficiency improvements, renewables, and technical support). Additionally, I joined a project for the Catskill Center for Conservation and Development. We are working on a Google Earth map of tourist resources available in the Catskill Mountain Region that will be available online and available on a computer in the Catskill Center’s Erpf Gallery.
Skills Utilized During Internship – Skills & Bard CEP
I found this internship opportunity through the help of Bard CEP faculty and staff. I received academic credit for it through my master’s program in environmental policy. More than that, however, I brought skills from Bard CEP to the internship.
Skills developed at Bard CEP that were utilized during my internship at Courtney Strong, Inc. include the following: knowledge of how GIS programs work (and how to add attributes), communications skills, and editing writing (in particular the skill from our science classes focusing on removing jargon and instead using clear meaningful words).
Talking with people I don’t know was a skill slightly developed at Bard that my work at Courtney Strong, Inc. developed significantly. I developed it by first joining phone conversations with coworkers and LCA experts that we were interviewing to be the LCA expert for the project. Then, I led some of the phone calls with LCA experts, asking the questions that had been asked in previous conversations and letting them know about the vision behind our project and about Courtney Strong, Inc.’s envisioned role in the project.
New Skills Gained on the Job
New skills gained during the internship include a number of computer skills that are relevant to the practice of environmental policy problem solving:
- how to get a hyperlink for an image on a website so that I could link, not only to the website, but specifically to an image.
- how to use salesforce
- how to use Constant Contact
These are important web tools for the business world. Salesforce can be used for project management and keeping track of tasks within a projects and contacts that are involved in a project. Project management skills are great skills for any person, but salesforce is a popular business tool for project management. Constant Contact is useful for various types of outreach, including environmental outreach. When using Constant Contact you can keep track of the groups that you need to send emails to. Courtney Strong, Inc. uses Contstant Contact to email a number of different industries about events that they are holding for their work as a NYSERDA subcontractor and for their higher education sector clients.
Conclusions
The synergy between my internship with Courtney Strong, Inc. and Bard CEP, along with the skills utilized and improved by both, led to a rich internship experience. The skills I have gained, while gaining work experience, will be useful if I stay working in the environmental field, or if I change my career path.
