Construction Management Interns: Achieve
When it came to landing the right Construction Management internship, Awale H. Awale took the smart approach. He talked to recent interns to learn about their experiences and he researched the companies scheduled to participate in the Fall Career and Internship Expo, looking closely at each opportunity, specifically when it came to mentoring. By the time Awale stepped into the CSU Ballroom, his list of prospects was short with Ryan Companies sitting squarely at the top.
“I had some students tell me they hated their internships, that they were handed shovels on their first day and told to start digging!” Awale recalled. Maybe it was the benefit of his age or the breadth of life experiences he’d had to overcome to get within arm’s reach of graduation, but Awale wanted an internship that included additional opportunities to learn.
As a child growing up in Somalia, Awale H. Awale was inspired instead by construction projects in his neighborhood. As a result, his desired playthings were tools – real tools. “I told my mom I didn’t want any of those plastic things,” Awale laughed, recalling with ease his early life as it played out a half a world away. Yet there is little levity to be found on the path Awale traveled from boyhood aspirations formed in Mogadishu to a career in construction fulfilled in Minnesota.
Awale was 18 years old when he arrived in the United States, accompanied by his mother. The two were the only members of their family fortunate enough to escape the strife and famine that had been ravaging Somalia since civil war shattered that country in 1990. Resettlement began for Awale in Los Angeles and ended six years later when he moved to Minnesota, married, and enrolled at Minnesota State University, Mankato. Now graduated and a U.S. citizen, Awale said his role with Ryan is the culmination of a dream.
Awale’s work as Field Engineering Intern began just one week before shovels went into the ground on a significant expansion for Sage Electrochromics, Inc., of Faribault, Minn., a company that manufactures tintable “smart glass,” a product designed to boost green building practices in commercial construction. Awale has watched the 250,000-square-foot manufacturing facility rise out of the prairie and because he was hired as a full-time Ryan employee — just two weeks prior to the end of his internship — he’ll be on hand for project completion.
A typical day on the site is anything but typical for 28-year-old Awale, now Assistant Project Manager. His responsibilities encompass safety, quality control, communications, requests for information, changed orders, and “anything else the superintendent needs,” Awale laughed. He is mastering the art of coordination and with 80 to 100 people working on the site on any given day, there are plenty of opportunities to learn from crew members.
“It was winter and cold and snowy when I first came here,” the native of Somalia recalled. “When I walked around, I knew this was a place where I could learn.”
Awale has watched the walls go up around him and said the means and methods that he learned in class, read in books, heard in lectures, now surround him. “It makes all the more sense than just looking at drawings. It all makes sense.”
