No member of Haskell’s 2020 Summer Intern class values discipline and drive more than Montinez Williams, a Tuskegee University senior and Army ROTC cadet.
Williams has advanced to company S-3 in his battalion, a leadership role in charge of managing company training, fitness, and operations. He hopes to ascend to S-2, an officer position in which he would manage battalion training. Having participated in ROTC since high school, he says he appreciates the sense of community in the cadet corps. He will be commissioned as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army upon graduation in Spring 2021.
“I’m really close to those people because we depend on each other for almost everything,” Williams said. “You really learn to trust each other, depend on each other and just get through class together.”
While acting in a leadership position in ROTC, playing snare drum in the Tuskegee Marching Band and balancing classwork for his Construction Science degree, he has found time management to be a crucial skill. He also has found that he values the structure of an active lifestyle.
“I took away a lot from the leadership skills, and I saw ROTC as an opportunity to better myself,” Williams said.
In his second summer at Haskell, he has put his skills to use interning under Project Superintendent Randy Nicholas on a facility addition in Hackettstown, New Jersey, for the confectionery company Mars. Though Williams is a returning intern, the Mars project is his first work experience on a Haskell jobsite. He spent the 2019 Summer Internship Program working in the prequalification department assisting with the selection of vendors.
“It’s better to be here and be hands-on and see what’s going on instead of talking about it in a textbook,” Williams said. “This is really beneficial for me; I feel like I’ve learned a lot more.”
About the writer: Ashton Erickson is a Haskell 2020 summer intern working in the Corporate Marketing department. She is a sophomore at the University of Florida majoring in Marketing and Economics.
Summer Intern Profile
- Name: Montinez Williams
- Hometown: LaGrange, Georgia
- School: Tuskegee University
- Major: Construction Science
- Internship assignment: Fieldwork
- Years as Haskell intern: Two
- Projected graduation: Spring 2021
About Haskell’s Summer Internship Program
Haskell welcomed 58 interns worldwide during Summer 2020, including 14 returning for a second year and two returning for a third. The Class of 2020 draws from a record 30 colleges and universities.
This year, Haskell’s interns are working at 12 different offices and 15 different jobsites across 11 different states, with one in Singapore.
Haskell’s Summer Internship Program produces results: 23 members of the 2019 class have joined the company as full-time employees.
