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12 | /INSIGHT ON MANUFACTURING • May 2015 w w w.in s i g h t o n m f g . c o m INTERN INITIATIVE c o n t i n u e d Co-op student Ryan Ewert works with his mentor Mike Vasold at N.E.W. Plastics in Luxemburg. The company works with students through NWTC's industrial maintenance and electromechanical programs and has the ability to support up to six interns at a time. It's one way the company is working toward building a future workforce that has the skills necessary to fill its technical job openings. COURTESY OF N.E.W. PLASTICS N.E.W. Plastics in Luxemburg brings in students from NWTC's industrial maintenance and electromechanical programs in a cooperative partnership, says Mindy Bauknecht, human resource leader. e company can support up to six interns at a time, she says. "e point of our program is to not only help the students to gain the experience, but helping to alleviate some of the stress that we have in the technical areas," Bauknecht says. Companies like N.E.W. Plastics find that being proactive helps them fill those internship openings. "I've been working with the professors at NWTC," Bauknecht says. "ey have been very good about allowing me to go in and actually speak with their classes." But it's still not always easy to find the right students. "For us, it's a lot about personality match, and work- ethic match," Bauknecht says. She sees a lot of candidates that might have all the right experience on paper, but they don't have the skills to communicate that experience. She's enlisted current employees who are taking classes at NWTC through the company's tuition reimbursement program to help her find students, asking them to keep their eye out for prospects while they're at school. e idea with the co-op program, of course, is to be able to hire interns full time, and recently the company issued a written job offer to a graduating intern. rough the Sheboygan County program, Sheboygan Falls senior Eric Burgard is a mechanical engineer intern at Curt G. Joa — and this is not a look-over-someone's-shoulder kind of internship. "I've learned a lot about design aspects, how to conceptually bring something to a creative product," he says. "e whole process between designing what's in your head, getting