It’s hard to believe that I am finally writing my first MSBA blog post of the summer after months of anticipation for this experience. Our first week has already topped what lofty expectations I had going into these opening days. The MSBA Class of 2015 is bonding quickly and what better place to do so than “the city that never sleeps”.
Thursday morning commenced with my daily commute to my internship with Mission Athletecare, an athlete performance and products company that specializes in thermal gear. The office is located on 42nd Street, so I am able to get off at Grand Central Station each morning and walk through the heart of New York. At Mission, I work on logistics and operations with Mission Athletecare’s Director of Logistics, Rob Miller. Logistics was not an area I gave much thought when going through the MSBA internship process; however, needless to say it has provided a new set of challenges, as well as insight, in a sector of sport business I look forward to tackling.
My first couple of hours involved crosschecking spreadsheets for anomalies in freight costs and PO numbers. It is vital that these figures are accurate so the company can quickly find records for shipping and transportation purposes. After eating lunch at a nearby Café Metro with a few of the other interns, I spent the majority of the afternoon researching and contacting distributing companies. Rob wants to partner with a new distributor, so he threw me into the fire by assigning 25 companies to examine, which was both intimidating and exciting.
When the clock hit 6:00pm, we headed over to the MSBA offices for our opening dinner with our mentors. I am paired with Max Paulsen, a sponsorship and business development manager for the NFL, and we had a great conversation. I am thrilled to have such an accomplished individual in my corner, guiding me through the ups and the downs of the industry. Our MSBA group, as well as several MSBA ’14 participants, stayed well into the night getting to know each other while watching Game 1 of the NBA Finals. We eventually trickled out slowly to return to our respective places for the night. Overall, it was an amazing day and such an awesome experience to witness my class growing closer by the minute. I have no doubt this upcoming weekend will be a blast!