Last summer, Brooke took over leadership of the internship program, and with the perspective only a former intern could bring, she rebuilt it.
The program now runs 13 weeks and is built to give students a real, ground-up view of a design-build construction firm. Interns start by picking a focus area, things like safety, communication, or technology, that gives them a lens to examine the company through for the rest of the summer. They spend the first half of their internship experience on a jobsite working alongside a Superintendent and Assistant Superintendent, learning what a classroom can’ t teach: managing real-time safety, coordinating subcontractors, keeping a site presentable, and handling whatever comes up that day.
The midway point of the program combines site travel with the general superintendent and an office week, where interns sit down with design, planning, estimating, project management, finance, and marketing to see how a project gets built from the inside.
After that, they move to a second job site for the last half of their time with Jewett, allowing another deep dive experience with a different project. At the end of their program, they bring it full circle, presenting their findings back to Jewett’ s leadership team through the lens of the focus area they chose on day one.
The feedback after the first year of the rebuilt program was overwhelming. Interns said they’ d learned more in those weeks than they had in the classroom. Brooke took what she knew from being on the other side of the program and used it to make something better for the group that came after her, and that’ s still holding true as this year’ s interns wrap up their summer.
Intern Kai M.( on right) reviews site plans with a Jewett Construction superintendent.
The benefit runs in both directions, too. Interns walk into Jewett without the assumptions that build up over a career, so a focus statement on communication or technology often turns up something a team has worked around for years without noticing. Leadership takes those final presentations seriously for that reason, not as a formality to close out the summer, but as a genuine, outside look at where the company can tighten up.
None of this shows up on a balance sheet next quarter. A scholarship, time at a college forum, thirteen weeks of a young person’ s summer— these are bets on people who won’ t run a project or lead a crew for years yet. But the industry doesn’ t get the next generation of superintendents, estimators, and tradespeople by accident. It gets them because companies like Jewett decided that showing up, and doing it well, is part of the job. Brooke is proof the bet pays off, and proof of the debt itself: a person who was given a real shot as an intern is now the one giving that shot to others. That’ s what it looks like when a company treats the next generation as something it owes, not just something it hires.
An intern reviews project renderings as part of the hands-on learning experience.
Sarah LeBlanc is the marketing director at Jewett Construction Company. www. high-profile. com
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