Dominium Property Management Interns Wrap Up Inaugural Summer Internship Program
This summer, Dominium launched its inaugural Property Management internship program and welcomed four new interns to the team. As they now settle in to school for the fall, we are reflecting on what a successful summer it was for all involved.
The four candidates, Heidi Horky (University of Wisconsin-Stout), Paige Hagen (University of Wisconsin-Stout), Ronnie Jones (University of St. Thomas) and Eric Martin (University of St. Thomas) were selected for the intern program based on partnerships with their respective universities, professor recommendations, and panel interviews. They were impressive young adults ready to embark on a summer in Property Management and Dominium was excited to support the development of four more employees.
Each student spent their summer at a different property where they worked with site staff to assist in the day-to-day property management operations. The interns worked at four Minnesota locations: 808 Berry Place in St. Paul, Stone Creek at Medicine Lake in Plymouth, Bluffs at Nine Mile Creek in Eden Prairie, and A-Mill artist lofts in Minneapolis. Each property is unique; Therefore, each intern was exposed to a unique set of experiences. Whether it be supporting the Stone Arch Festival at A-Mill, hands-on maintenance at 808 Berry or leasing apartments at Stone Creek and Bluffs, they were up for the challenge.
In addition to assisting with day-to-day operations, each intern was assigned a mentor – a high-potential employee in a leadership role at Dominium. These mentors were resources to the interns throughout the summer.
The interns were also closely linked to Dominium’s Training Specialist – Kate Brammer. Kate facilitated a corporate office learning week, which provided leadership reading materials and job shadowing assignments with departments of interest to the interns. She also took a keen interest in each individual’s development, checking in on a regular basis and assigning an independent and reflective final capstone presentation to each of the them. Kate served as a sounding board and go-to resource throughout the summer.
For the students, this internship was a unique opportunity for hands-on learning in their chosen field. Not only did they learn about managing properties, they got to experience the ins and outs of a leading real estate development company. They got to be in close contact with upper management, including a fun social outing at the mid-point of the program and joining a monthly performance call to review financials of the properties themselves.
“This internship was a fantastic opportunity for me to jump right in and get my feet wet.” Ronnie said. “It offered an extremely valuable hands-on learning experience that I don’t think I could have gotten anywhere else.”
Eric’s most significant takeaway from his summer was the importance of connecting with people. He said that “It is a requirement to connect with people through kindness, concern, and empathy,” and he saw that first hand when he was on site at 808 Berry Place. Since completing his internship, Eric has been hired as a part-time Assistant Manager while he completes his degree.
Dominium was more than pleased with the exceptional work performed by Ronnie, Eric, Heidi and Paige this summer. Not only did our interns complete all their work with professionalism, they thoroughly impressed Dominium’s staff and leadership with their drive to succeed, and quick learning abilities. This inaugural class of interns exemplified Dominium’s values – they created long term value by showing us another source of talent, they developed themselves as people and us as teachers. They experienced growth individually as did we professionally. They never wavered from maintaining the utmost integrity.
Due to the success of this our summer internship program, we are planning to expand the program to include eight interns next year. Our partnerships with the University of Wisconsin-Stout and the University of St. Thomas have been very successful and we hope to continue to build new partnerships with other schools with that have high-quality programs for their students.
We are energized from a great first summer of this internship program and are excited for what is to come in future years
