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Day 8 – Goodbyes

I was only in the office for a very short time today, as I had a two hour drive to Denver followed by my flights to get home in time to present tomorrow. Nonetheless, I spent the short time I had with Karla, who works as a data analyst. She does a lot of things with spreadsheets and coding that are far over my head, however I enjoyed her wry sense of humor. Unfortunately after a short time I had to start saying goodbyes. I gave Rick the CEO the mug from Cary Academy, and provided the others who spent a lot of time with me other gifts I purchased myself. Unfortunately, much of the team left for a trip to Pittsburgh to the HMHS home office, however I left notes for those out of office. It is bittersweet leaving the Cheyenne team and the internships in general, but several people have invited me to come back for a full summer internship at BCBSWY as well as HMHS, so I’m sure I will have the opportunity to see many people again in my future endeavors. For now, time to get home!

Day 7 – Communications

Today I shadowed Seneca who works on the communications team at BCBSWY. We attended many meetings throughout the day with other communications team members such as Jeannette, Abby, Lacey, and Taylor, which concerned material like news letters being sent to vendors, pamphlets to members, and other streams of communication BCBSWY utilizes. I got to sit down with Abby who works a lot on the social media for BCBSWY, who gave me some advice and insight for my future plans. As a past political science major, she shares some interests and shared a very interesting early career story, and is enthused for my eagerness to travel as part of my career. Seneca, who has a background in photo journalism, graphic design, and newspaper editing also shared a bit more of my creative side, and gave me some advice for using those artistic skills in and out of the office.

In the afternoon Jeannette and Seneca hosted me on a little field trip out to a local print shop where they worked with the PBR Printing on finalizing a major project being launched later this year. Seneca designed some really cool pamphlets with some information to be sent out to members. It was pretty interesting seeing a smaller scale print shop compared to HM Document Solutions, which I visited in Pittsburgh. It is also very exciting to see the mock prints as tangible evidence of all the hard work the team is putting in for the new technology they are launching later this year. Only a short time left in the office until I hop back on a plane to share my stories on Friday!

Day 6 – Editing

Today I was shadowing Maria, who is the Senior Director of Operations. We started off the day with some meetings trying to finalize and tweak a few things as BCBSWY transitions onto the HMHS platform. After a few meetings, I got the opportunity to edit and organize an intro to new services power point directed towards clients. The main things I search for when editing is ensuring consistency in style and organize ideas in a way that is easy to follow and understand from an outside perspective. After turning in my work on the revised power point, Maria and Taylor (who works with the communications team) assigned me some more similar work. I also revised and reorganized a provider notification letter (which is basically a letter to the customers that there has been a switch in vendors), documents explaining the COBRA administrative services through our LBS vendor, HRA open enrollment communications documents, as well as HSA open enrollment communications documents. I was also able to type up and finalize the documents to be sent out to whomever it concerns, whether that be a vendor, customer, or internal employees.

After my work day, I also got together with Connie, who is serving as my main host here, and her family for an authentic Wyoming steak dinner. It’s been great getting to know not only her staff here at BCBSWY, but also to get to know the HMHS team who is here working with them. I look forward to doing more good work tomorrow, and am sad that my work experience is coming to a close, but am excited for future ventures with both the HMHS and BCBSWY teams!

Day 5 – Introduction to Wyoming

Because I am starting with a new team this week in Wyoming, I began my day with a meet and greet where I talked a little with Rick, the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, who told me a little more about the company and the culture here. I was then given a tour and introduced to some people on the team I will be spending some time with this week by Connie, who is serving as my lead. Today was spend with Andrea, who I shadowed as she went to meetings for the majority of the day. It is interesting getting this new perspective from the side of the clients after working in Pittsburgh with HMHS. A lot of work being done right now is to help in the transformation process as we assimilate BCBSWY to the platform. It is a very interesting environment, always playing old blues and western music in their small office; much different from Pittsburgh.

After having meetings all day, the CEO Rick invited me to go on a hike to hidden falls with his wife, himself, and the COO Diane, which was very nice. There we got to know each other a bit better and I got to have an even better feel for the culture of the company and Wyoming at large- not to mention getting a great hike in! The people here have been very nice and welcoming, and I look forward to spending more time with them as the week progresses.

Day 4 – Print Shop and Goodbyes

Today I went off site with my tour guide and host Paul to HM Document Solutions, which is the only manufacturing company under the greater Highmark Health company. Unfortunately, I was unable to take any pictures inside or share detailed information because of a non disclosure agreement. The print shop handles about 700 jobs per day, differentiating in scale, from Highmark affiliated work to independent, external jobs. The huge warehouse was filled with very impressive high speed machinery; not like your average Kinkos! One of the most interesting things I saw were the rolls of paper to be cut down and printed upon for jobs- the rolls were about a half ton in weight each, cost $500, and were able to produce over 88,000 pieces of 8 x 11 inch paper when cut to size.

I then attended an intern meeting with Adam, which gave me some perspective into the early process of participating in an internship, which will serve me well as I plan do a full paid summer internship here at the home office next summer (which Liz and Tina have invited me to participate in). Most of the afternoon was spent wrapping up my week here in Pittsburg at the home office with some final meetings with Tina and Liz. I also did some rounds visiting everyone on the marketing team to say my final thank yous, and present some gifts of North Carolina specialties that I purchased. Tina, Liz, and the rest of the team were even thoughtful enough to give me a present. It’s bittersweet leaving the office that so quickly felt like home, but I’m excited to catch my flight tonight to begin the next phase of my journey in Cheyenne, Wyoming!

Day 3 – Meetings, Deliverables, and Networking

I started off my day bright and early per usual with an 8am meeting with Crystal and Rachele, who focus on roadmapping. I viewed their past quarterly roadmap, learned a little about the process, usage, and plans to digitize into an interactive online format. Later in the morning I also met with Shelly, our marketing consultant. She shared with me a little bit about her job organizing and planning trade shows and conferences. My third meeting of the day was with Mary Edwards, the Senior Vice President, who shared with me a bit about her background, as well as offered me excellent advice for designing and facilitating development in my career. Tina (VP Manager of group) and Liz (Manager of product) also treated Adam (my fellow intern) and myself to lunch today, where we got to discuss a bit about my time here, future aspirations, summer plans, etc.

Upon my return from lunch I met with Beth (Senior Copywriter), who explained her writing, editing, and proofing responsibilities, as well as gave me some advice for writing in a business style. I also met again with Liz to debrief on my visit to HM Document Solutions (the print shop) tomorrow, where the conversation morphed into narrowing down my interests, and consequently making a rough career plan for me. I am very excited for my future plans! In my free time between meetings throughout the day, I worked on updating the HMHS website content from its 2.0 to 3.0 version. I also ended up staying 45 minutes late after work today, where I went up into the tower and got the chance to do some networking with some company leaders!

Day 2 – First Real Work Assignment

I started off the day meeting with Liz, who is the manager of product, and Adam, my peer intern in the office. We discussed a bit more about the company on the customer end of things with conferences and trade shows. Then I met with Kris, the senior marketing consultant, who elaborated on surveys during trade shows and conferences. She gave me some surveys from the past conference in San Antonio, Texas which I organized and filed. I then met with Mo, the contract management consultant, who deals with the legal side of the marketing team. There I learned about SOWs and MSAs which are the documents outlined with customers through contract administration and compose a general contract. He also deals with delegate authority agreements, which is the government involvement side of health care. After my meetings ended, I organized some documents and filed them for April, a member of the marketing team. Then I had a meeting with Namrita, the product marketing consultant, who produces Flash documents: a written monthly compilation of new products, trends, announcements from competitor companies or the market in general.

After my lunch break, where I walked down a few blocks to a local restaurant, I returned to the office and had a meeting with Tina, Liz, and Kris. There we reviewed a heatmap, a document which diagrams HMHS’s offerings to customers and prospective customers. Thereafter I wrote a RFP (request for proposal) which is a request send to prospect vendors that could offer potential support to the larger HMHS company. Within the document, I outlined HMHS and RFP review, RFP instructions, HMHS scope of work, all of which are meant to leverage agency support to develop marketing strategy. I wrote the document for the rest of the work day in the office until 4:30, then finished it up in the hotel to email off to Tina and Liz for further review tomorrow morning. I also spent some time tonight preparing questions and organizing my thoughts for my meeting tomorrow with Mary Edwards who is the Senior Vice President of Commercial Markets.

*The second photo is of my schedule, and is meant to demonstrate the dynamic nature of the office, and how fluid and ever-changing meetings are.

Day 1 – Introduction to Highmark

I began my day by walking to the Highmark tower, where I was met by Lori Strilka. Lori gave me a brief tour of the two buildings I would be spending my time in; the Highmark tower (FAP) and a re-purposed department store (PAP). I will be stationed in PAP, where I have a cubicle and desk, upon which I was given some samples of products from the marketing team. I met there with Tina Satterfield, who will be my boss over the course of my week in Pittsburgh. She introduced me to many members of the team, as well as got me situated at my desk before dropping me off in the tower where I attended an orientation along with a few new hires.

I am part of the marketing team, which is dissected into two forks; client executives and marketing/branding. Client executives sell and expand for HM Health Solutions through business with clients like Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wyoming, who I will be working with next week. The team here also works with third party vendors to facilitate contracts with companies outside of Highmark.

I was also joined by about 150 summer interns on my first day today (of whom I am the youngest by about 4 years), one of which will be with me in the office on the marketing team also working for Tina. Following my orientation and lunch break, I attended meetings with Jerome and April, who helped me to better understand how the company operates, as well as their roles. I spent the rest of the afternoon completing some filing work concerning a recent convention. I am excited to continue attending meetings and completing work around the office tomorrow!