{"id":145318,"date":"2021-08-27T22:42:26","date_gmt":"2021-08-28T03:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/?p=145318"},"modified":"2021-08-27T22:42:28","modified_gmt":"2021-08-28T03:42:28","slug":"cooper-interns-gain-hands-on-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2021\/08\/27\/cooper-interns-gain-hands-on-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper interns gain hands-on experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Independent staff and submitted information<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

OAKWOOD — Sixteen summer interns from various colleges and universities recently completed summer internship opportunities at Cooper Farms, providing a fresh new perspective to multiple areas of the company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

COO Gary Cooper said he believes the interns are able to provide a fresh outlook on many processes and approaches.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
These college students had the opportunity to intern this summer at Cooper Farms’ various facilities to learn more about the food industry. Cooper Farms photo<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese internships are a great thing for not just the students, but also our management group,\u201d said Cooper. \u201cA large portion of our management team has been with the company for a long time, which is wonderful. The presence of these interns really helps us get a fresh and young view on things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terry Wehrkamp, director of live production at Cooper Farms, noted internship opportunities are the perfect scenario to allow students first-hand learning experiences as they prepare to enter the workforce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne of the most important things a student can do during his education is to network with people and companies that afford opportunities in key interest areas,\u201d he said. \u201cGetting a foothold in a real production setting allows our interns to get to know the people and companies we work with.  It\u2019s invaluable to them as they enter the workforce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Interns were assigned to all areas of the company, such as live animal, food safety, technology, and process improvement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Nicole Pickard, an animal science major at The Ohio State University who worked as a quality services technician at the Van Wert Cooked Meats location, said the opportunity will help her in deciding the future of her career after college.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI know much more now about meat science since entering this internship, which will help me greatly as I begin to decide my career path,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019ve learned much more about how\u00a0things\u00a0work for the food science industry as a whole and will be able to take that with me as I enter the agricultural industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This year\u2019s intern class included: Cassie Yoder, Gabi Paxson (Purdue University); Jenna Pleiman, Emily Knapke (Wright State Lake Campus); Dan Becker, Nicole Pickard, Kalyn Strahley, Holly Schmenk (The Ohio State University); Claire Vincent (Michigan State University); Mallory Jurcevich (Northwest State Community College); Peyton Shroyer, Jordyn Merriman (University of Findlay); Jake Hemmelgarn (Uni\u00adversity of Cincinnati); Logan Bradford, Jarod Keller (University of Toledo); and Faith Homan (University of Dayton).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Independent staff and submitted information OAKWOOD — Sixteen summer interns from various colleges and universities recently completed summer internship opportunities at Cooper Farms, providing a fresh new perspective to multiple areas of the company. COO Gary Cooper said he believes the interns are able to provide a fresh outlook on many processes and approaches.\u00a0 \u201cThese […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-30 19:27:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}