At Firespring, we love a good origin story. (Just ask Jay, he’ll tell you the whole Firespring story by heart.) And some of our favorite Firespringer origin stories come from our former interns—the ones who started their careers here and grew with us.
To kick off a new school year, we’re going back to our coworkers’ intern days to find out where their Firespring stories started and what they’ve learned.
Bridget Anderson
Why did you decide to apply for a Firespring internship?
Actually, I used to be an intern for one of Firespring’s clients! While I worked there, one of my roles was to manage their website—so I interacted with Firespring daily through their website management platform. I had a great experience with Firespring as a client, and I knew Firespring was the next place I wanted to land.
What department did you intern for at Firespring?
In April 2018, I started at Firespring as an internal marketing intern. The internal marketing department basically tells potential clients and the world how awesome Firespring is. We sell our web development, print and marketing services to future and current clients.
What was your primary role during your internship?
I worked on promoting the web development side of the business. I prepared webinars, organized and reported data and sent welcome packages to our new clients.
What made you want to work at Firespring full time?
My amazing team. I couldn’t imagine leaving them to go anywhere else. To this day, I consider my original team members some of my greatest friends.
How did your Firespring internship prepare you for a career?
During one of my first meetings with my manager, Angie Kubicek, she asked me what I wanted to pursue. I immediately said digital marketing. Angie gave me the tools to grow my skills, especially in SEO, and she gave me plenty of opportunities to showcase my talent.
Who was your biggest role model while you were interning?
This is a hard one, so I’ll give you three! Julie Hull was my go-to as an intern. She taught me everything I needed to know about data research, Excel formulas and marketing to nonprofits. Erin Soper is seriously a badass. She’s achieved so much in her career so quickly, which was inspiring to me as a young woman fresh out of college. Lindsay Kelly was (and absolutely still is) my rock. I saw a lot of myself in her, and I knew from the start that she was somebody who I wanted to learn from and grow with.
What’s one of your favorite Firespring memories?
Remember when I said I interned for a Firespring client? While I was at that job, I called the Firespring support team for help with our website a few times. The girl on Firespring’s support team who answered my calls actually ended up becoming a good friend of mine once I landed the job at Firespring.
What do you do now?
I’m a digital marketing strategist. I work on projects to market Firespring online: Planning and developing content marketing projects, overseeing and managing Firespring’s social media and strategizing and creating email marketing for prospects and clients. I also serve as one of Firespring’s SEO experts!
Adam Schafer
Why did you decide to apply for a Firespring internship?
Around the time I applied, I didn’t like my college major. So I switched my major and took up a computer science minor because I took one computer class and really enjoyed it. This Firespring internship was an opportunity to see if software engineering was something I wanted to pursue as a career. I learned a ton during my internship and decided to keep working in software engineering.
What department did you intern for at Firespring?
Firespring hired me on to the St. Baldrick’s Foundation team. Our team is a part of the web development department, so we build and maintain websites and software. However, our team works entirely for St. Baldrick’s Foundation—a nonprofit that funds childhood cancer research.
What was your primary role during your internship?
I was a software engineering intern, so I worked with the full-time software engineers to design, develop, test and maintain software.
What made you decide to stay full time?
They offered me the job! I enjoy working here and was excited to be with the St. Baldrick’s team full-time.
How did your Firespring internship prepare you for a career?
My internship was pretty much the same thing I’m doing now. I got to do the work the full-time employees do, but with hours that fit my school schedule. That made the transition to full-time easy.
Who was your biggest role model while you were interning?
David Christensen and Val Stehlik on the software engineering team. They taught me a lot and prepared me to take on this career.
What do you do now?
I’m now a full-time software engineer on the St. Baldrick’s Foundation team.
Molly Coke
Why did you decide to apply for a Firespring internship?
I was about to graduate from the journalism college at UNL. One day, I was reading the Daily Nebraskan and I saw a full page ad that said “Real World Road Trip.” At the time, Real World and Road Rules were super popular on MTV and I was intrigued.
My mom warned me against a traveling sales position because my brother had a bad experience with it. Still, I talked to my professors to see what a sales role could do to launch my career. They told me to go for it—sales would lay a solid foundation for any role in advertising.
What was your primary role during your internship?
I was a traveling salesperson back in the early 2000s. We had maybe 100 clients at the time. So, we hit the road to spread the word about how we could help other printing companies build their online web presence.
We held seminars across the U.S. and Canada about how technology was changing and how business owners could jump on board. I made cold calls out of hotel rooms and dropped in on businesses to grow our client base.
Our first stop was New Orleans! Then Texas, Oklahoma, Chicago, Michigan, St. Louis, San Francisco, Phoenix, Orlando, Toronto, Portland…
What made you decide to stay full time?
I loved my teammates, I loved my clients and I believed in our products and services. I was hired as a summer intern and a couple other road warriors were hired full time. I basically begged Jay and Tawnya to keep me. They obliged!
How did your Firespring internship prepare you for a career?
My road show days helped me see what was important in life, and learning that at age 22 was such a gift. I found a company that put company culture and employee happiness first before other companies started prioritizing that.
Who was your biggest role model while you were interning?
Tawnya Starr took me under her wing and showed me the ropes of the role—how to be in a professional setting and be a good human. She still mentors me to this day.
Do you have any fun stories from your time as an intern?
Oh my gosh, I don’t even know where to start. We drank hurricanes and ate grits on Bourbon Street. I got a lobster-red sunburn in Shreveport and Tawnya brought me water, noxema and aloe to take away the redness before meeting with clients. I rode the RipCord at Six Flags with Jay and Tawnya, and they tried to convince me to do it again immediately.
After our 50th day on the road, the Lincoln office sent us a gold-themed care package complete with a bottle of tequila that shattered in a parking lot. I got a call on a Friday morning that said I needed to fly to Toronto that night, so drove our van with a flat tire to the airport. Then I got to fly first class for the first time ever since the flight was booked so late. It was the most fun. I could go on…
What do you do now?
In my 19 years at Firespring, I’ve held pretty much every role in web support and every role in sales from the website perspective. I now oversee the client experience team for our overall client base. How lucky am I to have found my work home at age 21?
Dylan Matthews
Why did you decide to apply for a Firespring internship?
I applied for a Firespring internship out of college because of a recommendation from Craig Coppersmith, who funded a scholarship at my school. He told me about Firespring’s missions and that they had jobs that fit my computer science degree.
What department did you intern for at Firespring?
I started in a department called Interactive. That team is now basically the WordPress web development team.
What was your primary role during your internship?
I helped build out all sorts of WordPress projects. Basically, my team wanted me to grow my skills in lots of different frameworks.
What made you decide to stay full time?
I was looking for a full-time job when my Firespring teammate, Nathan Hamel, told me about the job opening on FDP Engineering that I should apply for. I didn’t think I had enough experience at the time, but thanks to Nathan I got my foot in the door and was able to stay at Firespring.
How did your Firespring internship prepare you for a career?
My internship helped by showing me how to be a professional and reminding me that learning is a part of the job. No one expects you to know everything; you just have to be willing to learn.
Who was your biggest role model while you were interning?
Nathan took me under his wing and helped me face my first work obstacles. Another person I worked briefly with was named Mong, and he was an extremely talented developer who showed me some basics and let me sit over his shoulder to learn.
What do you do now?
I currently am a software engineer on the FDP Engineering team.
We are so proud to have these wonderful people on our team, and we can’t wait to find our next batch of future Firespringers. As you search for those 2021 internships, keep an eye on Firespring. Who knows? This could be the beginning of a beautiful internship.