Intern Experience

Meet Two of Driscoll's Interns!

Name: Hayden McDevitt-Kuntz

School: UC Santa Cruz (Graduated 2012)

Major: History

Position: Growing Great People Intern

Department: Human Resources

Location: Watsonville, CA

Internship Experience

"I was hired on to Driscoll’s as an intern in June 2012 right after I graduated from UC Santa Cruz. This internship has been a great opportunity for me to personally as well as professionally develop. While working for the Growing Great People team I was able to not only to explore and expand my knowledge of my department (Human Resources) but also many other departments within Driscoll’s through job shadowing and interviews. I visited berry fields, tissue labs and offices talking with people from every corner of the company. Through these methods I was able to gain much knowledge about the company and how it operates as a whole and how I fit into the company to help it move forward. I have been able to further my own personal skills in the office and I have also been able to connect with coworkers to help expand my professional contact network.

As my internship comes to an end I can reflect upon it and look at how I have developed since I first started working here and see the progress forward. I was presented with many different projects, varying in difficulty as well, over the entirety of the 6 months that I worked there. They treat you very respectably and give you responsibility that is not normally granted to interns. It is a program that I would highly recommend."

Name: Brian Harris

School: Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (Graduating 2013)

Major: Agribusiness

Position: Procurement Intern

Department: Production/Supply Chain

Location: Watsonville, CA

Internship Experience

"This is the first year that the Procurement Department has had an intern, so I have been very privileged to learn the skills and responsibilities associated with the job. I am an Agribusiness student at Cal Poly, so I had taken classes that touched on the supply chain and logistics. Yet I have come to learn that the Procurement intern deals primarily with the handling of clamshells that the various berries are packaged in. Although Driscoll’s only produces strawberries, raspberries, blackberries and blueberries, there are numerous variations of the generic plastic clamshell that holds the berries.  Also, I have become familiarized with the computer platform that the team uses to transact the buying and shipping of all the packaging, whether clamshells or the shipping material that enable the transportation of the berries. What I have especially enjoyed with my experience at Driscoll’s as an intern has been the CPI (Continuous Process Improvement) Projects that will streamline the entire process. This has been fascinating for me because learning the old process was new for me, so I became a huge asset in evaluating the current system and giving valuable feedback about what I think would make the process more efficient.  I will take back to school all the amazing hands-on knowledge from Driscoll’s to my final year at Cal Poly."