Employers Rave About Academy’s Student Interns

CBIA placing new crop of interns in Hartford area

By Dave Conrad

Najib Habesch, senior vice president of BETA Group, praises the AoEGT interns his company has hired.

Over the past four years, more than 125 high school students from Hartford’s Academy of Engineering and Green Technology (AoEGT) have applied what they’ve learned to help local engineering and law firms, communications companies, utilities, architectural and construction companies, and others.

The great thing is, it’s not really clear who’s been getting the better deal: the student interns or the firms that have taken them in.

At a recent breakfast meeting at CBIA’s offices in Hartford, several area business leaders praised their AoEGT interns and urged other employers to get involved.

Speaking up were Najib Habesch, senior vice president of BETA Group; Eddie Widofsky, an associate at Amenta/Emma Architects; Brian Conte, project manager at GEI Consultants; and Tom Burns, president of Workforce Development Solutions and former director of training for Northeast Utilities.

All have hired AoEGT interns for their firms and each was surprised by the students’ knowledge, high quality of work, and exemplary work ethic.

At Amenta/Emma Architects this summer, intern Keneal Walton (a junior at AoEGT) was involved in a wide variety of tasks, including 3D computer modeling, the selection of interior finish materials, and supervision of construction and relocation activities.

“With his hard work, dedication, and incredible personality,” said Widofsky, “we very quickly fell in love with him and extended his internship for longer than the agreed-upon time frame. We’ve kept in constant touch with him since and are intending to use him as a special design consultant on upcoming public school work for the city of Hartford.”

Because preparing a skilled workforce is so important to Connecticut businesses, CBIA’s Education Foundation is again preparing and training AoEGT students for the workplace and coordinating internships in Hartford-area firms involved in science, technology, engineering, or math (STEM). United Technologies, which also has a keen interest in developing STEM talent, is providing the funding for CBIA’s initiative.