GUEST BLOG FRIDAY – An Intern's View: Brian Cadigan

Have you ever hired a summer intern?  What lessons did you learn?  Was it a good mentoring experience – did you ask your intern that important question?

Today’s blog is from Brian Cadigan, a summer intern for the South Shore Chamber of Commerce.  Brian’s perspective on what mentoring and work experience has taught him.

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My name is Brian Cadigan, I am a Marketing and Supply Chain Management major entering my sophomore year at Bryant University in RI and am currently serving as an intern at the South Shore Chamber of Commerce.

My quest for knowledge, persistence, performance and passion have enabled me, at such a young age, to garner robust experience and earn mentors whom I have been and will be honored to learn for some time. I completed two internships and gained a great deal of hands on experience in my chosen field through my coursework, extracurricular activities in high school and college and now through two distinct internship programs and experiences–and mentorship throughout my high school and college career to date. In fact, these experiences have built upon one another such that I have achieved a great deal of success. Specifically, I capitalized on the extracurricular programs at Marshfield High School that allowed me to practice the marketing and sales skills that I learned in class and to earn the respect of my teachers and advisors. Specifically, these extracurricular activities exposed me to the director of the DECA program, Ashley Stanford, who encouraged me to take part in the first of its kind Marshfield Chamber of Commerce/Marshfield High School internship program for High School Seniors. Ashley managed the program. As an intern at BuytheCase.net, I worked harder than most of my peers, working 20 hours a week after school and taking responsibility for an online marketing and ordering system. Through a regular quality control audit, I caught a mistake that could have cost my host business over $1 Million. This caught the attention of my Internship Host, Jack Griffin, Principal Mr. Robert Keuther, our School Superintendent Dr. Scott Borstel and other program leaders, including then Marshfield Chamber of Commerce President Laurel Egan Kenny.

As a College freshman, I reached out to Laurel, who had since been hired as Chief Operating Officer of the South Shore Chamber of Commerce, for help securing a summer internship.  Because she knew me, my work ethic and other qualities, Laurel hired me as an intern for the South Shore Chamber, reporting directly to her.

In just a few short months at the South Shore Chamber, I have gained invaluable experience and have earned myself additional mentors from among the Chamber staff (from CEO Peter Forman to Eric Dykeman, Director of Government Affairs, to Tammie Heinrichs, Manager of Membership and Finance and Heather McCall, Manager of Data and Design) and Chamber membership/leaders. My mentors have encouraged me to work hard, learn as much as I can, build personal and professional relationships that I may leverage in the future and experience all that the Chamber has to offer insofar as education, programming, political advocacy, economic/workforce and community development. I also have learned how businesses work, how to influence people, fundraising gets accomplished, holding successful meetings, empowerment and the importance of follow up, measurement and saying THANK YOU!  Additionally, I have modeled myself after several of the folks I have met. I learned that business is not all business. It is great to develop personal relationships with the people I am working with. This allows me to understand their perspectives, the decisions they make, and it also allows for some levity during the work day. I also learned that as much as possible, if you can do what you like to do (and what you are good at), it doesn’t feel like work at all! I will take this bit of wisdom with me for the rest of my life.

Some of the projects I led and/or contributed to this summer will further support my academic and professional career.  The Chamber’s marketing communications plan, a marketing and sponsorship opportunities plan, events like the Summer Outing, Summer Sizzler, Business after hours, Coffee connections and several major political programs.  In the midst of all this, we also moved the Chamber’s office after 50 years (and after 111 in Quincy, MA to a new professional office space in Rockland, MA.

My professors and advisors (and future managers) will, no doubt, be impressed with my experience, having worked for one of the largest, regional Chambers of Commerce in the country. I can also cite many specific projects for which I have tangible work products and things that I am very proud of. I am more than happy to try to build on my portfolio for the next two years, as a Chamber Intern. Laurel and her team have asked me back for next year and anytime in between. I am more than happy to oblige. In addition, I know I can ask the Chamber team (and my many other mentors throughout this process) for career advice, support, and testimonials as to my work ethic, work product, results orientation and professionalism as needed.