Jackson Albrecht ’21 Crawfordsville Mayors Office – The Crawfordsville Mayor’s Office Internship has provided me with a diverse array of experiences. From running the city’s social media pages to doing data analyses on economic development in community paramedicine, I stayed busy learning new things on the job each day. I got to attend meetings – a lot of meetings – which I quickly realized account for an extensive portion of the mayor’s busy schedule. 5-10 meetings a day make up a “light day” as Mayor Barton put it; between individual meetings, conference calls, and weekly/monthly meetings such as city council, board of works, planning, project, or workforce development, etc.
Between sitting in on meetings, I spent a majority of the opening weeks of my internship taking photos 
around the city and at various events. These photos are now being used for the ongoing city website re-design, social media updates, marketing pieces like brochures and advertisements, and even made an appearance on the channel 13 news. So far, the second portion of the internship has been slightly more project driven. I’ve run data analyses and used their statistics for presentations about community paramedicine, presented to local and state representatives, health commissioners, hospital officials, and potential project investors. I’ve gotten to sit in on a site visits under an N.D.A., write award nomination letters for the IERC (Indiana Emergency Response Conference), and even plan a visit for the lieutenant governor.
It has been a great hands-on learning experience. Whether it’s been about the ins and outs of local government, project and economic development, bettering my skills of analysis and utilization of data, developing my interpersonal and professional skills, or just grasping a better understanding of the behind the scenes action in Crawfordsville, I get to learn new things every single day. This internship has been an awesome, fun learning experience and I’m looking forward to having it extended through the remainder of the summer!
