CHA's Summer Internship Program

Back to news
Posted June 8, 2018

Each summer CHA has the honor of welcoming bright and aspiring students to the team as summer interns. CHA relies on them as full-fledged members of the company. Our teams readily encourage interns to tell us their perspective and provide input, often making an impactful contribution to a project. For more information about the CHA internship program, view our Young Professionals & Students page.

CHA’s 2018 Summer Internship Program officially kicked off with an opening meeting and orientation on June 8th. This year we welcomed 33 interns from 26 colleges and universities to our offices in Indianapolis, Blacksburg, Rochester, Atlanta, Chantilly, Cleveland, Keene, Knoxville, Colonie, Norwell, Albany, Parsippany, and Syracuse as well as PDT Architects’ main office in Portland, ME. They collaborated with professional colleagues in these offices and across others in the following disciplines:

  • Architecture
  • Aviation
  • Civil Engineering
  • Electric Distribution Design
  • Electrical
  • Environmental, Health and Safety
  • Facilities
  • Finance
  • Geotechnical Engineering
  • Health and Safety
  • Highways
  • Information Technology
  • Marketing
  • Mechanical Engineering
  • Project Management, Industry and Energy
  • Survey
  • Transportation Structures
  • Water/Wastewater

Special programs, learning sessions, contests, and cookouts were held throughout the summer to give interns the ability to mingle with their peers and truly learn about the day-to-day life and work of an engineer and/or business professional. The summer presented our interns with many opportunities to network with their colleagues and also a chance to go on site visits and into the field to work at some of the locations CHA has helped develop. These are just a few examples of their activities this summer:

  • Surveying the Rochester International Airport at night
  • Visiting the Cornish-Windsor Covered Bridge in New Hampshire
  • Accompanying the Bridge Inspection Team in New York
  • Installing equipment in the Town of Argyle, NY, with the Rail Group
  • Taking a site visit to Gracie Road Athletic Complex in Cortlandville, NY

One of the most wide-ranging activities was a day trip to the Albany Capital Center. Fifteen interns from CHA’s Albany and Colonie offices visited the Albany Capital Center (ACC)—a conference center and event venue designed by CHA in downtown Albany. Some of the engineers who oversaw the design accompanied the interns on a tour of the facility’s freight elevator, parking garage, and walkways which connect the ACC to the Egg, Empire State Plaza, and Times Union Center. The tour highlighted CHA’s holistic design approach that resulted in a facility that provides flexible event space and provides a seamless experience for convention-goers.  This site visit gave the interns an opportunity to consider all facets of the design/build process.

Core to the intern experience at CHA is the final project. Each year CHA assigns teams of multi-discipline  interns to present on topics developed by our technical leaders.. Over 8 to 12 weeks, teams meet regularly to research the presented issue and craft a final presentation proposing solutions. This summer CHA’s Norwell, Indianapolis and Colonie offices hosted six separate teams of interns to present their findings. Several interns even had the chance to travel a fair distance to another office to present with their team in front of an audience of their CHA colleagues. The 2018 interns presented on the following topics:

  • Waste to Energy and the Potential of Deriving Biogas from Waste Treatment
  • Reforming the Energy Vision in New York State
  • Superstorms and Distribution System Reinforcements
  • Improvements, Resources and Economic Advantages to Rehabilitate Transit and Transportation Infrastructure in the Northeast
  • Green Infrastructure Treatment Systems in Urban Settings
  • Compliance with the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC)’s Reliability Standard “Maintaining Transmission Line Ratings Consistent with As-built Conditions”

A few days after giving their final presentations it was time to say goodbye to our interns. As a final farewell assignment, our interns completed an individual paper about their summer work experience at CHA, documenting their challenges and triumphs over the past few months. Fearing a summer of busywork, their reflections all express the relief and excitement felt when discovering they would be making a substantial contribution to not only the firm’s operations but real-world projects. Whether they were acquiring data on utility locations, rehabilitating airport taxiways, or exploring the implementation of virtual reality in the design process, CHA’s interns learned valuable technology skills, successful methodology, and the importance of thoughtful and effective communication.

CHA wishes our interns all the best as they return to classrooms or start new jobs in their chosen fields. We thank them for their talents and energy and for spending the summer with us.  We look forward to seeing how they responsibly improve the world we live in.