You’re probably wondering what led me to Simpson? My parents!!! Hence the last name! My dad, Bill Megahan, is a Regional Sales Manager. My mother, Kelley Megahan, is a Senior Compliance Business Analyst. They’ve worked at Simpson for many years, so naturally I grew up familiar with Simpson Strong-Tie and saw firsthand everything they have to offer.
I grew up taking tours of the Columbus warehouse on “Take Your Child to Work Day.” I even attended a weekend getaway with my dad when Simpson received the “84 Lumber” award in 2012, which is pretty cool if you ask me! So, when I was aware that there was an opening for a Marketing/Communications Internship, I was ecstatic. After getting tastes of Simpson from my parents, I knew this was a place I wanted to experience for myself, and I was eager to have the opportunity to build my professional network and get those hands-on experiences to develop my marketing skills. I feel as if I’m following in my parents’ footsteps, but with my own twist, and I couldn’t be happier.
As for choosing marketing, that’s something I have always been interested in — it’s such a creative industry and truly entails a little bit of everything. This internship is allowing me to polish up my research skills, become a more confident writer and enhance my communication skills. What’s also cool is that it’s allowing me to use my more creative side. I’m being pushed to think outside the box for different projects, whether by coming up with new ideas and implementing them or by helping teams brainstorm solutions. I also get to learn about the business world with marketing, I have learned how Simpson runs and have seen the ins and outs of the department. After working in the marketing department, I feel like marketing is always evolving, there are many moving parts and projects that allow you to collaborate not only within your own marketing team but with other teams as well. This helped me learn what really goes into a marketing campaign and how there’s always something new to learn with every project you work on.
During my internship, I’ve been working on many projects in collaboration with both the Marketing Communications Team and, for a brief period, the Digital Team as well. I’ve been helping the Social Media Team with some of our different social media platforms, such as Pinterest!
This platform is one they are updating and strategizing how to utilize better for marketing purposes. The project that I was working on focused on was finding pins for our DIY Projects: Using Simpson Strong-Tie Products board. These pins include projects from people who have worked on DIY projects using Simpson Strong-Tie products and tagged Simpson Strong-Tie as well. The purpose of this project is to help boost consumer engagement on our social media channels and highlight creative DIY projects that use Simpson Strong-Tie products.
I’ve also gotten a chance to work with the Internal Communications Team and the Digital Team to help redesign and organize a few of our pages on our company website. These include our “Accolades” page, our “Locations” page and the “Joining Habitat in Building Safe, Strong Homes” page.
The purpose of this redesign is to update the existing content and make it more user friendly to increase traffic to the company website. Overall, these projects have been great opportunities to see how our different teams operate and get a chance to get that valuable hands-on experience that you can’t get from reading textbooks at school.
Additionally, during my internship, I got the opportunity to take a tour of the Columbus office. I remember visiting the office to see my parents on many occasions, but I haven’t had the opportunity to take a tour of the warehouse in years.
Last time I walked through was for “Take Your Child to Work Day” in elementary school. I remember it being fairly big, but it was A LOT bigger than I had remembered.
I had the pleasure of having Carl Moore, Natalie Parks and Kayla Wells as my tour guides for the morning. They were top-notch tour guides and introduced me to many people in the warehouse. I also saw lots of familiar faces throughout my tour, which was great. I even took a pit stop at my dad’s office!
On the tour, I experienced a strong sense of company culture throughout the Columbus office. I felt a lot of supportiveness, encouragement to empower others and a sense of humor throughout that makes the busy workday fun. It’s a very welcoming and uplifting office; everyone is so kind and hard-working!!
My tour guides walked me through how a lot of our machines work and the organization of the plant; it was very cool to see the behind scenes of Simpson Strong-Tie, this time from a team member’s perspective. It’s interesting how things seem similar yet different.
Touring it as an intern now rather than as the child of company employees, I see the Columbus branch with newfound appreciation for all its hardworking employees and its warm company culture.
I’ve learned a tremendous amount from Simpson Strong-Tie and everyone I’ve had the pleasure to work with. Going into this internship, I had little knowledge of the marketing side of business, but I’ve learned so much from all the teams in Marketing. It has been a growth process for me, which is so exciting. This internship really has set the standards high for then my future internships. My biggest take away from this experience is that marketing is really a team effort. In the many meetings that I’ve had a, chance to sit in on I’ve noticed that every single person plays a part. I can’t wait to use my new knowledge and experience in the future, which I hope involves being a part of the marketing world in some way. Some advice I would like to pass on to future interns or marketing students is to treasure the teamwork, because every person helps paint the bigger picture. Along the way you will meet great role models who will make you want to learn more and be more involved.
