Charles Leikauf | University of Florida | Financial Planning & Analysis Intern
This is my fourth week here at Tech Data, and let me tell you, time has been flying by, I cannot believe that I have been working here at Tech Data an entire month; it feels like I just started yesterday. Anyhow, since its been a week, I’ll update you on what has been going on. This past week or so far we have had the great experience of learning about how Tech Data works in partnership with the United Way.
The fine folks from the United Way came and told us about the loaned executive program, which is a neat way where Tech Data pays for an employee for a few months, and the employee works along side the United Way to help impact the local community. Giving back to the local community is something that is of paramount importance to me, and I am glad that Tech Data feels the same way. Some of the community programs that the United Way is involved with a local women’s shelter called CASA, along with the shelter they focus on developing the local community – and what they focus on is generational poverty. Now the idea of combating something as large as generational poverty is a huge ordeal and the United Way representatives who were so gracious to share their time with us were nice enough to break down the detail of how they worked to combat such a pertinent issue in today’s time and local community. One of the goals of the United Way in combating this issue of generational poverty is to focus on early education development, along with developing reading skills for younger children. What the representatives explained to us was the fact that once children fall behind in the early developmental years they tend to not catch up, even as adults. The tactical view of how to really make an impact on this issue presented by the United Way really impressed me with how efficient and purposeful they are in their local mission, and I am proud to be a part of Tech Data in their efforts in supporting the United Way.
Another event this week was the Intern version of Toastmasters! Toastmasters is a sort of program or meeting forum where people can come together and work on and efficiently develop public speaking skills. The first week we had the intern version of Toastmasters one of our fellow interns Christian spoke about his life experience and how he came to Tech Data. I was very impressed with his presentation and his ability to just get up there and share with the world his life experiences, I am definitely looking forwards to more Toastmasters meetings and learning more about my fellow interns and their backgrounds.
One of the key benefits of Toastmasters, is not only do they focus on helping individuals get over their fear of public speaking but putting them in the moment, they also help them develop form and structure to their speaking, for example we have a “Wizard of –Ahs” and by that I mean someone who counts your Ah’s Um’s Oh’ and filler words of that nature. Along with the “Wizard of –Ahs” we have someone with a dedicated title of the grammarian, along with individuals who review speeches. The positions I’ve mentioned prior along with the guidance really helps Toastmasters to deliver a lot of value to all participants and I greatly look forward to contributing to it.
As far as my FP&A project and my group intern project are going, I’ll definitely provide a more through update on the next blog post, but I can say they are coming along nicely, and the team I’m on is absolutely great.
Intern Blog 