Business Communication alum Julia Cooke reached out to us recently to let us know where she is on her career path. She writes,
“I recently started with NSA on the IC-GovCloud Outreach Team, and to my surprise today they told me about the faculty who spoke to them about event planning and that was you guys! [Professors Bell McManus, Rouse and Verni] They really enjoyed your presentation and said it was extremely helpful to have experts come and speak to them. Now I have big shoes to fill since they know I’ve been taught by the experts.
While I was waiting for my clearance to go through I took an event planning internship with Tessco Technologies. The internship was the best internship experience I had. I was given real work right from the start and learned a lot. I had the most fun planning the company’s quarterly and annual Tessco One events. These include conference sessions, networking cocktail parties and golf tournaments. They were planned for Lake Tahoe, Napa, Miami and Charleston. I was given a budget and told to find venue, entertainment, catering, speakers, swag and other miscellaneous things for each event. Attendance ranged from 300-1,000 people, and budgets were well over $100K. I had so much independence and gained a lot of confidence in my work on these tasks. I got to attend the event in Lake Tahoe and it was an incredible experience to see all my work come together, to meet the contacts that I had been planning with and to see happy attendees who enjoyed each element that I had planned.”
In the photo, Julia is on the left during her internship experience at ADashmore Creative. Congratulations, Julia!