If your company hasn’t already started thinking about your 2025 intern program, now’s the time to get those plans in place. And the place to start your search is with the FEF network of colleges and universities.

When you hire an FEF student to intern with your company, not only are you making a positive productivity decision, you are also making a positive financial decision. The students from FEF schools are excited about the metalcasting industry, making them good potential full-time employees––but they are also educated and experienced in the field of metalcasting. They will be able to step in from Day 1 and make a positive contribution to your company.
Whether you are a large corporation or a smaller family-owned foundry, interns are the best way to narrow down the pool of potential employees.

AFS Corporate Member Olson Aluminum in Rockford, Illinois, hired Xander Bowen (Georgia Southern) as an intern for each of the past two summers. 

“We are deeply committed to strategic succession planning and the integration of Industry 4.0 technologies within our foundry,” said Human Resources Director Shane Pulgarin. “A robust internship program is central to this vision. 
“Xander successfully leveraged his metals education while at Olson,” he continued. “His responsibilities included, among other things, data collection and management for our melt room and working on process improvements with a focus on boosting production quality and efficiency.”

From Bowen’s perspective, he learned many things while interning, specifically mentioning soft skills, managing experiments or situations and troubleshooting methods for any issues that arise. 

“Everyone was very willing to help me along the way and teach me new skills,” he said. “I could walk up to anyone on the floor, and they would teach me something new or let me know if something could be improved.” Bowen added. “Overall, I had a fantastic time at Olson. I look forward to starting my full-time position with them in July 2025 as a production engineer.”

Grede Gets It, Too

AFS Corporate Member Grede met their 2023 summer intern at the 2022 FEF College Industry Conference (CIC). Michael Jones (Georgia Southern) had some experience in castings but was planning on obtaining his master’s degree and wanted to see what else this industry had to offer. After a couple of interviews with Grede, he was offered a position in Grede’s internship program, “Grow with Grede.”

Jones was in the quality department but spent time in some of the other departments in order to complete his projects. 

“I really enjoyed the work I did in quality mainly for the variety of projects and the use of problem-solving skills,” he said. “Each day provided me with a new challenge, whether it was determining the cause of a casting defect, performing mechanical testing on a new grade of metal, or setting up a new technology for our process. I got to work with an incredible team that supported me, making each of these challenges manageable and enjoyable.”
Were his college classes helpful in preparing him for this internship?

“Several classes helped me––the materials science class and heat treatment of steels class were really quite useful as I was working directly under our metallurgist in quality engineering,” Jones said. “I also found it very interesting to see how impactful new technology is on the metal casting industry and how the technology that I have used in the university is being used in the industry.”

Chief Administrative Officer Matthew Hladki said, “Grede understands that interns are a critical component to building a pipeline of future technical and leadership talent. Interns who transition to full-time employees are often designated as top talent. An internship is a multi-month job interview that allows both the intern and the company to determine if there is a good long-term fit.  FEF students are a great resource for Grede internships––they have an interest in foundries and their coursework is relevant to what we do every day.”

FEF continues to emphasize the importance of internships with its 2025 Summer Internship Program. FEF will fund 15 students, many of them just completing their first or second year at college or university. Funding will cover over $100,000 in shared wages enabling several companies across the country to hire their first intern.

Start with an intern and you might just find your next best full-time employee. Contact one of our FEF Key Professors––https://fefinc.org/our-schools.html––to help you in your search.