Mercer, Blue Fowl husband or wife to give pupils scholarships, work

As a mounting senior at Mercer University, Felix Lin interned in the organization business office of Center Ga-primarily based Blue Bird Corp., a leading designer and maker of faculty buses.

That led to a aspect-time work there in the course of his senior 12 months and then a entire-time occupation when he graduated in 2011 with a Bachelor of Business enterprise Administration in finance and accounting.

Now, Lin is vice president of human means and exterior affairs for Blue Chook, which has a producing facility in Fort Valley and its company headquarters in Macon.

“I’m a primary illustration of if there are great options that employers like us can present, it gives individuals a reason to continue to be in Macon,” said Lin, who also retains master’s degrees from Ga Higher education and the College of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Various other Blue Chook executives are Mercer alumni and took comparable paths. Now that university-to-occupation pipeline is remaining formalized by way of a new partnership in between Blue Chicken and the College.

Developing on a preceding scholarship grant to Mercer, the new plan claims 8 recipients a 12-7 days paid out summer internship at Blue Fowl and $2,500 each and every upon effective completion of the software. Pupils also may perhaps be made available part- or full-time positions at the conclusion of their internship.

The application is open to juniors and seniors in the College of Engineering and the Stetson-Hatcher Faculty of Enterprise.

“With Mercer currently being correct in our yard, it just makes all the feeling that we recruit directly out of Mercer,” Lin stated.

Hannah Jeevanayagam, a junior majoring in finance and world improvement, is a Blue Chook Scholar and finance intern at the company’s company place of work in Macon. This summertime, she worked on two major jobs: one connected to finance and 1 associated to sustainability.

The finance challenge targeted on evaluating Blue Bird’s funds allocation shelling out to its peer groups and obtaining ways for the corporation to enhance. And the other task had her helping acquire a companywide technique towards sustainability, claimed Jeevanayagam, who is obtaining qualified by the World-wide Recording Initiative, which gives the world’s most broadly used requirements for sustainability reporting.

She stated she’s savored finding out from some others in the enterprise and finding how she can incorporate her passions for figures and serving to men and women into a job.

“Blue Bird’s really aided me learn to stage out of my comfort and ease zone,” she explained. “There’s been a ton of situations wherever I have experienced to find out to inquire issues.”

Cody Copeland, a senior majoring in mechanical engineering, is a Blue Chook Scholar and manufacturing intern doing work at the key plant in Fort Valley. He claimed he at first needed to work on the design and style facet alternatively of manufacturing, but that soon modified.

“The first week of the internship was just brain blowing,” he reported. “I cherished it so much.”

This summer, he labored on a project that appeared at streamlining the manufacturing of electric powered buses.

Copeland reported he enjoys the folks he is effective with, and Blue Hen is a good setting to understand.

“There’s just so a great deal understanding to be amassed there,” he reported.

The program has been likely well from Blue Bird’s standpoint as properly.

“I’m hearing really good feedback in terms of the contributions that the interns have been equipped to make individually, and then also I’m hearing from the interns about how this is encouraging them recognize how the theoretical information they are getting at the College applies in the business enterprise entire world,” reported Ursula McNeill, director of human methods business associates at Blue Hen. “And then also they are ready to proceed to make on particular expertise that they are establishing in faculty.”

In addition to the Blue Hen Scholars, the firm used 6 a lot more interns from Mercer this summer months.

The Blue Chook partnership is section of a much larger University initiative to increase corporate relations, explained Allen London, senior associate vice president for University Advancement.

The Blue Chicken Students method “ties back again into what we’re trying to do as an establishment, and we’re heading to use Blue Hen as our shining star instance this year,” London said. “Look what we can do if we lover with a business in which they have crucial alumni in leadership positions, they are inclined to financially aid us, and they use our graduates.”

The partnership is mutually beneficial. The pandemic has modified the task sector completely, Lin said, and seeking to get people today to appear to Macon somewhat than big-metropolis Atlanta or the Midwest, exactly where there are far more industrial organizations, is a challenge.

Lin would like learners to see that they really do not have to go away Macon to be productive.

“We’re wanting for people that are hungry and that want to grow,” he mentioned. “We’ll give you the opportunity to do a large amount of distinct items.

“Even for myself, I began out as an accounting and finance main and now I’m managing HR.”