Braun Intertec knows the value of preparing engineering students for a successful career.
The Braun Intertec co-op and mentorship program focuses on just that—helping students gain valuable experience in the industry and realize their career goals.
“The opportunities that they have to learn are through the roof,” said Chris Kehl, Braun Intertec Vice President and Principal Engineer. Kehl, a founder of the Co-op program, said the goal of the program is for the co-ops to gain practical, hands-on knowledge of the build process.
“It’s their opportunity to see some different construction sites, different contractors, different types of construction,” Kehl said. “And understand what goes right, what goes wrong and what to do when things go wrong.”
Braun Intertec hires 70-100 students for the program every year who are onboard from May – November. The program is open to college students working toward a civil engineering, construction management or related degree.
The most successful co-ops, Kehl said, “are going to absorb information from their environment, and learn what’s going on, even though it might not be related to the task that they’re doing. We can train you on concrete testing and soil density testing within a couple of weeks and you’ll be proficient and accurate in doing that testing. But understanding what to do when something goes wrong or to know why the contractors are building something a certain way … that’s what you’re really going to learn from it.”
Braun Intertec Field Technician Carter Weathermon recently completed the Co-op program and said he saw the 6 months as an opportunity to gain critical field experience. He credits those six months for what he describes as a smooth transition to his full-time position as a field technician.
“Without those 6 months I’d have no idea what was going on,” Weathermon said. “It’s very important to have that background—to know the ins and outs of a construction site. Braun Intertec understands the importance of field work. A construction site on paper looks great but there’s a lot more to it than that.”
“And with construction sites constantly changing, on-the-job flexibility is another key for a student to be successful in the program,” Kehl said.
“There’s maybe 20 different subcontractors on the site and they’re waiting on other contractors, or some materials don’t show up,” Kehl said. “And now that changes the plan, so they need to be flexible and adaptable to that environment. There is a certain amount of chaos that comes with the job.”
On a typical day, a co-op might visit 3-5 job sites for concrete placement and testing, test the compaction of soil or pick up samples. Throughout the day there also will be paperwork, and most likely discussions about the day with other technicians, a scheduler or engineer before returning to the office to check in samples and turn in reports.
The Braun Intertec Co-op program is a major source of staffing for engineers. When they complete the program, students will have earned their American Concrete Institute Field Tech I certification. Kehl takes pride in seeing students take advantage of this opportunity.
“So many people started off in that role,” he said. “You see the people start picking up things on their own and recognizing something’s going wrong and how to handle it. That’s rewarding to see them excel at the opportunity we gave them. I still have engineers who I’ll run into in a meeting, and they talk about the fact that they did a co-op with us 20 years ago. And they are still using that knowledge about what’s happening on job sites.”
Offered in tandem with the Co-op program, the mentorship program is a great opportunity for the students to gain additional career advice from working professionals. Co-ops who participate in the voluntary program are paired with a Braun Intertec employee (Braun Intertec asks for volunteers to be mentors in the spring).
Mentors and their students determine how often they meet and what they talk about. “It’s a chance for the student to ask questions and for the mentor to help the student explore what they want from their career and their life,” Kehl said. “The steps to get to that ultimate happiness comes from understanding how your career is going to progress with reasonable expectations, understanding what you need to know, what you currently don’t know and how that contributes to that career path,” he said.
Kehl, who also is a mentor, believes the mentorship program reflects the Braun Intertec values of safety, service, opportunity, ownership, and recognition. “It’s that ability to try to give back and try to help somebody,” he said. “Our engineers are very willing and happy to help someone. At Braun Intertec, the engineers take time to answer questions. And the mentorship program is an extension of that.”
Weathermon, who also took advantage of the mentorship program, experienced that willingness to help firsthand and said he has nothing but good things to say about the company.
“Braun Intertec has good people who make it easy to learn,” Weathermon said. “Everyone is friendly and helpful; the employee ownership aspect definitely helps team build.”
Weathermon’s advice to incoming co-ops is to embrace those six months as an opportunity to learn and gain experience.
“Be open to new experiences, open to learning, and don’t be afraid to ask questions,” Weathermon said. The only way to build critical thinking and problem solving is to be put into those situations.”
For more information about the Braun Intertec Co-op program, click here.