About the company:
Located in Virginia, Minnesota, Northeast Technical Services (NTS) is a professional environmental science and engineering company providing consulting, engineering, engineering support, and data management for a wide variety of clients.
“We have wonderful people here. I would argue that we have the best employees on the Iron Range,” said Justine Henry, NTS’s HR Manager. “To bring in younger people and get their takes on everything that we’re doing is fun and makes us better.”
One avenue through which they find new talent is the SciTech Internship Program, a state-funded, small business resource that helps connect employers with top STEM college students from around the state.
“This year, we’ve had a lot of good luck with hiring,” Henry said. That includes their decision to hire Callie Fletcher, NTS’s newest IT summer intern.
Meet the intern:
Fletcher is studying IT system administration and analysis at Lake Superior College. She’s a self-described math nerd with a passion for encryption puzzles and cyber security. Fletcher quickly made her ambition known when, not long after starting her internship, she approached NTS’s Business Manager, Mike Stone with an idea.
Since starting in May, Fletcher has been working with the IT team on the company’s cyber security and came up with a way to improve it. After hearing her pitch, Stone gave her the go-ahead and Fletcher’s been working on implementing her idea ever since. Due to the security nature of this project, most of it is “hush-hush” but Fletcher did share that part of this project involved incorporating specific programming into NTS’s security and building a web app to manage statistics.
“You’re doing a great job for us,” Henry said to Fletcher. “You’ve proven yourself to be a hard worker and that’s 90 percent of it right there.”
Looking back, Fletcher expressed how grateful she was for the hands-on work she was exposed to at NTS and the freedom and trust she received to work independently and try new things.
“I thought it was really cool how I was able to actively work on things that I was really interested in and passionate about right off the bat,” said Fletcher proudly.
Get involved
Looking to build your small business workforce? SciTech’s new program year begins September 1st! Apply now and start planning your internship experience today.
Returning SciTech students can send their current transcript to scitechmn@mntech.org to reactivate their account for the 2022 program year.