Today, Ms. Stone took me to Ms. Jessica Greene, a packaging engineer. She showed me some videos about packaging programs being taught at Michigan State (where she went for college) and Clemson. She also talked to me about her experience interning and working at different places as a packaging engineer— she has worked for General Motors, BMW, Rubbermaid and many other companies. One of the most important things I learned from her is the necessity of organization, especially as an engineer. She shared with me her carefully created excel spreadsheets for her schedules and projects — I certainly hope to one day reach her level of organization! She showed me some of her responsibilities and challenges as an engineer: designing dielines (packaging templates), choosing the best material for the packaging, simulating and inspecting package transport, communicating with and combining ideas from the many different departments within the company. After showing me some of her dielines, she took me to the design department, where I shadowed Ms. Christina Opel. I was able to see and better understand the design aspect of packaging. She was working on printing out different labels for some new products— some of her main responsibilities are drawing icons and designing the packages in accordance with the needs of the packaging and marketing departments. Along with designing the packages, Ms. Opel also had to form models by hand, printing out the labels, cutting them, and pasting them onto foam or poster board to manipulate them into a shape similar to what is actually created and sold. Ms. Greene then took me with her to pick up a package she had received from China— she had to check the products and packaging. She gave me a lot of useful advice for finding internships and exploring different careers to find a niche. She then gathered her colleague Zach and manager Mr. Steve Hoskins, and had them introduce themselves and tell their stories of how they got into packaging and how they ended up working for Apex Tool Group. I am very grateful for all of the advice she gave me, and for everything she did to show me the different aspects of her job and different journeys taken to find jobs in general. I was very impressed by the wide range of departments she had to work with, and by the intricacies involved in packaging — choosing materials, designing the shapes/types of packages, and organizing the order in which packages are sent and processed.
After lunch, I met up with Ms. Donna Armocida, who is a project manager. She has a lot of different responsibilities, and mainly works on organizing and setting the pace of the different projects she oversees. She first gave me an overview of how the projects at Apex Tool Group are organized and pushed forward — with different tasks that need to be completed by specific dates, and presented to management/administration. She also taught me about the different challenges that a project may face, how that affects the schedule, and how she would try to overcome them. She gave me a lot of insight into how the wheels of the company turn — I was very impressed by the level of organization and communication that she preserves and supports. To help me understand the many complicated components of the schedule, she gave me multiple examples of different projects she has worked on or is currently working on — I was truly blown away by how much work she has done and how many products she has helped create! After showing me some of the products and projects being created/processed in the company, she took me to two meetings for two different projects she was supervising. I was able to see and better understand the challenges that come up in engineering and business in general— especially in international relations. I enjoyed learning more about engineering and its ties with business and communication. I was really impressed by Ms. Armocida and her work — I hope all of her projects work out smoothly!
A lot of what I saw/learned/worked with involved products and information that I shouldn’t publish online— I instead have attached pictures of the building (which I haven’t posted a picture of yet), and some snapshots of the videos I watched with Ms. Greene.
