ATS Provides Six Westminster Students with Summer Internships

Students from left to right: Jacob Money, Kyle Kroll, Danny Chicas, Destiney Speech, Anna Kolb, Andrew Young, Macalah Danielsen, Cristo Tabares, Madison Gipe, Seth Cline, Cooper Smith, William Stonecipher, Trevor Rhoads

Last month, Jeff Owens ’87 ΒΘΠ, who is the President and CEO of Advanced Technology Services (ATS), invited Westminster students on a trip to Peoria, Illinois for a tour of his company’s headquarters and a round of interviews. Out of the twelve students who attended, six were offered internships with ATS. All have accepted and will be starting their positions once the school year has ended.

Anna Kolb ’20 from Jefferson City, Missouri, did not know much about ATS prior to the trip, but it allowed her to learn a lot about the company. She now has a finance internship with ATS.

“I learned about companies they work with and what they do for them,” says Kolb. “We also sat in on a quarterly meeting where we learned what’s going well and what areas ATS wants to improve in.”

Kyle Kroll ’19 ΣΑΕ from Montgomery City, Missouri, agrees that this experience rewarded him with useful information.

“This trip was the most beneficial experience I have ever been a part of,” says Kroll. “It is the reason I am now an educated intern who knows what to look for in an employer.”

“I had the opportunity of gaining firsthand insight into the culture and organization of a great company,” he added. Kroll will be working to develop contracts and selling manufacturing maintenance services.

Jeff Owens played an instrumental role in encouraging students who took advantage of this opportunity. Kolb says that Owens gave her a piece of lasting advice during the tour. “Jeff kept repeating that hard work is the key to success,” she said. “My favorite part was listening to him, Eric Martin [’05 ΒΘΠ], and Alyssa Johnson [’17 KKΓ] talk about their experiences because they were once Westminster students just like us.”

Cristo Tabares ’20 from Flagstaff, Arizona, echoes Kolb, saying, “The best advice I got from Jeff Owens is that if you want to achieve greatness in work, and in anything you do, you need to sacrifice your own time to get a leg up on everyone else.”

Tabares adds, “Hard work isn’t easy, but if you don’t give up and learn from your mistakes, then you’ll be successful.”

Tye Smith, Recruiting Manager of ATS, says the trip was a success. “The reception from our ATS team was great,” Smith stated. “Everyone thought the students did a great job and were impressed at how professional they all were.”

Smith also commented on their current intern, Jake Money ’19 ΣΑΕ from St. James, Missouri, about his helpfulness in working with the Center for Career Development to put the trip together.

“Money did a great job in coordinating everything,” Smith said. “He had them here 5 minutes early and was very helpful with anything we needed.”

He went on to say, “I was very impressed with this group. Every student I interacted with seemed really interested in joining ATS. I’ve had several students send me a thank you email.”

Story Provided by Brittany Morris, Student intern for the Center for Career Development