2010 High-School Interns

• Photos from 7-30-10 Intern Forum
• Photos from 6-21-10 Orientation
  

NEW: Janet Brazil – Caltrans, District 4
John Brewster (one of Janet’s supervisors) says: These are pictures of Janet on a boating field trip.  Structure Design and support personnel along with a diving crew from Sacramento were investigating existing underwater conditions for replacing a column fender on the Carquinez Bridge.

NEW: Darren Turner – West Contra Costa Transportation Advisory Committee
Joanna Pallock (Darren’s supervisor) says:  We had Darren do field work and he took some great shots for a signage project we have him working on – but he is not in the shots since he was on his own. This is one of the photos he took for the transit wayfinding signage grant he is working on.

Basically having Darren join us this summer has made all of us a happier and more productive agency.  Sharing our experience with an eager learner has given all of us a chance to reflect and step back to get a youth perspective on certain projects.  One area in particular that Darren's knowledge was invaluable was on the outreach efforts we are making to students transitioning from an AC Transit Youth paper pass to the Clipper smartcard.  Darren attended and supported several outreach events in the community as well as attending planning meetings with the school district administration.  He could tell us how students will respond to certain information and how we could better reach students and parents.

Darren is also a talented photographer, avid transit user and mature. This meant he was capable of going out in the field on his own, finding his way on transit, and capturing great photos of where signage issues were in and around BART stations.

NEW: David Rosenberg – City of Suisun City
David got the opportunity to get out in the field and shared some photos…

NEW: Veronic Sullivan – Napa County Transportation and Planning Agency
While Veronica was unable to take pictures during her internship, she collected some interesting details…

What's been the most valuable lesson you've learned so far?
I feel that the most valuable lesson that I’ve learned in this internship is that you should always be consistent with your work and that you should also always prioritize your work as well. What I mean with this is that if you’re not being consistent with your work and you’re procrastinating, then you won’t be able to finish your work on time and it will be turned in late.

What's the most interesting fact you learned?
One interesting fact that I’ve learned is that while I was interning on my second week, I seemed to realize that there wasn't any business administration involved in this occupation. I have been interested in the Business Administration since last year and yet while interning here, I found that the place that I was interning at was an organization where the employees here figure out, plan and discuss projects that are associated with the transportation industry of the Napa County. Even though there is some business involved with this organization, I thought that I would be learning about how I would be able to create my own business.

What are the people around you like?
I seem to see that the people around me are really nice over at my Internship. Previously, before I even started my Internship, I had thought that adults and teens worked quite differently when working on a project. But what I seemed to realize during a staff meeting, while observing the employees around me, is that these people are just like my friends/classmates back over at my High School (New Tech High School), when we would create a certain discussion in a project. Not only are the people nice here over at my Internship, but they are funny, hard working and full of good spirit as well.

NEW:  Neelam Mohole – City of Hayward 
My internship at City Hall of Hayward has been a wonderful experience. I worked in the engineering/ transportation department. I have learned countless things during the time period.

First day, when I went into the City Hall of Hayward to give my interview I was scared, nervous & thought will I make it? I believed in myself and went in the office and went through the interview. Don Frascinella and Angela Louie seemed really nice and supportive. I thought I did great in my interview. After a month, I found out that I got the job, I was overwhelmed with happiness. I got my first job (=    I felt really proud of myself as well as my family.

I went in for my first day on June 22nd, 2010 as an Intern at City Hall of Hayward feeling confident. There I met my boss Don Frascinella who is really friendly & nice. He was really happy to have me there & he showed me around. I got to know everyone in each department of the office. Felt incredible. I was ready to learn, to help out and understand transportation and engineering. Sai M & Majid H. were my other supervisors. Sai M. is a hardworking & amiable individual who helped me understand transportation and showed me how to do the street light applications, speed hump applications, responding and creating petitions, auto cad, maps, GIS, to going out in the field measuring distances, and creating drawings based on the maps and the information given. I caught on quickly and learned to finish my work before my work ended. When Sai left for her vacation, I had to pick up my pace because there was more work/ projects to be handled. I worked with Majid who was very understanding and cooperative - he gave me projects and made me more knowledgeable about transportation. I continued with what Sai taught me and worked on several different projects, gave ideas on how to improve some of the problems and whenever I did not have any work I would ask my supervisors for more work so I could make my time more productive as well as help my coworkers out.

Don F. my head supervisor gave me a lot of advice/ information about the career outlook and about life. He helped me become more confident about myself. Angela was also very helpful through out the whole internship. She was always there when I needed someone and gave me and other interns great knowledge about the career outlook for engineering. All the staff were  really kind, understanding, helpful which made my internship great. Also, meeting the other Interns like Angelica and Brian was great. They both are very good individuals who have always made me smile and my internship better for me.

Angelica Alvarez – City of Hayward
Angelica says: My internship at Hayward City Hall has been a great learning experience. The people here are friendly and helpful. My supervisors here in the Survey department have taught me a lot. I've done plenty of things, from scanning maps that are essential for engineers to going out on the streets of Hayward with my supervisor, responding to requests. This internship has gone by quickly and I wish I can stay longer so that I can keep learning and working. Overall, this internship has-and hopefully will continue- to open doors for me. I'm grateful for this experience, thank you MTC!

Jacob Myers – City of Alameda Public Works Department
Jacob, a future civil engineer, says: The most important lesson I learned from this great internship is to carry a note pad with me when I'm away from my desk to eliminate the possibility of forgetting work oriented information such as a new assignment, the file path of the assignment, it's priority, and when it needs to be done by.

The most interesting thing I learned is that borings are often unintentionally done because the Geotechnical reports that contain the boring information are just tossed into a file cabinet.

All of the people in my immediate me are very nice, knowledgeable in their fields, and are a pleasure to work with. In my opinion, they are the hardest working individuals out of all the employees at Alameda city hall west.

I am interested in becoming a licensed civil engineer so I asked many of my colleagues what college they went to, what their career position is, what they do and how long they have been working here.

The only trouble I have encountered was transportation related; because of the new AC Transit conditions, it takes anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours to get from home to work and vice versa.  Although it took a few weeks for a steady flow of non-menial work to arrive, I enjoyed the internship and learned how to limitedly use ArcGIS, a program that serves a purpose similar to AutoCAD, but is map oriented and is easier to comprehend than most cad work for people who are not familiar with cad and other drafting software.

Kyra Pesso – Transportation Authority of Marin
Kyra says: My internship is going very well, and I have been having a lot of fun getting to know and working with everyone at TAM. I have been able to work with different people every week helping out with different projects and doing all kinds of assignments. I have even been able to work with our Executive Director Dianne Steinhauser!

I got to tour the Cal Park Hill Tunnel which is currently in construction. The portion of the tunnel which has been made into a class 1 bike path has been finished and we were able to walk though it and learn about the process which it undertook. The portion of the tunnel which is not being used as a bike path is for the SMART rail to go though.

I was also able to learn about the Central Marin Ferry Connection project, which will connect with the path leading from the Cal Park Hill Tunnel to bring its passengers to the Larkspur ferry terminal. The Central Marin Ferry Connection project, unlike the Cal Park Hill Tunnel is not currently in construction, it is in its design phase and its environmental documents are being reviewed. I got to go out to the site where a pedestrian bridge will be built over Sir Francis Drake by the ferry terminal with the engineer plans and look over the plans for the bridge which will hopefully not just be on paper a few years from now.

This internship has been so much fun! I am glad I have the chance to be part of such an amazing internship program.

Sherry Tran – City of Albany
Sherry says: My internship at the City of Albany has been both exhausting as well as exciting. My main project so far has been a doing a bike rack inventory for the City. Little did I know this was an incredible amount of both field and office work. For data collection, I walked up and down the two main streets of the City, schools, parks, and the library and took photographs and notes of each bike rack (for those of you that don't know Albany is about 1 square mile, so it wasn't too tiring). With the data I collected, I made both a digital database (which my supervisor gave to a consultant to graph on GIS) and a graphic organizer on a giant map of Albany (see attached picture). Aside from projects, I've found that each day brings something new whether it is attending a Traffic and Safety meeting in the evening, going to my first Webinar, or riding a fire truck!

Last week I had the honor of donning the celebrated neon vest of the transportation industry and riding in a fire truck (see pictures). Although, the real objective there was to see if the trucks could pass the proposed plans for traffic calming near an elementary school, my supervisor and I got a free ride!

Sherry Tran – City of Albany (there's more...)
Aleida Andrino-Chavez (Sherry's supervisor) says:
Working with Sherry Tran has been a real pleasure. She is diligent, creative, thorough, and hard working. She has great attention to detail and does her job in a professional manner. Her main assignment was to help me develop an inventory of bicycle racks in the City. She took a picture of every rack and described its condition and location. She created a map with racks pictures and description. In addition, she created a database of all the locations and this information was given to the consultant working on the Bicycle and Pedestrian plans. Sherry also worked on several other projects, such as signage location and sidewalk repairs. In all of her assignments, Sherry was very diligent and professional and her assistance was greatly appreciated at the City of Albany. Thanks MTC for this great opportunity.

Anisha Agarwal - Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA)

Anisha’s Supervisor says:  VTA's intern, Anisha Agarwal, has been doing great at VTA.  During her first week, Anisha attended a commuter fair for employees at Facebook. Anisha visited the Facebook campus in Palo Alto and experienced/witnessed VTA staff providing trip plan information to the company's employees.  The event was attended by various organizations that promote health/wellness as well as transportation solutions. 

In addition, Anisha project managed an online marketing campaign promoting the publication of the independent report by VTA's Citizen's Watchdog Committee.  The attached banner ads, which Anisha worked on, were placed in the San Jose Mercury News website.

Currently, Anisha is providing insight and recommendations on how to promote VTA's 2011 Summer Blast Pass.  The Summer Blast Pass is targeted to youth between the ages of 5 - 17 years old.  Because Anisha is exactly the target market for our Summer Blast Pass, we want to learn from her what marketing messages work and what themes resonate with the group.  Anisha will assist in packaging, branding, recommending advertising vehicles to use (i.e. which radio stations, tv stations etc.) and copy development.  More importantly, Anisha will recommend
which businesses VTA can partner with to make VTA's Summer Blast Pass more attractive.  Anisha will also lead a focus group of her peers to discuss Summer Blast Pass.

As you can see, Anisha is busy!!  She is great to work with and a self-starter!

Laura Yu - Transbay Joint Powers Authority

Laura says:  I'm having a blast at my internship! This is truly a once in a lifetime experience. I love and appreciate being able to go to work everyday and learn and interact with my coworkers. I'm digging the office environment. Everyone in the office is wonderful and easy to strike up a conversation with. Before this internship, I was extremely confused about what career I wanted to venture into. Nearing the end of junior year, I still hadn't decided what I wanted to do with my life, while my friends and classmates all had their lives planned out. I fell in love with civil engineering at this internship and plan to wholeheartedly dedicate myself to pursuing this profession.

I decided to apply to this internship on a whim never even thinking I would get in, but I did. And I am extremely fortunate! So, thank you so much!

Ahh... that was so long winded! Sorry, but I just wanted to express my gratification and happiness with this great opportunity.

I've been pretty busy these past few weeks. I've finished my two big projects so far and am well into my third and fourth one. Right now, I'm creating a 3-d model on Google Sketchup of one of my agencies conference rooms, the "War Room", which they use a lot for public, Board and interagency meetings. (See attached pictures) The purpose of this project is to see how many new chairs can fit into the room and to figure out other configurations for their public outreach and bidding meetings(which tend to get crowded). I have to be very precise in order to model everything exactly. I also get to draw on my knowledge of trigonometry to model the curvatures and varying angles of objects in the room.

This past week has been a whirlwind of meetings, which luckily, I enjoy! Meetings are great learning experiences because you have the chance to observe how engineers, architects, managers and etc coordinate and interact with each other to get huge projects finished, like my agencies, Transbay Transit Center. (The TJPA is gearing up for the demolition of San Francisco's defunct Transbay Terminal in order to build a beautiful new Transit Center, which many are deeming "the Grand Central station of the West".)

Most recently, I attended a AC Bus simulation at the Transbay Temporary Terminal (which isn't even open to the public yet!) and got to ride a bus around and within the Terminal with members of other agencies, like Muni, AC, Lynx and more in order to observe the new routes associated with the Terminal relocation. That was fun! Unfortunately, I forgot to turn the camera on myself, so I'm not in any of the simulation pictures.

What did you learn about the Transbay Temporary Terminal?
The TJPA is gearing up passengers and employees for the move to the Temporary Terminal from the current outdated Transbay Terminal in order for the contractors to be able to proceed with the demolition and construction process. The move to the TB Temporary Terminal will take place overnight on Aug. 7, so the Transbay Terminal will be entirely closed off. On Aug. 10th at 10 AM, there will be an official groundbreaking ceremony on the "hump" in front of the Transbay Terminal. A lot of public outreach efforts are underway as well to inform the passengers, community members, transit agencies and the general public about the Move.

Why did they have the simulation?
The simulation was mainly for the bus drivers to observe, question and make suggestions about their routes and navigation around, to and from the Temporary Terminal. Also, members from other transit agencies were invited to tour the terminal and observe for possible problems, because nothing prepares you for the real thing. This proved true because on the bus, many people experienced a turn that was too "hard" and "tight" making it extremely difficult for bus drivers to maneuver out of the terminal without interfering with oncoming traffic. A traffic engineer named Cynthia from DPT came to look at the problematic curve and concluded that the "striping" (i.e. the paint/lines of the road that direct the flow of traffic) needed to be redone in order to accommodate the AC buses.

Malia Allen - City of Campbell

The three pictures show:

• Me at a meeting (about plans to build a new Safeway and a new intersection) with city engineers.
• Out in the field; we were at a site where they were installing a new ped. crossing & pole
• Me (attempting to) move a new traffic cabinet that just arrived.

Malia says:  Interning at the City of Campbell has been really fun so far! This has been a great opportunity—I am learning a lot about streetlights and traffic signals, and I am also learning how city government works. There are so many steps that need to be followed to get something done, and sometimes compromises that benefit both the city and the citizens seem impossible! I’ve gotten the chance to go out in the field, attend meetings with engineers, and experience the inner-workings of a small-city public works department.

Jazzmine Rosette - City of Brisbane

Jazzmine says:  I’m on top of one of the city’s water tanks. Water is pretty much released from there and into homes in the City of Brisbane. It was a very cool experience, and I'm glad they had the safety harness and ropes, otherwise I wouldn't have even thought of climbing that thing. 

So far this internship has introduced me with a lot of interesting things.  From day one, I've been working on a lot of state documents regarding the Reservoirs and water piping here in Brisbane.  I've also helped with organizing spreadsheets, and inputting information on excel, which will help Public works in the long run.  I've also been experienced in learning of the new LED lighting and pavement procedures, which were both done just about a week ago.  My supervisor also got me experienced with sewers, so I'd know that it is a completely different situation than water.

This is such a great experience! I've already been on about 5 outings, and there are even more to come.  Because supervisor's intentions are to get me experienced in most departments here in Brisbane before my 200 hours is up, he's scheduled a day for me to hang out with the fire fighters and police officers to give me a taste of their day-to-day. 

Xuan Lam – Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART)

Xuan’s Supervisor says:  Xuan Lam has been a great addition to the website team. We have a very small staff, with only two people normally working on the BART website, so we have really appreciated having someone as creative and energetic as Xuan to help us go out and find stories of interest to BART customers. On her first assignment she not only wrote a story but also took still photographs and video to accompany it for a full multimedia presentation.

Xuan is also helping BART with its social media channels, where her stories have been cross-promoted on BART's Facebook fan page, Twitter feed and blog. Another of Xuan's tasks is helping BART provide tips to customers on the location-based social network Foursquare for fun things to do near BART stations. So, if you have a favorite restaurant, shop, theater, park, museum, or other venue near a BART station, let Xuan know and she may be able to include it in BART's Foursquare tips! Her BART email is xlam@bart.gov.

Xuan Lam has already been published several times on www.bart.gov, the website of BART, with news and feature stories and photographs taken during her internship. Some of her work has included:

• Covering the opening of the new Fremont dog park, a milestone in BART's Warm Springs Extension to the South Bay
  
  
• Previewing the opening of the new bike station at Berkeley BART -- one of the nation's largest
  
  
• Writing a first-person column about taking her bike on BART
  

Donald Francis Griffin - Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA)

Francis says:  I have been working with the environmental team for the new bay bridge construction. We do weekly inspections of the project site to make sure that the contractor is following the rules of the environmental permits. The inspections we do are preliminary ones before the agency's do the official inspections. We do this so that we can prevent Caltrans from being possibly sued and make sure the contractor is in accordance with the permits before the official inspections. Then we right up a report after each weekly inspection that we do.

I have also been going to MLK elementary school in Oakland weekly to help with the educational out reach program. In the office I have mainly been organizing reports and amendments to the project in binders so they can easily be referred to if necessary. The most valuable lesson I have learned so far has been that work can sometimes seem like a place to just socialize but at the same time you need to get the work done that has been assigned to you. I like the people I work with. They are very positive and passionate about their jobs and that rubs off on me and makes me enjoy my work a lot more.

Emma Ward - Bay Area Air Quality Management District

Emma says:  I've definetely further developed my organizational skills and learned how to prioritize my tasks depending on their importance and deadlines. The staff here have been extremely welcoming and any time I need assistance a staff member is ready and happily there to assist me. I love learning more about the work environment and learning how to interact with the public on a professional level, a skill, up until now, I had not known how to perform. Thank you MTC for the opportunity to discover more about myself and my capabilities through a rewarding and unique experience.

Joel Lee - San Francisco County Transportation Authority
It's definitely going well all in all. There's a lot of work to be done, but I feel like I’m definitely getting some basic work skills down.

[Mtan says: This is a great opportunity to learn things "hands-on" and at the end of it all see how much you've learned and accomplished. Keep up the good work!]

Tommy Wong - AC Transit
It has been about a week since I've been working at AC Transit and I've already learned so much! I learned how the schedules for bus stops are made, how the routines of buses run, printing and laminating paper, and I'm currently learning how to use PeopleSoft. Working at AC Transit is a great experience, and I've gained more work experience. My next job at AC Transit is to deliver packages with my supervisor, I'm so excited!

[Mtan says: Tommy's getting the inside scoop on how things work. Good going!!]

Brian Nguyen - City of Hayward
Working at Hayward City Hall has been a tremendous experience. The people here are all incredibly polite and fun to work with. The facilities in which I work are also amazing. I have been working with and learning from Sammy Lo and Angela Louie in the Design Department of Public Works and they have taught me so very much about the in's and out's of Public Works to better the city and how projects are  prepared, presented, and carried out. Currently I am using AutoCAD to edit the Standard Details of the City of Hayward. This entails making updates and edits to existing documents that describe the regulations and rules of how to organize, set up, put in place, or revamp various city projects and fixtures such as street lamps, sidewalks, street intersections, and street signs. Due to the Route 238 Corridor Improvement Project, I have been fortunate enough to go out into the field with Sammy a few times to observe the demolition process of buildings. This demolition is necessary to achieve the project’s goals of creating more driving lanes and relieve traffic on the streets of Mission Boulevard. In addition, the overall environment around Mission Boulevard will be upgraded through the use of landscaping and displacing the utility lines from above ground to below. I feel so fortunate to be around so many people that work their hardest to service and enhance their community.

[Mtan says: There are the details and then there is the big picture. You are lucky you get to see how each of their projects impacts the operation and flow for the City of Hayward...sweat deal!!]

Kelly R. O'Rourke - County of San Mateo

Kelly says:  Most days I'm working in the office. As I'm a Business major at Cal Poly next year, my supervisor wanted to show me what it's like in the office as well. Yesterday I went out on the field ...I'm just learning about all the different stages for safety on the roads etc. I'm asking lots and lots of questions and learning a whole lot.

[Mtan says: You've got a smart supervisor who seems to be doing a great job looking after what's in your best interest. You are lucky.]

Kelly’s Supervisor says:   Thanks for a terrific intern. Kelly O'Rouke has been a big help in helping us to streamline some of our processes! She's cleaned up our electronic files, and is working on modernizing our traffic response program. This week, we hope to get her out to the field to see where some of the work gets done.

Kelly is bright, proactive, intelligent, and very mature. She comes to work with a positive attitude and takes the opportunity to learn about her work, the environment, the people, and the office culture.... all with an eye towards the future. I will miss her when her internship is completed.

The MTC summer internship program is great. Our department has benefitted from the hard work and dedication of some very talented and resourceful interns. Since the interns are very knowledgeable with computers, we were able to assign them to a variety of projects right away. And whether these interns continue into Transportation Careers or not, I believe they leave with a different perspective about the various needs we have in transportation.

Kelly says: Here are a few photos of me out on the field in the County of San Mateo.

The first is me at a traffic signal cabinet. I learned how each signalized intersection is connected to the others to make it smooth sailing and safe for the drivers.

The second and third photos are at Stockbridge and Alameda de las Pulgas (ADLP) for a stop sign study in the field. We were there to study whether or not the intersection should be a four-way stop or not because someone had complained that it was extremely dangerous for the cars on Stockbridge trying to cross to ADLP. We took pictures of where the driver at the stop sign would be, measured the distance of how far the car could see down both sides of the road, and if there should be trimming on the corners for a better visual.

Sean Herich – City of Napa

Wilson Zhu – San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SF MTA)

What you will see is Wilson doing computer aided design/drafting (CADD). CADD skills are in demand. Within Wilson’s first two weeks he is already able to perform simple drafts. If you didn't know, Design/Drafting positions can earn at least $30.00 – $50.00 dollars per hour.

His Supervisor took him out into the field where he was given a tour of a facility where the train cars are serviced. When designing tracks, the engineers have to visit the sites to make sure the survey points are still in place as shown in their records. In one of the pictures Wilson is pointing to an existing survey point. They also took a couple of pictures inside one of the BART stations that MUNI goes to.

Victor Chen - City of San Leandro (there’s more…)

Victor conducted speed surveys using a radar gun on San Leandro Boulevard on July 16, 2010. One  speed reading he caught was 41 miles per hour (MPH).

[Mtan says: That person was lucky Victor wasn't a police officer.]

Victor sat on the driver's seat during the survey because that seat was the better spot for checking the speed. His Supervisor was the real driver who transported him back and forth and recorded his surveying data.

[Mtan says: Good team work guys!!]

Victor’s last message:
This is my last day, and I would like to take a moment to thank you and MTC for all the hard work you have put into this internship program to help teens like us get to learn about the transportation field. The best thing happens when you get more from any experience than you expect to get out of it, and this describes my overall feeling about my experience in this program. I am grateful that even in this hard economic time, MTC has still taken the time and money to cultivate the future generation of citizens with the knowledge that we’ll need to lead our country with the minds that are conscious of transportation related issues. This program will be an experience that I will draw upon in many aspects of my professional career.

Reh-Lin Chen (Victor’s supervisor) says:  Victor Chen has gradually gained more experience in municipal traffic engineering functions in San Leandro. His tasks in the last two, three weeks are listed as follows:

• Administrating Citywide Collision Database
• Updating Citywide High Collision Lists
• Analyzing collision data for before and after red light cameras at five signalized intersections
• Collecting intersection turning movement counts at signalized intersections (See photos below)
• Analyzing intersection Level of Services (LOS) using Synchro software
• Conducting intersection delay studies

In addition to the aforementioned tasks, he also joined his supervisor Reh-Lin Chen to numerous meetings, including one regional meeting and two webinars as listed below:

1. Climate Action Transportation Working Group for jurisdictions in Alameda County co-hosted by Alameda County Congestion Management Agency (ACCMA) and Alameda County Transportation Improvement Authority (ACTIA) on Wednesday, July 14, 2010.
2. Webinar on "Bicycle Boulevards and Neighborhood Greenways" conducted by Association of Pedestrian and Bicycle Professionals (APBP)and hosted by ACTIA on Wednesday, July 21, 2010.
3. Webinar on "Sidewalk Design" hosted by the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center (PBIC) and Federal Highway Administration in the Designing for Pedestrian Safety series: Tuesday, August 3, 2010 (See Victor's Certificate of attending this webinar)

Joe Riley, Brian Pisani, and Francis Griffin – Bay Area Toll Authority (BATA) (there’s more…)

Joe had some new pics to include…

Joe says:   Here are a couple pictures of me and Brian at the ceremony for the arrival of the first tower. The heads of all the major companies involved spoke as well as the Chinese fabrication contractor.

[Mtan says: When years and years have passed and the bridge has been built and showing it's first signs of wear and tear, these guys are going to be able to tell their future grand kids that they were there when the tallest part of the bridge first arrived...way cool!!]

Sam Piper – Napa County Public Works

The internship at Napa Roads has been going as well as I could have ever hoped it would be. The people here are very friendly and encouraging, not to mention people that don't mind having fun occasionally. I've found the work environment to be a great mix of hard working people and bright personalities. I am also happy that my supervisor is willing to spend his time getting me out of the office in order for me to experience a variety of aspects in the transportation field. So far I have learned all about street signs, using a radar gun, and today I even got to shadow an employee that taught me about welding. Needless to say everyone has taken my safety as a priority and made sure that I am learning everything I need to know without risking myself in any way. Check out the picture of myself and a street sign that I made, and another of me tallying on a clipboard during the speed zone surveys. Thank you MTC for this internship.

[Mtan says: Not very many people his age can say they did that during their summer. Way cool!!]