Happy summer!  My name is Luke Patterson, and I am a senior earning a B.S. in Economics as well as a proud member of our university’s Blue Band.  I am excited to tell you about my second internship at a serious, industry-leading organization with a not-so-serious name.  Here is a brief overview of my journey to working at New Pig Corporation again.

New Pig sells and manufactures a catalog of thousands of products intended to make workplaces clean, safe, and efficient in countries all over the globe.  They are world-renowned for virtually flawless order fulfillment and logistics, award-winning, innovative products, world class customer service, and marketing efforts that have drawn both accolades and criticism alike (check out our website).  You can spot the New Pig logo on boxes of absorbent wipers equipped on all CATA buses, and their large, hydrophobic booms, which absorb oil but not water, helped in the recent BP oil spill clean-up efforts. 

As most students are, I was very intimidated by my first internship search because I knew that experience would be vital when competing with business/quantitative majors in the post-graduation job market.  A relative suggested I visit with New Pig at the spring career fair held in the Bryce Jordan Center because she always heard about how much people love to work there (it’s true; here is a fun product video I got to be a part of).  Upon discovering that they were looking for a market analysis intern with essentially my exact credentials, I paid them a visit and, after about a month-long hiring process consisting of a phone interview and on-site interview, I was hired onto the Product Development team.  I proceeded to establish a company-wide pricing system for their most profitable product line (absorbents) that is still used today via competitive market research and numerical analysis.  This facilitated conversations over the past year that eventually led New Pig to hiring me again this summer, and I am using my skills with heavy data loads to identify profit losses in the logistics system and suggest improvements.

While I will be saving the greater details for future entries, I would like to point out how important my well-rounded Liberal Arts education has been to my work. My colleagues are very impressed with my ability to not only analyze and manipulate tons of data, but more so the way I can then communicate my findings effectively in a way that everyone can understand.  I credit Penn State and the CLA for my success and setting me apart from others with perhaps a more limited background.

Stay tuned for more posts about my internship at New Pig as well as my tips for success at the career fair!