This week, the usual work at MORPC was slightly different than usual. On a normal week, I am in the office from Tuesday to Thursday, but due to holidays and flex time usage, I was in person on Tuesday only. Thus, a lot of my work was concentrated was more condensed than usual, but still impactful.

Workforce development was the core of my research this week. On Monday, I was tasked with attending a webinar in which Ohio regional planning entities all met to discuss their initiatives and successes. One of these respondents was a group who received a wastewater workforce development program to help solve the lack of talent for these kinds of jobs. Since this program was widely effective, I took the initiative to see what this would look like in the Central Ohio region. This involved finding funding opportunities online, exploring different career technical programs and schools, and gauging stakeholder interests.

Beyond this, we also had the Ohio Representative for the Economic Development Administration (EDA) come to MORPC to meet with different local municipalities to hear their needs for grant-funding opportunities and assistance. This was a tremendous event to participate in since I got to see how federal agencies interact with local efforts. Economic Development is also the field that I see myself pursuing for a large chunk of my career so being able to meet with all the different communities was ana amazing opportunity.

Beyond these items, I used my flextime for the latter half of the week to visit my friends in Washington, DC. Usually, vacation days aren’t given to interns, but since I worked for MORPC over the week at the Columbus Arts Festival, I had time built up to take off Thursday and Friday. This allowed me to be able to drive to DC and spend that time with networking around the capital as well as sightseeing. Overall, this week has been tremendous with lots of adventure and opportunities.