This summer, I was given this valuable opportunity to work 12 weeks for Union Station Technology Center in South Bend, Indiana. First of all, I would like to start this blog by thanking the Lilly Endowment, Inc. to fund this internship. Also, I appreciate my two bosses, Dr. Shane Fimbel’ 01 and David Stamper, for guiding my work no matter what/when I needed their help or suggestions.
Union Station Technology Center (USTC) designs, builds, and manages data centers, a co-working space, and high-speed network communications facilities for mid-sized local businesses to large enterprise and global cloud providers. The Infrastructure as a Service (IAAS) model serves as the backbone of our operations utilizing the flexibility in design, a highly reliable power source, and high-speed connectivity.
My main title of this internship is Marketing and Communications Intern. Working with Chris Stazinski’16, our main function is to help the company to build and brand their new coworking space – the Depot. After visiting multiple other successful coworking spaces in Indiana like Launch Fishers and MatchBox, we believe that the Depot can be a membership-based ecosystem designed for entrepreneurs, creative professionals, freelancers, consultants, and students. Our long-term goal is to create a hub to facilitate business growth and innovation by providing a facility for collaboration and mutual development. For a small monthly fee, our clients have access to our extraordinary amenities.
My daily job includes building and marketing the Depot. I helped and coordinated in planning and promoting for several events such as Taco Tuesday and Wednesday entrepreneurial talks to engage current and future members. In the meantime, I prepared and managed all membership and event communications, including membership agreement, Terms of Use, press releases, and social media sites like LinkedIn and Twitter. What is more, I worked closely with Chris to build our website on Squarespace. From designing the logo to building a sheet of events happening within the Depot, I practiced a lot of what I have learned about marketing from the winter externship at Elbert Construction. I would also like to thank Mr. Aaron Nicely ’06 for extending his help after the winter externship when I built this website in the past few weeks.
Now I look forward to the rest of this internship. It is evident that this internship grows my leadership in leading a great number of events, inspires me intellectually in building and creating the website, and further improves my communication skills with both coworkers and clients from different background. Again, thank you Wabash and Lilly Endowment for preparing Wabash men for a successful future.
