My name is Gabrielle Prewitt, and I am currently the Communications Intern at the National Hardwood Lumber Association (NHLA). NHLA is a trade association that aims to help its members in five main ways: education, promotion, advocacy, networking and providing industry services regarding hardwood in the United States. The headquarters is located here in Memphis on 10 acres of land, and that is where I spend each Tuesday, Thursday and Friday from 9:00-4:00.
It is a small group of employees with only about 15 people working here in the office, including the CEO and the five directors. I wear many hats around the office, and I do whatever I can to try to help everyone here. There is the monotonous intern work of alphabetizing files, making excel spread sheets and stuffing envelopes; however, that work is not solely my duty. Even the CEO will help stuff envelopes or alphabetize some files because we all work together to do the big and little things around the office.
Although I have only been interning here for six weeks, I have already written one post for the website’s blog; attended a meeting with a local PR/Advertising firm that will make a video to be shown at NHLA international conferences in China and Dubai; looked through archived files to find pictures to put in the videos for conferences as well as social media pages; and posted content to the social media pages. I have also done research for the Director of Membership that required me to look through the NHLA database to determine various organizations’ membership status.
Unbeknownst to many, including myself before I started interning here, there is a school connected to our office building that anyone who wishes to be certified in lumber grading must attend in order to obtain their license. The current class has students from both the U.S. and international countries such as Austria and China. I have worked with the Digital Media Manager to put together “fun guides” for the students in the school and arranged various outings for the staff and students to Grizzlies’ games so the students can get to know Memphis a little bit more.
My day-to-day responsibilities vary at NHLA, but I am excited to learn more about communication tactics, how to grow social media followings and how to perform thorough and important research. I believe those skills would helpful, if not essential, in my future career.
It is a small group of employees with only about 15 people working here in the office, including the CEO and the five directors. I wear many hats around the office, and I do whatever I can to try to help everyone here. There is the monotonous intern work of alphabetizing files, making excel spread sheets and stuffing envelopes; however, that work is not solely my duty. Even the CEO will help stuff envelopes or alphabetize some files because we all work together to do the big and little things around the office.
Although I have only been interning here for six weeks, I have already written one post for the website’s blog; attended a meeting with a local PR/Advertising firm that will make a video to be shown at NHLA international conferences in China and Dubai; looked through archived files to find pictures to put in the videos for conferences as well as social media pages; and posted content to the social media pages. I have also done research for the Director of Membership that required me to look through the NHLA database to determine various organizations’ membership status.
Unbeknownst to many, including myself before I started interning here, there is a school connected to our office building that anyone who wishes to be certified in lumber grading must attend in order to obtain their license. The current class has students from both the U.S. and international countries such as Austria and China. I have worked with the Digital Media Manager to put together “fun guides” for the students in the school and arranged various outings for the staff and students to Grizzlies’ games so the students can get to know Memphis a little bit more.
My day-to-day responsibilities vary at NHLA, but I am excited to learn more about communication tactics, how to grow social media followings and how to perform thorough and important research. I believe those skills would helpful, if not essential, in my future career.