Nicolette Peerman Internship Experience

Nicolette Peerman

My name is Nicolette Peerman and I am a 3rd year Civil Engineering undergraduate student with a minor in Environmental Engineering. I began my internship with Arrow Electronics on June 5th, 2017. I received my internship through a nontraditional route. I met my current manager, Zaneta Kelsey, during one of the PLIs that theNational Society of Black Engineers was hosting. The PLI was called “Being Black in Industry” and Zaneta was one of the panelists that I met after the PLI. I expressed my interest in the environment and my ultimate goal to make a difference in the environment someday. She informed me that Arrow Electronics actually had a place for me when it comes to e-waste and I was thrilled to hear this.

My internship was very interesting because I am a Marketing Intern with a developing Civil and Environmental Engineering background. I worked with Arrow’s S-Tech team also known as Sustainable Technology Solutions Group. We were a small but powerful team and we were all brand new except for Zaneta and Carol Baroudi a Sustainability Lead. Through my internship was give four main projects.

My four main projects included:

Creating a U.S. based donation program through S-Tech. Currently Arrow’s customers are giving back their technology purchases when they reach their end of life. Arrow will then data wipe, refurbish it, and then put it back onto a secondary market to resell. Zaneta wants me to create a donation program that gives the option to Arrow’s customers to donate their technology purchases instead of giving them back for resale. This will enable the technology to be reused for educational and career purposes within the U.S. to nonprofits. This donation program will reflect a similar model to that of Close The Gap, an international nonprofit that partners with Arrow to distribute data wiped, refurbished, used technology to kids in need such as those in Africa. Close the Gap is stationed in Brussels in Europe.

Creating a digital map of all the S-Tech Arrow facilities and S-Tech partnered facilities. S-Tech needs a more up to date as to where anything S-Tech is for when brochures are made this map can be inserted into there for customers to see.

Helping with the renaming and relaunch of AVR to S-Tech. Arrow Value Recovery is going away and in place of that will be Sustainable Technology Solutions

Competing in the internship project/competition. The project this year is creating a recycling program that Arrow can roll out across all Arrow facilities regardless of their function (processing center, office, warehouse, etc.). The added bonus given by the S-Tech President Chuck Kostalnick is to create a smaller program that will accept Arrow employee’s technology. I am in a team of 10 others that include a mentor, coach, and 8 other internships that are apart of many different departs (engineering, sales, finance, HR, marketing, etc.).

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Arrow Electronics. It was a great learning experience and took me far out of my comfort zone. My second week I had to do a presentation for JA Business Week and I was just coming back from the National Leadership Conference for National Society of Black Engineers because I am Membership Chair for Region 6 (also president for National Society of Black Engineers). So, I was lost, nervous, rushed, etc., but that is the only way to learn at Arrow. You are thrown into water and learn how to swim. All in all this was a great experience!