Internship True Story: Jenna Matz

Tell us about where you grew up

I grew up in Illinois with my family. Throughout high school I enjoyed both business and computer classes the most, so going into college I started out thinking that I would be a Computer Science major. After taking a few classes I decided that I needed something more creative, so I ended up doing Marketing and Graphic Design instead.

Tell us about where you went to school and what for:

University of Wisconsin – La Crosse

Major: Marketing

Minor: Graphic Design

Tell us about your internship, how it came about, what it was in, etc.

After graduating, I didn’t really have a plan. I knew I obviously needed to find a job so I had a bunch of applications out and some interviews setup up, but nothing official yet. During the first week of January my capstone professor sent me an email asking if I was still in La Crosse and if I had found a job yet because he had a potential opportunity for me through an alum. Since I had been hoping to stay in La Crosse I agreed to do an interview even though I didn’t really know what I was interviewing for. Long story short, after meeting Corrie I immediately knew that we’d get along and that I could learn a lot from her. When I started, the Marketing department was made of just Corrie and then me. I was brought on to the team because we were transitioning from being Main Street Ingredients to Agropur Ingredients and this was a large project. Due to my background in graphics, I got to help with this transition – document, bags, website design, etc. In my opinion, this was the dream internship. I got to be hands-on in a big project and learned so much along the way. Corrie has always been a great boss who pushes me to go outside my comfort zone and learn new projects and help with things that challenge me.

What types of things did you work on and how was the working environment?

My main projects during my internship revolved around the rebranding from Main Street Ingredients to Agropur Ingredients as well as putting together our company newsletter each pay period (every other week).

Everyone was so inviting during my internship. I always felt welcome on the team and no one made me feel any less important since I was only an intern. Right away I knew these were the kind of people I wanted to continue to work with.

How did your internship start to evolve into a full-time career with Agropur?

The longer I did my internship, the more I knew that I really wanted to stay full time for this company. As time went on I received more and more responsibilities and I was able to take on projects by myself instead of having to get everything assigned to me from Corrie. After about 5 months interning I was offered a full-time position in the Marketing Department.

Can you talk a little bit about where you are now and what kind of things you work on?

Today I am responsible for leading the creative team and for following the latest trends in design, advertising and marketing, bringing new ideas to the foreground, and executing multimedia projects throughout Agropur’s various marketing and communication platforms in the US. Most recently my team worked on BiPro’s rebranding project which involved new packaging, new website, marketing materials and so much more. It was by far one of the coolest projects that I’ve gotten to work on.

Why do you love Agropur?

I enjoy the daily challenges that I’m presented with as they push me to be the best that I can be. Over the past 6 years I’ve been given a lot more responsibilities and am the Creative Manager currently. Each project I work on I try to take what is thrown my way and grow from it – making me an overall better designer.